Publication date : October 12, 2021
Language : English
File size : 3854 KB
A 2021 Kirkus Best of the Year Book
A 2021 Kirkus Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book
"[A] dark, poetic tale of struggling human colonists and ambiguously motivated aliens on a distant planet. Brissett uses the alien setting to explore contemporary issues, including racism, the complexities of allyship, and the trauma experienced by child soldiers. The author’s updated take on a classic myth is both clever and entertaining...Richly developed and profound" —Kirkus, Starred Review
“Destroyer of Light is proof positive that we're living in a new golden age of science fiction.” ―Charlie Jane Anders, Hugo Award-winning author
“Destroyer of Light grapples with themes of both the human and post-human experience in a way that is wholly original and seductively engaging. Brissett builds a richly layered and imaginative world that reflects much of our own―the good, the brutal, and the truly monstrous―while daring us to dream of something more. This is a tale not only of becoming and transformation, but about the choices we make that bring us to our destinations. In a time of new, meaningful, and thrilling science fiction, Destroyer of Light is a must read.” ―P. Djèlí Clark, Hugo Finalist and author of The Haunting of Tram Car 015
“A saga that combines many of sf’s most beloved tropes―a remnant of humanity struggling to survive on a far away world, aliens whose goals are dangerously unknowable, alien/human hybrids with unpredictable abilities, suspense, plot twists, and that good old sense of wonder. Hugely ambitious, impressively accomplished.” ―Karen Joy Fowler
“Destroyer of Light confirms Brissett as one of our finest and most ambitious novelists. A world-spanning epic that explores and explodes what it's like to be both human and post-human. Gorgeously written and heartfelt, it's quite simply one of the best books I've read in a very long time.” ―Elizabeth Hand, author of The Book of Lamps and Banners and Curious Toys
Having destroyed Earth, the alien conquerors resettle the remains of humanity on the planet of Eleusis. In the four habitable areas of the planet—Day, Dusk, Dawn, and Night—the haves and have nots, criminals and dissidents, and former alien conquerors irrevocably bind three stories:
*A violent warlord abducts a young girl from the agrarian outskirts of Dusk leaving her mother searching and grieving.
*Genetically modified twin brothers desperately search for the lost son of a human/alien couple in a criminal underground trafficking children for unknown purposes.
*A young woman with inhuman powers rises through the insurgent ranks of soldiers in the borderlands of Night.
Their stories, often containing disturbing physical and sexual violence, skate across years, building to a single confrontation when the fate of all—human and alien—balances upon a knife’s-edge.
EXCERPT
DAWN, 10 YEARS AGO . . .
Drifting down down down and spinning as if on a thread in diz- zying turns, the invisible strand that connects me delicately un- ravels as I join with you in your act of becoming. I will share with you in this, your dangerous journey, because I cannot bear to al- low you to do this alone. Into your memory we travel together, and of all the strange corners of the world where we could land, we find ourselves in a kitchen.
So many sensations, strange but not unpleasant, envelop us. So much stimuli to delight and intoxicate. Warmth emanates from a cooling stove. The scents of drying leaves that hung along the walls fragrance the air. The aromas of the spices and mint, and the grassy freshness of the herbs growing on the window- sill or neatly labeled and placed on shelves, waft through my in- corporeal skin. And yet I also sense unease, a darkness looming from every corner and shadowed crevice. Memories can be like this—ghostly and unsteady, a little bit true, a little bit false dis- connected, then joining to create image and form.
You appear out of the ether. Both of you. Mother and child. Deidra and you. Cora, with your soft, puffy body and two small, awkwardly protruding points pushed up against the front of your frock, make a very unlikely harbinger of the days to come. Only your eyes cause one to stop and consider. They are wide and in- quisitive, with irises of amber outlined in mahogany, and your stare penetrates, infusing the onlooker with the strong desire to turn away.
All is stillness as I move about the kitchen, then the room morphs into activity. The clinking of dishes. The tender steps of the child clearing the table. The wish-wash of moving water as the mother earnestly washes the dishes. A strange tension lingers in
the air. Were they mad at each other? Has the child done some- thing wrong? She seems so timid as she stands behind her mother holding a bowl cupped in both hands while the mother bends over the sink. Moments pass in agonizing lengths as the two re- main like this: one standing, quietly beseeching attention, and the other ignoring her presence. For a while I wonder if the mother knows that the child is there. A slight nod of her head and a grunt makes it clear that she knows. The child, finally given permission to approach, carefully places her bowl on the counter.
Mother bemoans, “After a long day of work I still have to do all this.”
“I’ll do them,” Cora says, brightening.
“No, you never do them right,” Mother responds with a sigh.
And then I feel how the girl feels. She thinks her mother doesn’t like her, maybe even hates her. She thinks her mother believes her strange, too wise beyond her years, useless, incapable of do- ing the simplest things—even something as mundane as wash- ing the dishes. Cora longs for the feel of her mother’s soft skin, cool and scented with lavender. It’s been so long since her mother touched her and Cora doesn’t know why the tenderness ended. Flashes appear of how close they used to be. How they went every- where together. How Mother strapped Cora to her waist with a cloth with the child’s little head bobbing. She smiled with her two tiny front teeth surrounded by gums. Dark splotches swam across the child’s skin, face, and arms—something left over by what they had done to her. Mother simply covered them with the swaddling clothes and kept prying eyes at a distance. Then the images waver and fade away.
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