Still the Sun is a 2024 fantasy novel by Charlie N. Holmberg. It was released yesterday, July 1st and was published by 47North. I was able to get early access through Prime Reading. The novel is a standalone novel.
Pell is an engineer and digger by trade—unearthing and repairing the fascinating artifacts left behind by the mysterious Ancients who once inhabited the sunbaked planet of Tampere. She'll do anything to help the people of her village survive and to better understand the secrets of what came before. Heartwood and Moseus are keepers of a forbidding tower near the village of Emgarden. Inside are the remnants of complex machines the likes of which Pell has never seen. Considering her affinity for Ancient tech, the keepers know Pell is their only hope of putting the pieces of these metal puzzles together and getting them running. The tower's other riddle is Heartwood himself. He is an enigma, distant yet protective, to whom Pell is inexplicably drawn. Pell's restoration of this broken behemoth soon brings disturbing visions—and the discovery that her relationship to it could finally reveal the origins of the towers' strange keepers and the unfathomable reason the truth has been hidden from her.
The plot of this novel is engaging because of the inherent mystery both the reader and the characters are dropped into from the first page. The narrative mentions multiple times that "a piece is missing". This comment is true on both a narrative level and in-universe level, as the overarching plot of the novel is Pell, and by extension the reader, trying to figure out what those missing pieces are. This involves Pell uncovering lost memories and attempting to get to the bottom of why certain things seem so familiar and why some answers feel out-of-reach to her. The pieces do come together, and nearly all of the questions I had while reading where answered by the end of the book, but the story doesn't fully come together until the last 20% of the story. A great deal of the plot before that consists of Pell slowly discovering disparate details and figuring out one part of the "big picture" but not being able see the entire thing yet. The stakes slowly build and the tension slowly increases, but I can see some readers being frustrated by confusing the beginning and middle of the story are. There isn't much action or excitement for the majority of the story, and moments that are significant are more obvious in hindsight than in the moment. I enjoyed the way Pell's resurfacing memories were handled and how they fit into the story. I found the overall plot to be incredibly intriguing, since I love a mystery, and the climax of the story felt satisfying. Some revelations were less surprising than others, but altogether, each was satisfying and made the puzzle intriguing. Overall, this is a book that's best enjoyed the second time around, because the reader already has all of the pieces and can see how they fit together from the first page.
Pell was a compelling character to follow. She's the narrator of the story, and it's told in her first-person perspective. On the surface she's not the most complex character, but very easy to connect with, as she begins the story just trying to do what she can for her people. She's an unreliable narrator by circumstance, rather than intentionally, which makes her a more sympathetic character. Her growth as a character was interesting, as she not only recovered her lost memories, but also learned from mistakes she didn't even realize she'd made. The conflict between the person she is and the person she was, prior to her memory being altered, added depth to her. Moseus and Heartwood are difficult characters to discuss without spoiling important aspects of the story, but the different facets of each of them made the story compelling because they kept me guessing on how much or how little they could be trusted. I enjoyed Casnia, who's important to the story but not the most prominent character. The way she's written fits into the story very well, and really solidifies how she connects into the plot. She was also entertaining.
It's difficult to talk too in-depth about the world-building, because of how the plot is constructed. There are some questions that go unanswered, and some aspects unexplored. Others, however, click into place once the "big reveal" takes place and the reasons why they were hidden from the reader become evident. I could easily see some readers getting frustrated or feeling lost as they read, because the "rules" aren't fully explained early on. With that said, I liked the world-building overall, even though some parts of it were unexplored or only given a bare minimum level of explanation.
I've read several of Charlie N. Holmberg's other books, so I was familiar with her writing style and knew I enjoyed it before picking this book up. Overall, I like her prose and find her way of storytelling to be engaging. I can see some readers getting frustrated with the descriptions on this book, due to the mystery aspect. Pell often describes items and machinery without knowing the name for them, because she's forgotten that she knows what they are, and picturing what she's describing can be a challenge. It can be confusing to follow along as a result. The pacing of this book is a bit slow, given how the plot centers around the narrator recovering lost memories, rather than a more active and engaged conflict. Since the story holds all its card until the end, some readers might deem the story too confusing and put the book down. I was engaged and kept reading, but some other may not feel as invested.
Still the Sun isn't my favorite book by this author, but I enjoyed it. It had a compelling plot, though some readers may find the way the plot unfolds to be frustrating and confusing. The characters were intriguing because of how mysterious their histories were, even to themselves in some cases. The writing won't be for every reader, but it worked very well for me. This is definitely a book that needs to be read in its entirety for a reader to fully understand both the story taking place and the characters. This book definitely won't be for everyone but I think readers who like a lot of mystery with their fantasy stories would enjoy it.
Rating: 3.5 Stars
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