The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. A solid black background, with yellow text down the left side of the image. The text, from top to bottom, reads:
A review “”Roanhorse is the epic voice of our continent and time.”-Ken Liu” in small capitals,
The title “Black Sun” in large capitals across the centre,
The phrase “A Novel” immediately below this in smaller capitals,
“New York Times Bestselling Author” in small, white capitals, with “New York Times” italicised,
The author’s name “Rebecca Roanhorse” in large yellow capitals immediately below this.
To the right of the cover, the dark image of a face. Only the lower half of the face is human, with the top half edited to look like a partial bird with open wings. Behind this, small yellow and orange lights, and a large yellow ring of light to give the appearance of an eclipse. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Violence
• Blood and Gore
• Death
• Death of A Parent
• Death of A Childe
• Child Abuse
• Suicide
• Forced Blinding
• Mutilation
• Injury/Injury Detail
• Alcoholism
• Xenophobia
• Murder
• Mass Murder and Genocide
• Animal Death, Animal Cruelty
• Kidnapping
• Addiction
• Sexual Assault
• Torture

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Summary:

The first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.

A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.

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Notes:

This is the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy.

For more information content warnings please see here and here.

There is an audiobook.

According to Roanhorse’s website, this book was a finalist for the following awards: Hugo Award, Nebula Award, LAMBDA Award, Locus Award, Dragon Award.

This book has won the following awards: the ALA Alex Award, Ignyte Award for Best Adult Novel.

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Archivist Comments:

This book is fairly highly rated and praised from what I’ve seen. People are praising the world building, the diversity and the characters- I’ve seen a few comments suggesting that a couple of the main characters might have overshadowed the others, though. Also, this book is apparently 454 pages long?! Damn.

I think one of the MCs is a mermaid or siren of some kind.

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