Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Published 2020 · 454 pages · 124,850 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Fantasy

How hard is Black Sun to read?

Black Sun scores 42 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 35 out of 100
Roanhorse uses invented clan, city and deity names, but the prose stays clear and contemporary. Closer to Beach Read in plainness than to Midnight's Children in richness, with fantasy terms adding some load.
Sentence structure: 32 out of 100
Sentences are direct and fast-moving, with scene-driven narration across three viewpoints. Not far from 1984 in directness.
Abstraction: 42 out of 100
Prophecy, faith and fate sit inside concrete scenes of voyages, rituals and political plots. The ideas stay grounded in characters like Serapio and Naranpa.
Information density: 50 out of 100
A new world with clans, gods and politics arrives quickly across three plotlines, and readers must absorb the setting as they go. Heavier than The Housemaid, lighter than Gravity's Rainbow.
Narrative indirection: 35 out of 100
Motives and the prophecy's meaning are mostly stated, though secrets about the priesthood and Serapio's mission unfold gradually. Plot reveals rather than deep inference.
Symbolic density: 50 out of 100
The crow, the sun and the eclipse carry clear mythic weight, with Serapio's body as the container of a god. More deliberate than Beach Read, simpler than The Great Gatsby.
Ironic distance: 25 out of 100
The tone is earnest, with sympathy for each of Serapio, Xiala and Naranpa and little satire. Some tragic irony arises as characters pursue fate.
Resolution withholding: 55 out of 100
As book one of a series, it ends with major threads still open and the larger conflict unresolved, though the central eclipse plot reaches a climax.
Structural complexity: 48 out of 100
Three viewpoint threads converge across a countdown, with flashbacks to Serapio's childhood. More than a linear romance like Beach Read, far less than 2666.

How Black Sun is regarded

Black Sun holds a literary regard score of 44 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Prizes

About the author

Rebecca Roanhorse