Wednesday, October 6, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brissett

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 12, 2021 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Destroyer of Light is the second novel from Jennifer Marie Brissett, who wrote the novel Elysium back in 2014 with a smaller press.  Elysium* is a tremendous novel that I HIGHLY recommend, being one of only 26 books I've ever given a perfect score since I started reviewing books back in 2015.  I read Elysium in December of last year after I'd already heard about this book, and so I've been eagerly anticipating seeing Brissett's follow-up, which is described in the marketing as "The Matrix meets an Afro-futuristic retelling of [the story of] Persephone set in a science fiction underworld of aliens, refugee, and genetic engineering."  That description should get nearly anyone interested - even more so if you know that Brissett has written before non-fiction analysis about the Demeter/Persephone myth and its connection to Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Talents."  

*Destroyer of Light is technically a stand-alone sequel to Elysium, and the book contains a few easter egg references for readers of that book, but requires no foreknowledge for the reader, which makes sense as that book was published by a small press and this book is published by Tor/Macmillan.  You won't lose anything by reading this book first.  

And while Destroyer of Light isn't quite as tremendous as Elysium, it's still a pretty damn strong novel and well worth your time.  The story deals with themes of motherhood, class struggle even on what is supposed to be a new more equitable world, dealing with conquerors after the conquering is over, child soldiers, and children remaking themselves through trauma in both pleasant and not so pleasant ways.  It's also a scifi story taking place on an alien world that humanity has fled to and established new lives, alongside the aliens who once conquered them, dealing with genetically engineered humans with various mental powers.  There's a lot of depth here (although not quite as much as in Elysium, as this story is a lot more straight forward despite its multi-level narrative) and another winner of a novel, marking Brissett as clearly one of the top writers in the genre people should be reading and looking out for.  

Trigger Warning: Rape (on page, even if not described in great detail), Sexual Assault, Child Abduction and Child Soldiers.  These scenes aren't gratuitous, but are involved enough that many readers may not be able to get past them.  Reader discretion is very much advised.  

-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
Four Hundred Years ago, humanity fled the Earth after being conquered by the strange space-shifting aliens known as the krestge - and after centuries in stasis they came to the world of Eleusis, a world habitable only in certain areas - which became known as Dusk, Dawn and Night.  It was supposed to be a new more equitable world...but the first humans who landed on Eleusis took the best land and richest parts of the world in Dusk and made the less fortunate latecomers toil for their benefit in Dawn.  And then the krestge came as well, claiming to come in peace, and now wanting to live alongside the humans they once chased across the universe.  

The result was a powderkeg of a world, one which would be ignited by the confluence of three stories:

10 Years Ago, in Dawn, a girl named Cora with strange eyes and strange visions is abducted by a violent anti-krestge warlord, leaving her mother desperately searching for answers.  

3 Weeks Ago, in Dusk, a pair of brothers with strange eyes, a telepathic connection, and strange powers known for tracking things down are tasked with searching for the son of a rare human/krestge couple....only to find a conspiracy of human trafficking and more questions than answers.  

1 Month Ago, in Night, I find a boy like myself in Aidon's camp, a boy Aidon can use just like me in his campaign to take back this world from the krestge and the foolish humans who have fallen in line with them, and am given the chance for the first time in ten years to leave Night and return to the civilization I came from, under a different name, to enact a plan that will change Eleusis forever.....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Elysium, Destroyer of Light takes place in a non-linear fashion, although unlike that book what timeline and where things are taking place is always made clear by quick timeline/place notes at the start of each chapter (i.e. "Dawn, Ten Years Ago") .  The story is told in a mix of third and first person, with Stefonie's chapters (beginning with Night, 1 month ago) being told in first person, in addition to occasional asides and bits from a seemingly omniscient narrator that are also told in first person, to add to the mystery of it all.  As you might expect, this signals quite strongly that Stefonie is our main protagonist, as the seeming adaptation of Persephone in this story.*

*Despite the selling point that this is an adaptation of the Persephone/Hades/Demeter story, if you didn't know that was the case it would be very easy to miss, and the story is not harmed if you miss it at all.  I didn't really recognize that fact until I read Brissett's above-linked piece comparing the story to Butler's Parable of the Talents, and from that framework a reader will recognize a lot of what Brissett is trying to do here with various characters - but again, you won't lose much if you miss it all.    

These characters exist in a future world that is fascinating in its spin on our own world from a sci-fi perspective.  Humans may have fled their own world to a new one that was supposed to be a land of equality, but inequality reigns quite prominently - with the best parts of Dusk claimed by the first humans to touch down on the planet, and the last stragglers being forced to live in Dawn as farmers of the valuable material that is needed to live for the rich bastards in Dusk.  The people in Dusk have a frequent racism towards those with light colored eyes, representing genetic modifications, even when such modifications allow those others to provide for the people in Dusk.  And then the alien conquerors, who conquered Earth and drove humanity away, have returned....only they want to live in peace with humanity now, and do so on uneven terms - with new generations of humans thinking of them as normal people to cohabitate with, often with technological masks and drugs that put them on the same level, while older generations who remember earth looking at them with immense distrust and refusing to do anything with their alien technology.  And then there's the warlord Okoni, a human scientist with various personalities who leads an army of child soldiers he abducts from the poor people and dawn in an attempt to overthrow what he sees as humans collaborating with the hated alien conquerors - and is willing to both love and hate a girl who possesses powers of the aliens, and to inflict mass harm on the poor humans for their goals.  

In this world is the story of Cora and Stefonie, who are pretty obviously the same girl in separate times from the start.  Cora was a girl with strange powers and strange eyes, who had a mom that was interested in her own religion and a bit negligent at the start....but who did care for her and went desperately searching for her when Cora was abducted by Okoni's army.  Cora is raped by Okoni's men, but finds salvation in Okoni himself, who recognizes in her power the key that he's searching for to possibly overthrowing the aliens.  And so Stefonie marries him and lives unhappily for ten years....for she knows that Okoni is a bad person and a liar and a monster....but at the same time she can't help but be attracted to his darkness and ideals.  

Because, and we see this through the other viewpoints in the book as well, most prominently the two brothers who were also the product of genetic enhancements who hate the rich racist privileged snobs of Dusk and try to find and help people with their own gifts, Okoni is evil but he isn't entirely wrong.  The Alien conquerors attempt to now be allies without paying any proper contrition, and cannot see why they are wrong - even if they may now be well intentioned....something Stefonie discovers with her own gifts.  And the Aliens who did try to destroy humanity and don't feel bad about it are indeed still out there, willing to do it again out of fear of what humanity could become.  And so the book leads to Stefonie making a decision, after she's spent her whole life in various forms of fear, and seen what fear leads others to do, to embrace her own darkness and make a choice that will change everything in the world forever.  It's a remarkable ending that works for the most part really well.  

Not everything quite worked for me despite it all - Okoni's multiple personalities/being possessed by spirits is something that you'd think would go somewhere but never does; the rape scenes, while never that descriptive, are not easy to read even if never unnecessary, and the final tie to the Persephone story, the adaptation of the pomegranate scenes, just feels a bit out of place.  But still, this is a strong tale of transformation, of the horrors that fear, that power, that racism and greed can inflict upon us, and how inadequate allyism can be to make up for it all.  Brissett is definitely an author you should be reading, with two real winners in novels so far, and I can't wait to see what she puts out next.  

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)