In Dark Moon Shallow Sea, the religious order of the sun god Hyperion murdered Phoebe, the goddess of the moon and destroyed all of her temples. The reason for this religious crusade is that the priesthood of Phoebe was accused of being in league with demons. Since Phoebe was the psychopomp of this cosmology, this has resulted in a blood drinking ghost apocalypse complicated by a lack of tides due to the absence of the literal moon. This is not a great situation, but the Order appears to be pretty much oblivious to what is obviously a Very Bad Situation.
(I kept waiting for riots against the Hyperion Order but it kept not happening even though “we are hip deep in murder ghosts and we can’t make a living because there are no fish and our boats are beached because there’s no tide,” seems like a very good reason for the denizens of a sea side city to start hanging members of the Hyperion Order. Also the city’s patron goddess is Phoebe so really, that would be just another reason, demons or no demons.)
The plot instead focuses on Raef, a survivor of the massacre of Phoebe’s priests, and Seth, a young knight of the Order of Hyperion. Raef has unusual abilities he takes care to hide, and is a thief. Seth is a knight whose power to control flame is…lacking. (Which causes other knights to dislike and mistrust him. This is fine, as most of the other knights are…really not great people.) Seth has been assigned to protect a box. Raef steals the contents of the box, which turns out to be a person named Kinos. Raef decides he wants to help Kinos, and seeks to escape the city with Kinos with Seth and the other Knights of Hyperion in pursuit.
I have mixed feelings about this book. It has a slow start, and it took a while before I could really warm to Seth. (I liked and sympathized with Raef more, even though I feel that Seth has been suffering from spiritual abuse from early childhood.) The plot also has some shaky moments that are a little too convenient, and moments where characters who should be more suspicious, are instead too trusting. (And also somewhat the reverse.) On the other hand, the story goes in some unexpected directions and has some interesting ideas. The worldbuilding is interesting, and I read the entire thing in a couple of days.
Only one, tiny, individual quibble. There’s a scene where someone gets hit with a large piece of shrapnel. (A “giant splinter of wood.”) The character yanks it right out, and somehow doesn’t bleed out. Now, I’m imagining a sharp bit of wood anywhere from a foot to maybe a yard long impaling the guy at very high speed. I am imagining something that can’t be taken out with a pair of tweezers. Pliers maybe. You do not just “yank” something like that out. You will bleed out. You will cause as much damage yanking it out as was caused by it going in. Especially if you decide to do this, and don’t even bother to push pressure on the wound. (Sometimes I am a pedant.)
Anyway, the book grew on me, and I think this is the first book of what’s going to be a series, so I’m looking forward to it.
This review is based on a galley copy received from NetGalley.
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