2011; 297 pages. Book 1 (out of 4) in the “Mound Builders” series. New Author? : No. Genres: Historical Fiction; Native American History. Overall Rating : 8*/10.
The tribute collector is coming! The tribute collector is coming!
Well, that’s the rumor anyway,
although if you live in a small, out-of-the-way village in 13th-century
North America, you might want to double-check such hearsay. Visits from Quachil Thecou’s “Honorable
Tribute Collector” are sporadic when your tiny settlement is so far
out-in-the-sticks (literally), but it
pays to have some food, hides, and pretty trinkets on hand in case he pays a surprise visit. It's a good strategy to set aside just enough to buy him off, and hide
the rest of your valuables out in the woods somewhere, in the event he decides to search your tents because he thinks you might be holding out on him.
It's vital to know if the rumor's true, so let’s send some of our
people to that nearby, slightly-larger village just down the river a bit and where the tribute collector would stop before visiting us. That’s where this
rumor originated, after all. Maybe send a trading
party there? Swap some goods, pick up
some gossip, and come back with some reliable news. We might even put that young buck who just
killed a bear in charge of the group.
This will be his first leadership role for
the tribe. He’s quite good in a fight, and a master at
throwing a spear. Let’s see if he’s got some brains to go along with those physical skills. On
the downside, he’s short-tempered, acts without thinking, shoots his mouth
off a lot, and tends to tell lies often, even when there’s no reason to do
so.
But hey, it’s a simple mission,
an easy test of the young buck's wits.
What’s the worst that can happen, anyway?
What’s To Like...
There are three main characters in Shadow on the Sun, Iciwata (the young buck); Ahal (the tribute collector), and Sele (Ahal’s niece, and soon to be the favorite wife of the ruler of Quachil Thecou, known as the Revered Sun).
Each has their own storyline, and the tale jumps from one to another,
which keeps the pace brisk and the tale interesting. The
paths of Ahal and Iciwata cross quickly in the story, but I'm guessing they may go their separate ways as the series progresses.
Shadow on the Sun
has a decent amount of action and adventure, lots of intrigue, and a hint of romance, but
first and foremost it is historical fiction. As the series’ title indicates, the focus
here is on a pre-Columbian civilization dubbed “the
Mound Builders”, whose realm(s) extended throughout the upper
Mississippi and Ohio River area, and whose name references the many sacred
“mounds” they built, some of which are mind-bogglingly huge and can still be
seen today. Wikipedia has an excellent
article on them; the link for it is here.
I liked the “feel” that Zoe Saadia paints for the
Mound Builders’ world – including small details such as tattoos, clothing, pearls, and the use of tobacco. They had no horses or
other beasts of burden, and no carts with wheels and axles on them, so the only
way to transport the tons of earth needed for the mounds was - you guessed it - on the backs of
humans. That in turn means cities had to be established, which shatters the image that most of us have
of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the American Midwest being just a bunch of
hunter-gatherers.
Each of the main characters is
developed nicely, and all are somewhat “gray” and slightly “anti-heroic”. Iciwata is too brash for his own good, Ahal
is (by necessity, we admit) pathetically fawning, and Sele is much too naïve to last
long in the enviable but dangerously political position of “favorite wife”.
There’s just a smidgen of mild
cussing – four “damns” in the entire book!
Instead, Zoe Saadia coins colorful euphemisms such as “stupid skunks”, “filthy lowlifes”, “pieces of rotten
meat”, and “excrement eaters”,
plus three terms for the rigid castes in Mound Builders society: the “honorables” (upper class), “considerates” (middle class), and “miche-quipy” (the lower class, and by far the
largest).
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.7/5
based on 27 ratings.
Goodreads: 4.45/5 based on 47
ratings and 15 reviews
Kewlest New Word ...
Peltries (n., plural) : pelts; furs, especially
raw undressed skins.
Excerpts...
Among her numerous siblings and Father’s
wives, she knew better than anyone how to get her way without turning outright
rebellious and demanding. Women saw
through her sometimes, her mother and the older among Father’s wives, but men
were incredibly gullible, even the most powerful among those. A good state of affairs, certainly. Most comfortable. (loc. 1305)
“You will do well starting to remember the
proper address, foreigner.” The tone
grew sterner again, still ringing with the previous lack of distance, but now
having a thread of admonition in it.
“Honorable Leader will do. Make
certain to use this title while speaking to anyone who is in the position to
give you orders. It will make your stay
in Quachil Thecou more bearable by far.”
Under different circumstances, he might
have wished to suggest to the giver of such snotty, unasked for advice to stick
his “honorable leader” up his honorable haughty behind. (loc. 3315)
Kindle Details…
Shadow on the Sun sells for $4.99 at Amazon, as do the other books in this series. Zoe Saadia has
written several more series, most or all of which are set in pre-Columbian
America, with a majority of them focusing on the rise and fall of the Aztec
Empire. The individual books range in
price from $2.99 to $4.99.
“Whatever the
filthy warriors from the west say, I didn’t do any crime.” “Except for killing one of them.” (loc. 1522)
There are a couple quibbles, but none of them are show-stoppers. The
book could have used another round of editing, particularly, for some odd
reason, the section from 27% to 47%, where typos abound. Almost all of these are “spellchecker errors”:
first/fist, trucks/trunks, statues/status,
subdue/subside, where/were, bore/bear, piqued/peaked, et al.
A few of the sentences are
oddly worded, which caused a couple reviewers to give Shadow on the Sun low ratings. They
make a point, I saw some of those sentences, but I didn’t find it distracting
or confusing, and thus just chalked it up as the author’s literary style.
For me, the biggest issue was
the ending: not one of the plot threads
is tied up. Yes, things end at a logical
spot. Yes, there are at least three more
books in the series for those plot threads to be resolved. So shouldn’t a book close with at least one of them being brought to a conclusion, so we can call it an ending and not a pause?
But hey, this is historical fiction, so maybe not. I have books 2 and 3 on my Kindle, and frankly the series had me hooked the moment the phrase “Mound Builders” appeared. I read Shadow on the Sun to be immersed in the world of this pre-Columbian empire, and I wasn't disappointed in any way.
8 Stars. There is a short, fantastic “Historical Note” section at the end of the book, wherein Zoe Saadia reveals what is fact and what is fiction, and I always find that enlightening. There is a reason why Zoe Saadia set the story in 1205 AD, and mostly in the secondary/fictional city of Quachil Thecou rather than the primary/factual city of Cahokia. We don’t do spoilers at this blog, but we can point out that the book’s title, its front cover image, and the Historical Note all give you a hint as to why she chose this time and place.
No comments:
Post a Comment