James Nicoll Reviews

Rebecca Roanhorse’s 2022 Tread of Angels is an upcoming fantasy novel. 

Eons ago, the demons lost their war and the survivors fled to Hell. Abaddon was not a survivor. Struck down by Azrael, the demon-leader’s massive corpse became the foundation of Abaddon’s Mountain. 

Humans being humans, they view the demon’s remains not as the relic of a world-shaping war but rather as a resource. The town of Goetia’s economy depends on mining and selling Abaddon’s remains. Upon this basis, a thriving community lives, a community divided, as human societies generally are, into the favoured (the Elect, descended from the victors) and the disfavoured (the Fallen, descended from the losers). 

Celeste Semyaza is Fallen. She makes her living dealing cards at the Eden. Circumstances will force her into a new and unwanted role: one part lawyer and one part private investigator. 

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2022’s Fevered Star is the second book in Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky secondary-world fantasy.

It was such a simple plan: train Serapio in fanatical devotion to his Crow God, dispatch him to distant Tova, and have him manifest as the avatar of his deity, whereupon he would slaughter the Watchers, whose ruthless enforcement of law has become oppressive, then die himself. The old guard would be gone, the god-in-flesh would be gone, leaving room for the new order to establish itself. 

Pity it all went so wrong.

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2020’s Black Sun is the first volume of Rebecca Roanhorse’s projected secondary-universe fantasy trilogy, Between Earth and Sky. 

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

The Watchers decimated the Carrion Crow cultists on the Night of Knives, ensuring the ascendency of the Sun Priest: over the Meridian Continent, the city of Tova, and all other religions. A golden age of reason and order has begun, one that will last lifetimes.

Or so the Watchers believe. 

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Rebecca Roanhorse’s 2019 Race to the Sun is a standalone young-adult contemporary fantasy.

Nizhoni Begay’s single father has had a string of short-term jobs, which has meant frequent moves for seventh-grader Nizhoni Begay and her brother Mac. Nizhoni knows that her dad is doing the best he can for his family, but that’s cold comfort. She has a hard time making friends and the ones she makes she loses when she leaves. Now she’s found a good friend, Davery … but another move looms. 

That’s not the worst threat she faces.

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Trail of Lightning is the first book in Rebecca Roanhorse’s post-apocalyptic paranormal Sixth World series.

Maggie Hoskie is a supernaturally enhanced monster-hunter. She became so as a consequence of a near-death encounter as a girl. Another way to look at her is that she’s a marginally domesticated monster whose utility to her Diné people is slightly higher than the risk of allowing her to live among them. True so far. 

When children are stolen away by monsters, Maggie is the logical person to ask for help. That’s not to say she’s always successful…

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2019’s Storm of Locusts is the second volume in Rebecca Roanhorse’s Sixth World series¹.

The oceans rose, civilization fell, and the gods returned. Possibly not in that order. The Walls of Dinétah keep the worst of the chaos outside Diné lands. Yet life inside the Walls can still be challenging, thanks to a plague of wandering monsters. Against the monsters stand a chosen few, the beneficiaries of what are called clan gifts. Superpowers. The chosen ones may lead lives that are all too often pitiably short, but it’s worth it to protect friends and families from the stalking horrors. 

Maggie Hoskie’s gifts — speed, bloodlust — make her a superb monster-hunter. The events of the earlier volume, Trail of Lightning, left her in possession of a magic sword. She will need it soon. Too bad she has no idea how to wield it. 

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