Heather’s Bookshelf: Goodbye to the Sun
Author: Jonathan Nevair
Released: 03/11/22
Genre: Space Opera/SciFi
“Keen dropped to the sand, legs resting on the downward side of the dune, and wiped his face with a sleeve. Ahead, in the twilight, the bluff’s jagged outline loomed. A second, higher ledge appeared behind it, blocking out the last glow of Altiron’s sunset. The rock structure was more extensive than he’d first realized. Something about that didn’t make sense unless he’d been fooled earlier in the daylight by a heat mirage.”
“Goodbye to the Sun” is a modern story told by the author and inspired by Antigone by Sophocles. It introduces two dueling races: the Motes and their oppressors the Targitians. Razor, a skilled pilot, goes on a mission to kidnap Ambassador Keen Draden in an attempt to help her people gain independence.
But as things tend to do, everything goes wrong and they must work together if they are going to survive and get even a taste of what they desire.
A letter to Keen from a long separated love brings back a flood of memories and a family secret connecting the past to the present. The connection turns out to be more important and meaningful than for just Keen himself.
Meanwhile, the resistance continues to push back against the Targitians in the same place that Keen fought years ago as part of the Patent War. More connections are revealed throughout the tale.
Trigger Warning: adult language, violence, death
Overall, I was a little torn on this tale. I really enjoyed the overlapping themes, characters, and connections through time and relationships revealed along the way. However, the story is told through the points of view of each of the main characters and sometimes in different timelines. Listening on audiobook, this made it a little confusing as it did not specify at the start of the chapters whose POV it was. As a lot of scifi/fantasy books do, there’s a lot of background and scenic description and often at the start of chapters. It’s great for scene setting, but not great for establishing who and when you are at the start of the chapters. I felt Keen was the best developed character in the story and enjoyed his evolution. The use of preferred pronouns is a prominent theme and of importance to the characters. It was consistent throughout and felt organic, except for at least 3 descriptions within the story at different points about the importance of using the pronouns. The repetitiveness can also be seen in some of Keen’s references to his past or in describing what happened to scenes we had already “seen”. I think this slowed down the overall pacing of the tale. Having said all that, the scene is set very vividly (especially the battle scenes). I felt as though I were watching the story instead of listening to it at points. The ending felt absolutely resolved and final, tying in all key characters and storylines.
I received a copy of this story in exchange of a fair and honest review.
I was able to check out this story on two platforms: ebook and audiobook: the audiobook voice was pleasant and easy to understand, but the structure of the story did not lend itself well to the audiobook platform
OVERALL REVIEW:
A space opera with two well-developed main characters, a ton of drama, but some pacing difficulty along the way.
Want to learn more about the author?
Check out my interview with Jonathan Nevair
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Find it for purchase here
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