This month, Lipscomb Library Circulation Supervisor Jess Kindler reviews Unconquerable Sun (2020) by Kate Elliott:
Who doesn’t need a little bit of escapist fiction right now? I know I sure do, and one of my go-to authors for when I really want to become immersed in a story is Kate Elliott. Elliott is a pleasingly prolific author, with a sizable catalog of science fiction and fantasy novels that contain a mix of everything from epic high-fantasy, to YA, to whimsical sci-fi. The first series of hers that I read, The Spiritwalker Triology, introduced me to Elliott’s knack for taking familiar real-world settings or historical events and adding magical “what-ifs” that turn everything upside down—in this case, the Spiritwalker series is set in a Europe where the countries we know never formed, the ice-age never ended, there was a great diaspora from the African Mali empire, and there are mages that wield ice and fire. And did I mention the dinosaur lawyers from fantasy America?
This summer Elliott released her latest work, the fast-paced fantastical space opera, Unconquerable Sun. Described by Elliott as a gender-flipped retelling of Alexander the Great, but in space, Unconquerable Sun is the story of Princess Sun, heir to the interstellar republic of Chaonia. Not only is Sun faced with living up to the legacy of her mother Queen-Marshal Eirene, she must also outwit the many factions within and without the republic that seek to supplant her. We follow Princess Sun and her loyal Companions as they race across the galaxy to stop invasions, hunt down political assassins, and learn that maybe—just maybe—the real treasure was the friendship we found along the way. (Just kidding: the real treasure is winning first place on the empire wide variety broadcast, Idol Channel!)
Like all of Elliott’s books, Unconquerable Sun drops you right into the action and doesn’t wait for you to catch up. The world building relies less on large chunks of exposition and more on its necessity to the action: we learn about the wide-spread use of bio-tech when we meet Queen-Marshal Eirene with her enhanced laser eye; we are introduced to how long-distance space travel is possible when the characters send their ship through one of the ancient Beacons that connect all of known space. As the pace of the story increases, you realize that small details encountered early on are much more important to the plot than they had initially seemed. This is one of my favorite aspects of Elliott’s writing, and leads to a lot of “ah-ha” moments later in the book, or even on a second read-through.
Elliott is also masterful at writing characters who grow on you without your realizing it. I often find myself at the end of her books wondering “Wait, when did I become so invested in this person?? I didn’t even like them a hundred pages ago”! In Unconquerable Sun, Elliott gives each character a distinct voice by switching between first and third person-POVs, as well between past and present tense, when writing from different character perspectives in each chapter. While I was unsure about this at first, I found that it gives more depth to each character, and reflects their personalities. For example, the wily Persephone, emotional and focused on the moment at hand, speaks to the reader in first-person present tense.
Meanwhile, Princess Sun, a clever tactician who always has eyes on every piece on the board, uses third-person past tense. To anyone looking for a fun, immersive story to run away into, I strongly recommend Unconquerable Sun. I promise you’ll have a good time, but I will leave you with this warning: it’s the first book in a trilogy. Now the wait for book two begins!
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