THE SPIRIT OF THE RISING SUN

THE SPIRIT OF THE RISING SUN

Oyza yearns for revolution—an impossible dream with her lifetime prison sentence. Fueled by the destruction of her home and years of servitude, she reads the smuggled texts of the Ungoverned and dreams of a future that can never be. But the arrival of a new prisoner, Yars, reignites Oyza’s courage. She finds herself capable of more than she ever imagined.

To fight their way to their own freedom, they must fight for something bigger: freedom for their homeland. Between an invasion by godless gunwielders, a heartless commander who’s determined to kill Oyza, and webs of secrets and lies woven through their world, it will take all their strength and wits to survive. When blood is spilled, how much will be their own?

The (s)hero of the story is Oyza, daughter of a minister and main foil for the villainess, Liviana, an ambitious warrior-ruler known as Blacklance. At the opening of the story, Oyza is in a dungeon and Liviana is the reason.

In the dungeon, Oyza meets Yars, a thief and witchdust addict with a taste for rum (think Disney’s Aladdinfor adults). Yars is the charming, reluctant hero archetype, the drunken rogue whom the heroine with high ideals slowly molds into shape in time for the big battle.

The world of the book is rich and complex, with its own book titles, oaths, different ages and epochs, and snippets of languages and songs. The countries are all at war with one another or uneasy allies, and their ministers and priests are each making political power moves within the countries themselves. There is a priestly class called the Celesterium on one end of the spectrum and on the other a mead-drinking Viking-like group called the Men without Gods. The locales have familiar, evocative names like Goldfall, the Emerald Isles, and the Shimmering Woods. The “Shimwood,” as its fifty thousand inhabitants call it, recalls Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest. Called The Ungoverned, these rebels are a main target of those who prefer everyone to be under their yoke.

It would not be fantasy without knights and other warriors, and Galindez provides them aplenty, with knights like Sir Yirig, Liviana’s chief bodyguard who reminds me of the Mountain and Hound from Game of Thrones. Another interesting character is Captain Seralus, commander of the ship Chandelier Lover, who reminds me of Captain Shakespeare in the film adaptation of Stardust.

As you would also expect from fantasy, we follow multiple storylines that steadily converge for the Act Three climax, which leaves things nicely open-ended for a sequel.

One of my favorite aspects of The Spirit of a Rising Sun is that it revolves around family lineages, some of which remain secret through most of the book. Members of families reunite, forsake and betray one another, and otherwise provide micro storylines that undergird and personalize the fantasy-trope macro ones.

If you love fantasy, this book should be on your reading list.