I first became aware of Jordan Ifueko’s novel Raybearer from a YouTube video by book reviewer Dominic Noble. Noble was sparse on details in order to avoid spoilers, but what he did say really intrigued me. Essentially, he explained that while most fantasy novels are based off the history, culture, and folklore of Europe, Raybearer took its inspiration from African history, culture, and folklore, and was, in his estimation, a really good book on top of all that.
Hey, I’ve read books with less impressive recommendations than that, so I was intrigued enough to give it a shot.
I don’t want to say too much about this book’s plot because it has some wonderful and intelligent plot twists along the way. What I feel comfortable saying is that it centers around narrator Tarisai, a young girl growing up on a remote part of the Aritsar Empire. Her mother, known only as The Lady, is a sporadic presence, and Tarisai aches for her mother’s affection. However, The Lady has a plan that involves Tarisai. The Emperor of Aritsar has a special council made up of 11 people, all of whom love the Emperor, and each representing a different nation within the Empire. There are, it seems, 12 ways to die. Each member of the council makes the Emperor immune to one of those methods. The only way the Emperor can die is of old age. But The Lady has a plan to kill the Crown Prince, a lad about Tarisai’s age. Tarisai is the key to this plan. And she may not want to do be a part of it…
There’s a lot more going on beyond that, but the joy of Ifueko’s novel is that the various characters she introduces are rarely two-dimensional. Take The Lady for example. Based on the description above and knowing the genre, it might be easy to conclude she is a villain of some kind. Indeed, she does a lot of nasty things during the course of the book, but is she evil? Or does she have a legitimate motivation for what she believes? And is the Emperor entirely innocent? How much or how little does the Crown Prince know? What does Tarisai want for herself out of life? Is the Empire itself the utopia it appears to be at first glance?
These are the sorts of questions that the novel addresses and addresses well. Ifueko’s worldbuilding is spectacular. The reader learns more about the world as Tarisai does, starting as it does with her childhood and going up to her young adulthood. This is a book that is essentially about the power of stories, both literally and figuratively. Aritsar has a story about its creation, just as there’s a story about the various Emperors, but of course these stories rarely reflect reality. Other times, stories can sustain the characters and the reader. What may be the greatest act of courage may be the desire to somehow if not change the story than to write one’s own, especially when the change would be to the benefit of the world at large and not just the tale-teller.
Ifuenko’s novel ends with a set-up for the next book, and it looks to expand the work here, particularly a reoccurring subplot from this book involving a sacrifice to the Underworld that needs to be made on a regular basis. After what she accomplished with the first book in the series, I am truly looking forward to the next one, out sometime within the next few months. Hopefully I’ll have time to read it.
Grade: A
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