It has been years since I have read YA fantasy. I seem to remember clocking out around the time Holly Black’s Wicked King was released, and staying away since. Who can succinctly say why we enter reading slumps? Perhaps the most universal explanation is a host of internal and external factors clogging one’s mind. And when one’s mind is clogged, a return to known avenues that provide easily digestible escapism is a pretty solid way to return to the field.
I had hoped that Shina Reynolds’s debut, A Light in the Sky, would be that return for me. It tells the story of Aluma Banks, the seventeen year old daughter of a war hero and an aspiring Empyrean rider – a soldier defending the kingdom of Eirelannia from the back of a winged horse. The premise of this story – the cavalry-like prestige and camaraderie of mounted soldiers, both a physical and political arena, and a young adult on the older end of the scale coming into her own – seemed like it could add something new and subversive to the otherwise familiar pathways of a magical destiny promised by the blurb. However, “familiar” ended up being the defining trait of this novel. And while familiarity was what I was going in for, I was still hoping for some oomph, something that pulled my emotions from my chest even if it didn’t challenge the foundations of my being.
The characters, I think, are the heart of this sense of stillness. They act and react, but do not seem to have a driver inside them, an engine spurring them on through the story. Aluma, our protagonist and our sole narrator, is no exception, which is probably why the sense of flatness is so pervasive. Aluma wants to be an Empyrean rider and she loves her father – interesting goals, understandable motivation. But there is little sense of what unsettled part of her needs to be shaken up by the plot so she can go on an internal journey alongside her external one. The why behind her deep desire to be an Empyrean rider is missing. The scope and dynamics of her familial relationships aren’t fully explored enough to feel strongly about them. This lack of complexity to her is what I feel leads her to being a fairly inactive protagonist. Characters like Lermyn say odd, evasive things, and Aluma doesn’t push or pry, doesn’t take any status-quo-altering actions, instead stewing in the strangeness of her interactions. It often felt like she was being shuttled from one place to another simply to observe, with no internal contradictions and needs and wants pushing her to make choices that altered her situation and upped the stakes.
Whenever she was motivated by her father was when her internal story showed its greatest strengths, and because of this I truly feel the novel could have benefited from developing or even prioritising her familial relationships even further. Exploring her relationship with her brother and the inherent, very deep conflict that emerges within the first few chapters would have been extremely compelling! Unfortunately, we spent more time with Thayer and Gattacan and a love triangle that really did not need to be there. A positive aspect of this was that, at least until the introduction of Gattacan, Thayer was a genuinely kind and wholesome love interest that I have not seen much of in YA fantasy. He just was not as compelling as Aluma’s family.
The external conflict, too, was underdeveloped – Sutagus Molacus (what a name) with his Kaiser Bill-esque moustache, ripe to be twirled in antagonism, was a fairly one note villain. This can work, mind you, if it’s the best antagonistic force for the story. However, there was not enough conflict among the other characters to justify his lack of complexity in this case. Either he needed more complexity, or Aluma needed more tug and pull from the side of her allies, for the external conflict to be more engaging.
Worldbuilding was similarly a mixed bag. The concept of the Empyrean steeds was lovely and fresh, and the way they gained their magic from the Relics was fascinating to read and sparked my curiosity. But again, there was too much of some things and not enough of other things. I yearned for more exploration of the winged horses and how they knew how to fly, why the relics had the power to give them their wings and where that power came from, and I wish Aluma was asking these question and actively seeking those answers too! Yet we spent longer with the wingless horses – a solid quarter of the book. Going in I truly didn’t realise there would be such a focus on competitive jumping, especially at the start. Reynolds’s passion for and knowledge of horses and riding really shines throughout the novel, and the details are nice to read because that passion is so palpable. However, it was not what the premise promised me as a reader, and I may have tempered my expectations differently if I had known this would be more of a horse book than a fantasy or political book.
Additionally, there were far too many infodumps about many things, including the geographical and political structures of Eirelannia, that would have benefited from a more organic inclusion in the story. I think the name Eirelannia is clearly meant to be evocative of Éireann (Ireland), and thus it would have been great to have leaned in to that inspiration further, particularly given that Reynolds, according to her bio, is very interested in Ireland. Given this clear resonance, the themes of conquest and forced integration of states and cultures that were alluded to in the worldbuilding could have been expanded upon with more depth. It would have made the resistance to the crown more compelling, for example. In this sense I don’t think the worldbuilding made full use of the opportunities it had and if there will be a sequel, I hope the world can be expanded upon more deeply.
Pursuant to that, Eirelannia appears to be a very militant state, and especially in Ivernister. Perhaps my background as a student of war studies is interfering here, but I really wish the implications of militancy had been dealt with a little more deeply because of the fact that this story does, ultimately, follow along the common YA fantasy/sci-fi staple of child soldiers. Seventeen is on the upper end of the teenage years, certainly, but a seventeen year old is still closer to childhood than adulthood. I did feel that Aluma’s first experience of combat was well written, particularly the paralysis that can strike. But I do wish that the military culture surrounding Ivernister had been expanded upon, and that their training and techniques did not feel like they had been hand-waved into being. The first major combat scene with the riders gave little indication of how the riders were organised, how they were deployed, how they conducted themselves in a battle. I’m certainly not asking for a military manifesto, but it did not feel very well thought out, especially given the fact that the main purpose of the Empyrean riders’ existence and the endgame of Aluma’s involvement with them is, in fact, combat.
So many aspects of this story felt like they were harking back to the Hunger Games era of storytelling, even down to Egan Frye’s Caesar Flickerman-esque presentation of the competition in the first act, and well as the ideas of a revolt and a chosen one that emerges (though in this case, out of an inherent magical gift rather than a snowballing effect of personally motivated resistance). The chosen one, wielder-of-unique-and-rare-magic trope doesn’t have to be stale. It can be made interesting. I just did not feel that here. Aluma did not feel active, not in embracing the role nor in resisting it. And on a craft level, I was always thrown off by the casual tone of discourse in the writing (which sometimes reads younger than a seventeen year old!) that suddenly lapses into dramatic statements like “The old shall be made anew” whenever dealing with revolution or prophecy. A little more finesse would have been welcome.
While on the topic of craft, Reynolds certainly has command of language, which I noticed right off the bat. She can write a story that goes along at a steady clip and illustrates it well for the reader. However, the pacing does suffer somewhat in the first act – again, too much time spent in the arena on the competition! – and chapters sometimes end strangely, either in cliffhangers that promise something they don’t deliver (such as the end of the first chapter and into the second) or that are anticlimactic, which is not a prerequisite for wrapping up the threads in a chapter. Some readers may not mind these aspects of structure and pace and language, but they stand out to me
Ultimately the word that comes to mind when considering A Light in the Sky is “comfortable”. The story does not break new ground, instead treading over very familiar territory and in doing so occasionally getting stuck in over-trodden ruts. It stays very much in the canon of tropes, pacing, worldbuilding, cast, and characterisation that underpinned the 2008-2015 era of YA fantasy. I always felt myself wanting more. There was so much already in the story and the world and the characters that could really have been put to work to move the story from “comfortable” to compelling. I hope that Reynolds will be able to shake things up and capitalise more on the threads she’s left lying in this story and world if or when a sequel is written. For readers new to the category and genre, it is a solid entry point. It will also easily scratch the itch of any reader longing for an uncomplicated return to another era. But anyone who is a regular consumer of YA fantasy, or who prefers more subversion and frankly more depth in their storytelling, would likely find less to take away from this novel.
★★½ (rounded up to 3 on Goodreads and NetGalley)
Thank you to Wink Road Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!