The Shadowed Sun

The Shadowed Sun is a worthy sequel to The Killing Moon, bringing a new set of characters that are as tragic and complex as the ones of the previous book. The novel has few surprises up its sleeve, but it still manages to offer a well-crafted story.

We follow three main points of view in the book. The protagonist is a young woman named Hanani, who is training to be a sharer in the Hetawa, becoming a healer that cures people by manipulating their dreams. One day, she receives the news that one of her assistants died when helping a man with his nightmares, which puts her future in the Hetawa in jeopardy: some of her colleagues were just waiting for a good excuse to expel her and keep upholding their traditions.

Hanani, after all, finds that her gender is a cultural and political problem wherever she goes: the fact that her society reveres women instead of deeming them inferior is a moot point, as it still means that they are treated differently, having a “proper place” and “specific roles” to perform in the world. Sharers, for example, can only be men: she could only become a sharer-apprentice due to Kisuati influence: the invaders of her city look down on people that segregate women, so Hanani’s colleagues accepted her as a political gesture.

The narrative makes it clear why Hanani’s new job is so irksome to men: being a sharer means that Hanani – unlike other women in the city of Guajareeh – is given the means to protect herself. The fact that her countrymen worship women means that they are treated as damsels in distress: they are considered precious things that must be protected. Hanani, however, doesn’t need that protection, being fully capable of fending for herself.

People are always attempting to control her gender, sometimes suppressing her femininity by making her dress like a man – if she’s going to have a man’s job, she’s going to look the part – sometimes doing the opposite so she can be better accepted by those around her that treat women better. Hanani is still young and a bit naïve, becoming an easy target for the people in power, who don’t hesitate to use her in their political games. One of the characters she meets is quick to point out the reason why she’s so easily manipulated: “You believe, unquestioning; that is enough.” Hanani’s journey, them, is one of awakening, but also one that proceeds toward her independence: the events push her to open her eyes to the flaws of her institution and to the importance of having the last say on matters that concern mainly herself.

The Hetawa, meanwhile, is secretly working to undermine the Kisuati rule, supporting a prince in exile named Wanahomen. One day, to cement their alliance, they decide to send Hanani and her mentor to the barbarian tribe that harbors the prince.

Wanahomen is the second point of view in the novel. He is building an army to reclaim his rightful throne in Guajareeh and is portrayed as a sharp, merciless man, who is quick to put down those that disobey his orders. Wanahomen has a temper: he’s always in a battle with himself, as his first impulse is usually not to do the smartest thing but to slaughter everyone that annoys him – and to annoy him you simply have to refer to him without his proper title.

Wanahomen is an interesting character because his narrative function is always shifting in the story. In one scene, he’s ready to fight some guards to protect Hanani, but, in another, he’s doesn’t hesitate to put the protagonist in harm’s way for personal gain. He can move from being a great friend to a fearsome foe in the blink of an eye, concocting cruel plans in a certain scene but offering kind advice in another: “Don’t stay here, tonight,” he warns a character who has just lost someone dear to them and is alone in a tent, “The silence. It cuts you to pieces.”

The Hetawa may see in him a valuable ally, but his unabashed hatred for them makes their alliance a feeble one: from the outset, Wanahomen feels like a ticking bomb, which the other characters are desperately trying to defuse. Even his most closed allies fear him. A tribal leader called Unte, for example, who is a father figure to Wanahomen, tells him at some point, “you frighten me, Wana. I know you’ll use anyone, destroy anything, to assuage the anger that burns like Sun’s fire in your heart.” To complicate matters a bit, his noble lineage is also framed as a curse: his blood has the potential of turning him mad with his dreams, and in one of his first chapters we already witness the character lost in a terrible nightmare about his father.

Just as Hanani, he has to learn that the world is not as black and white as he believes and that his righteous anger toward the Hetawa may not be warranted after all – just as Hanani reveres her institution, Wanahomen blindly worships his dead father, vowing to avenge him.

His troublesome relationship with the protagonist is at the heart of the novel, sometimes pushing him to madness, sometimes pulling him away from it. Here, the novel could have easily derailed if it had depicted a simple romance – Hanani falling desperately in love with a man that treats her like garbage – but their relationship is fortunately much subtler, touching discussions about loneliness and comfort, without ever forgetting who they are and what they have done to each other.

Hanani eventually grows to become the moral compass of the novel and is interesting to note how her growing anger is framed as a source of strength: although the Hetawa preaches the ever-importance of peace, she learns that rage is sometimes necessary if one wants to defend oneself. However, if the anger is left unchecked – and Wanahomen is always there as a potential cautionary tale – it can become corrupted, making a person cruel.

It’s also interesting to notice how, at first, Wanahomen thinks ill of Hanani because of her job – he’s a conservative who firmly believes she’s disrupting tradition by becoming a sharer – but at the same time he’s quick to accept transgressions of decorum from another woman because they are sexual ones that involve him.

The other main point of view in the book is of this woman, Tianeet, who is almost the opposite of Hanani: in place of the latter’s innocent energy, Tianeet displays the numbness of someone who has already been hit too much in life. She actively knows that her gender and sex are tools of power and that, most often than not, they are to be used against her. She lives with an oppressive father and pages before their relationship is put in an even darker light, we already know that something is off: Tianeet is in a party where men are supposed to come and court her, but she seems to be always aware of her father’s gaze, growing uneasy each time it falls on her.

The Shadowed Sun works well with its dream motif. In dreams, even a trained person is more unprotected than in real life, having special difficulties in concealing their inner struggles from prying eyes. In an especially poignant scene, for example, Wanahomen notices how his teacher, despite her humorless countenance, displayed a “glimpse of her other self: a weeping, wailing figure. A haggard creature with eyes full of bitter compassion.” Haunting the city of Guajareeh is also the threat of a mysterious plague of nightmares: dreams that assume the horror contours of a traumatized psyche and are transmitted to everyone unlucky enough to be sleeping nearby, who in turn can’t endure all the emotional and psychological pain and perish in a matter of hours.

The narrative offers few surprises, however, choosing to reveal the source of the plague right from the start, for example – which is a good call in this case, because it makes the plague a tragedy instead of a mystery, imbuing it with pathos. But as the story moves forward toward the final battle against the Kisuati there are few twists and turns, with events unfolding as expected. Despite the political focus of some chapters, there are not even betrayals: the side characters in the novel are precisely what they appear to be at first. One character that suffers particularly from this is Sunandi, who returns from the previous book to do basically nothing here. Her chapters are few and far between and serve only to stop the Kisuati from being collectively framed as one-dimensional villains, offering a small glimpse of their perspective on things.

Despite these few shortcomings, The Shadowed Sun remains a great novel, managing to develop interesting characters and complex themes. It leaves plenty of room open for a third book and, if it maintains the quality of the Dreamblood series, it can’t come soon enough.

January 06, 2020.