Review: Ashes of the Sun

Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My experience reading this was one of pure frustration. I have a teething six-month-old and I couldn't figure out between the baby and the book which I wanted to be around less. I adore that little girl so imagine my feelings towards this book! I'm screaming on the inside.

The author notes that this book was inspired or influenced by Star Wars novels by the likes of Timothy Zahn and Chuck Wendig. I can get behind that. I truly felt Star Wars vibes while reading this. There's also an ability a character gains later on which is basically foresight from Mistborn.

This book is enjoyable. It is. You may think I'm crazy then after what I've said already but I am truly deeply torn over this.

I have a feeling that I was reading an uncorrected proof of the book. Aside from the fact that there are general placeholders, the first few chapters have obvious mistakes and there are also word choices that I found odd. One paragraph had a sentence with the world trudged followed by a sentence with the word nudged. Another chapter nearby had a similar rhyme going on. Little things like that pulled me out of the story. Roughly two-thirds of the way through the book I felt it needed an editor. The irony of course is that the author thanks his editor in the acknowledgments. Ouch. The final villain of the book also has an "I can't wait to cut you to shreds" line right before the battle which made me groan. It's not as bad as when James Bond villains reveal their plans but there's no care put into it. I know it's not going to happen by the villain saying it will. The battle, with all the build-up the book gives you in trying to discover what is going on, only last around a page and a half. It's an afterthought in a book with tons of battles.

The characters were great. One of the most important things is to have a great cast and no one disappointed. Every side character was equally fleshed out. I realized while I was reading that this is a world in which I wish I existed so that I could interact with these characters. I haven't felt this way since I read Harry Potter as a kid. I'm in my thirties so this is an extremely weird statement to be typing out but there it is. Kit was the one who did it for me. She was an absolute blast through and through.

One piece of uniqueness that this book presented to me was that there was no clear good side or bad side. I know you're saying that a lot of media covers that. Not like this. See, at its core, it is a book about a brother and sister separated as children. One becomes a thief and underground legend who wants to tear down the Twilight Order because he believes they don't care for the general public. The other ended up working for the Twilight Order, an ancient group that has magic swords and special abilities they channel from within. Similar to the Force. Their purpose is to defend humanity. There are politics and internal struggles within the Order which we learn more about as the story continues. Each chapter flips between the two of them until the end where the stories merge and each takes half a section. Admittedly, Maya's story carried my interest more than Gyre's. If Kit wasn't in it I would probably suffer a lot more. Gyre and his crew don't have the personal connection that Maya's team had with me. They were all good characters but If I had to read a single book about one or the other, I would choose Maya in a heartbeat. Kit is my equivalent to Ahsoka, Gyre to Anakin. I can watch Ahsoka do anything but there's only so much Anakin I can take.

Also, holy LGBT representation Batman!

I don't think there has been any other work I have ever read where there were so many openly gay or bi characters. When you do first find that out it happens very quickly. There are a few chapters where you learn one person is a lesbian, and suddenly this other person is gay as well, and then even a minor character is into women, and then this person goes both ways. It's rapid-fire information but it doesn't feel forced.

The fight scenes are plentiful. The author does a good job of making them descriptive but it was a detriment when the smallest battles of the story go on and on. There is also a lot of repetition. This is where I felt an editor should have stepped in. How often does a battle or event happen and then a character blacks out and wakes up somewhere? How often does Maya alone hit the floor after using up her powers? Does Drowning Pool need to make a song about her?

Like the actual Star Wars movies, this isn't perfect. Will I follow the rest of the story when it comes out? Absolutely. There's that fence that I'm sitting on. I'm throwing all the negative out there so that you look past it when you read this. The mystery, the characters, the dueling stories, the genre-mixing..it makes a compelling read. This is an LGBT friendly Fantasy version of Star Wars without Space. There also are no Ewoks. There are some furry ghouls though.

To summarize the conflicting narratives:

Maya and Gyre start out as children in the prologue. Maya suffers unexplained sicknesses and is taken by a member of the Twilight Order (the Jedi) Gyre tries to stop this and is wounded in the process. Years later, Maya is still an apprentice (Padawan) in the order who has traveled around with a master (Jedi Master) on various missions. As a result of one such mission, they seek guidance from a high ranking council member. They are split up and Maya travels with another apprentice (Padawan) and two other members of the order, a scout and an Arcanist, to solve a mystery. It turns out that there is a traitor on the council (a Dooku figure) who set up Maya's master on her own mission and Maya must go to her aid. She also has to battle to become a full-fledged Master herself (much like how Anakin is shown to be the greatest Jedi but isn't allowed on the council. Maya doesn't join the council but does get the ranking in between) 

Meanwhile, Gyre is working on a rebellion to overthrow the Order & Government (like the Rebels) because he feels they don't take care of the lower classes. The Order is self-involved in its own squabbles and the government is to its own end. He is aided by ghouls to try to accomplish this end. The ghouls are various types of monsters. Some have solid forms while others take the body parts from creatures they kill. Gyre travels with Kit (a Han Solo/Ahsoka hybrid) and works with the ghouls until he realizes that they don't just want to stop the Order, they want to destroy the world as we know it. Gyre realizes his errors and puts a stop to it. (Much like how Darth Vader turned good in the end. He's basically Anakin from episode 3 onward). Kit ends up dying, but not before her conscious, spirit, or what have you is transferred into a tiny spider. She is able to assume any body she wants from this point forward. The end. 

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