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Oh, this was stunning. A beautiful, sweeping tale of revenge, betrayal, warring powers, unbreakable bonds, and the stinging weight of destiny that ticked every single box on the list of things I love most dearly about the genre: a deep, layered world-building, tenderly realized characters, a plot that never lags, and an emotionally and thematically vivid narrative.

At the heart of the novel is a sharp and thoughtful examination of empire, cultural imperialism, and how history can both immortalize stories and disappear them. Raybearer is a novel that understands the insidious power of empire, how it’s like a kind of poison that seeps into the groundwater, eating holes into the bulwarks of many cultures, and how it can be very, very convincing while it destroys them. The novel also speaks to many themes that we know all too well in the real world: about leadership and the tendency of the powerful to rationalize their own worst ideas without truly understanding the possibility of disaster; about patriarchy and its seamless continuity with imperialism; and about towering women with towering destinies who get written out of history.

These thematic and emotional sketches are made even more compelling with a rich cast of characters. I loved these characters. There's a vulnerability to them: they're so young and so stubborn and so wracked with troubled pasts and a bruised, wistful yearning for belonging, fighting not only to save themselves and each other but to save themselves and each other to a world “worth surviving in.�� In that sense, Raybearer feels like a love letter to all the young people out there marching in the streets, speaking up against injustices, and holding themselves tall because they too refuse “to see the world as a small place, where nothing matters but [their] happiness.�� The antagonists are gripping creations as well, and their slow unmasking throughout the story is both touching and terrifying. We see them yanked from their shells, all exposed flesh and raw nerves, shrunk down to something accessible and understandable in its undeniable humanity. Ifueko invites us to glimpse the world as they see it, made simple by fear and righteousness and fury, and we shake our heads in pity at some of them, roll our eyes at others, and wonder if we could ever forgive them.

All in all, Raybearer heralds a welcome new voice in fantasy. I'm so excited to read what Ifueko writes next!