Fevered Star
By Rebecca Roanhorse; Narrated by Christian Barillas, Nicole Lewis, DarrelI Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, and Cora Gee
What Black Sun was missing, Fevered Star delivered on without hesitation. Rebecca Roanhorse succeeds in strengthening an already interesting fantasy world and forcing her characters to scrap for their lives. There is a weight to the “Year of the Crow” that comes with knowing the setting and not needing crafted explanations to understand the hysteria thrumming through the city of Tova. Whether from the perspective of a main character, or one of the citizens overheard throughout, you can feel the end of the tower’s peace with the death of the sun god. There are times when it falls victim to “second in a fantasy series” syndrome, but those times are rare and point to much more exciting action on the horizon.
The politics that slowed down so much of the first book, now clipped along at a much more satisfying pace. Naranpa, no longer struggling with the indecision of her prestigious tower, matures through continuous traumatic experiences. She starts the book, still the self-doubting child she was last time, but her layers of obligation and stuffiness wear away to the realities she had ignored for so long. It is her relationship with her brother that could have been introduced earlier, or weaved through more of the last book, that really makes this one glow. I still wish she had grown up faster, and that some moments were less telegraphed, but by the end of the book, she’s finally at a point that sets her on the same playing field as the other main characters in the series.
As for the rest of the returning cast, they’re as interesting as they’ve always been. Serapio is no longer the Hot Topic outcast he was in the last book, but a man struggling with his place in a world he should not be alive to see. Watching his powers morph as his understanding of the Tovan people develops is not as interesting as I’d like it to be, but it puts him in position to be a much bigger player in the next chapter of the series. Xiala has less to do than ever, but seeing her lose her bearings so far from the sea, gave added dimensions to the swarthy pirate who could do anything with a drink in her cup and a song in her throat. Okoa and Balam, characters that seemed more incidental previously, now have much more room to play and develop. All the narratives sank strong hooks while the plot materialized at an occasionally slow pace.
Fevered Star never lacked intent and that drive kept the book hot until its ending. When Roanhorse threw her loose threads out, some tangled together and others led to parts unknown, where future installments will no doubt take the reader. Like the last audiobook, the acting performances heightened the experience of reading. Christian Barillas, Nicole Lewis, DarrelI Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, and Cora Gee all gave fantastic performances that I look forward to hearing again soon. I hope more books adopt multiple narrators when the POV is split amongst multiple characters.