Mirrored Heavens

Just finished listening to the Hugo Award-winning series, “Between Earth and Sky” by Rebecca Roanhorse. All three books (Black Sun, Fevered Star, & Mirrored Heavens) were amazing.

The series' eight (?) performers were overall quite outstanding. Big kudos to Cara Gee, Nicole Lewis, and Shaun Taylor-Corbett. There was one performer I did not care for at all who actively took me out of the liminal space of my listening imagination and made me wonder if he’d pre-read the chapters he was narrating at all. Many of his line deliveries completely contradicted the author’s written description of how the dialogue was communicated by the character. This resulted in some very strange and bizarre character depictions, and I almost purchased the digital text so I could read those chapters myself instead of listening to his oral interpretation. It was that bad. But Gee, Lewis, and Taylor-Corbett were so awesome they made up for the faults. I continued to listen so I could hear more of them.

The book series is quite unlike anything I’ve come across, and it has really made me examine how I apply my empathy to complicated characters that do both good and terrible actions. There are some moments in the book where those complexities are acknowledged and richly debated, adding to the deliciousness of the storytelling, but other times when they’re just glossed over, leaving the moral and ethical ramifications hanging.

I truly appreciated the non-binary nature of gender in this series. It was just there and important in its own way, without needing to be called out or continually addressed or justified. It felt almost like a non-issue, continually present so as make it a norm. It was not “the other”. I liked that a lot. It was slick by not being slick. And as listeners/readers, we could propel forward with the plot.

It has also deeply affirmed why I am not a religious person, which seems like an odd thing to come away with after reading an epic fantasy set in pre-Columbian Mesomerica. But there ya have it. It made me feel like I was done with gods in general. I was over their machinations by the end, and was seriously hoping they’d just go away altogether.

There were a few things I wish had been handled differently… A few of the concluding character arcs felt like they could have had more foreshadowing earlier in the series, so they had a bit more “pay off”. And the final chapters felt a bit truncated and could have been more effective given a bit more room to breathe. A few of the loose threads, clearly left purposely so, left me wondering, “why those threads?” and not others?

The other aspect I felt could have been addressed a bit more was the “leveling up” nature of the main characters. As the series progresses, each seems to gain in ability and awareness which is obviously a trope of epic fantasy. But so many of those abilities felt invented for the specific situational contexts instead of natural extensions of capabilities we’d been exposed to already.

Lastly, the character who caused the least death and seemed to have the least-selfish set of values was the one who didn’t get a happy conclusion. And that really frustrated me. I get that the "gray moral ambiguity of everyone’s actions” seems to be a hallmark of this series, and there aren’t clear good guys or bad guys like there are in most epic fantasy genre novels (which is refreshing), but there was no “justice served” regarding her character, and that was unsettling.

I highly recommend these books. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the ride, and I’m sad it’s over. The actors’ performances of these characters will follow me for a very long time because they added so much to their depth and humanity, really giving them heart and fleshing them out in a way that makes them more understandable, in some ways. Big thumbs up!

Two things that stood about about this book in particular: one is the way it finished off the series (satisfying but also super daring; to say more would be full of spoilers, but massive respect for this), and the other is a minor conversation between two characters about fashion.

It is incredibly refreshing to have a character - especially a male character, even though he's not cross-dressing - wearing a nice long full skirt, because skirts offer better freedom of motion than pants while fighting. This runs counter to so many lazy cross-dressing tropes, it's realistic, it's aesthetic, it's great. It's so great.

I actually think this is my favorite book of the three in the Between Earth and Sky series. I really enjoyed getting to know the characters over the course of the long story. As time went on, I became better and better at visualizing their appearances and their mannerisms. I think Roanhorse really hit her stride with this book, though. For example, the way she recapitulates the theme of the title, "Mirrored Heavens," throughout the book with different characters going through trials that are mirror images of the trials that another character endures, is masterful. It's colorful, it's touching, it's unpredictable, there's a distinct thread of sincere romance that pervades it, and the setting is beautiful. 10/10 will likely read again.

I respect the author for ending it on her terms. Inevitably, with so many different characters, perspectives, it's easy to tie it up in a bow. Well done.

Overall, I loved this trilogy, which had such amazingly beautiful and intense descriptions of a Pre-Colombian world and what happens when different powers and religions intersect and collide. I still love here the relationships among the individuals who serve as avatars, but I wish that not every single main character had become The Chosen One (although I overall love Xiala's story). I miss the greyer morality of the other books as Serapio continues to move towards being a more straightforwardly good character. Although I loved spending time with each of these characters - and I really do love all of the final five (Okoa, Serapio, Naranpa, Iktan and Xiala) -- this third book had a significant amount of bloat, and a lot of loose threads were left untied, especially in Okoa's case (my personal favorite). Nonetheless, this is still among the most inventive, imaginative and compellings works in fantasy right now and a satisfying story about trying to find the humanity within the destiny.