Release Date: November 15, 2022
Publisher: Saga Press
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Description
Celeste, a card sharp with a need for justice, takes on the role of advocatus diaboli, to defend her sister Mariel, accused of murdering a Virtue, a member of the ruling class of this mining town, in a new world of dark fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse.
The year is 1883 and the mining town of Goetia is booming as prospectors from near and far come to mine the powerful new element Divinity from the high mountains of Colorado with the help of the pariahs of society known as the Fallen. The Fallen are the descendants of demonkind living amongst the Virtues, the winners in an ancient war, with the descendants of both sides choosing to live alongside Abaddon’s mountain in this tale of the mythological West from the bestselling mastermind Rebecca Roanhorse.
My Thoughts
With Tread of Angels, Rebecca Roanhorse blends tropes from Westerns and noir with Biblical mythology. In the western town of Goetia are the bones of a dead divine being. What is mined from those bones is used to power just about everything, from automobiles to strange mechanical objects. The town is mostly populated by two kinds of people: the Elect, the descendants of angels who control the politics, the businesses, and the power; and the Fallen, the descendants of the demons who were once fallen angels. But there’s also another class of people: the children born of the Elect and the Fallen, people like Celeste and her sister Mariel. They are lucky to be able to pass as human, while those who can’t, whose Fallen ancestry is too visible, are consigned to the lowest tier of society…
Read the rest of this review at Locus Magazine.
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