Traces Of The Sun: English Edition

The audiobook is surprisingly well done. The narrator does a great job of making sure you can tell when a different character is speaking, and he does a great job of explaining the solar traces and other technical terms that I had a hard time understanding when reading the book. The sound quality is very professional, and he even includes background music during the intense parts to make them even more immersive. It made for a great listen on my commute, and helped to really bring the world to life, especially in the more methodical world-building parts of the story.

If you are on the fence between using credits to listen to this or reading the text version, I recommend going for the audio book first and see if it ‘connects’ with you. The performance definitely adds a layer of emotion that isn’t present in the straight text version.

'Boy Meets Girl' - no, I’m joking! Descendants of the Sun is a really tricky drama to classify because the core of it is a romance but the military setting makes it so much more. It’s like a cross between Grey’s and Call of Duty but with much better character development and so much more chemistry. The personal struggles of the main characters and the professional struggles are intertwined and all made so much better by the side characters. Also, there’s this really fun squad of misfits and the hospital staff who add lots of comic relief and pathos.

As a ‘gateway’ drama for new fans of the Korean drama scene, ‘Descendants of the Sun’ ticks all of the right boxes – plenty of action and a great love story. The soundtrack is still going strong and gets stuck in my head rent free!

At its heart, this conflict isn’t one that is solved through war, but instead through a magically binding trial before a neutral, celestial court. The story follows the two young and inexperienced advocates for the Sun and Moon as they travel the cosmos, gathering evidence and calling witnesses to several different mythic locations. All of their discoveries must then be used to present a case in court based on the ancient laws of divine origin that were used to create the two. As the case heats up, one of the advocates will find himself growing more and more attached to a key witness for the opposing side, putting his case in jeopardy. The plot is the investigation into the cause of the opposing side’s actions and the tense, procedural drama of the actual trial. The fate of two realms will depend on the smallest of legal technicalities and a single effective argument. Weirdly compelling.

I haven't looked for these books in years. Maybe half-price bookstore has some surprises left.

The ending is Klara, discarded, looking at a scrap heap. Josie lives. The sun ‘answered’ her prayers and then drained her of life. This serves as a commentary on the service and sacrifice that Klara has provided to Josie throughout her existence. She had a pure and focused love for this little girl.

But what do we do with that kind of perfect devotion once we have used it to meet our immediate needs? We outgrow our guardians. This novel is a dirge for that retired heart, left to be a story that is told and then forgotten by the Manager in a final visit. Klara remembers it all, but it is just a story to her now.

Yeah, same to you! I’ve been searching for about 3 months now with sporadic searching every now and then, and then I have a big search day where I click through a ton of sketchy sites with tons of pop-ups, and I never find what I’m looking for. Hopefully some publisher will pick up your book. That would be great. The searching is exhausting.

Dawnwalker is primarily a story about broken people finding family. Yes, it has plenty of action (assassination, heists, a big betrayal), but the true weight of the book rests on these quiet moments: Elyra teaching Kiran how to pick a lock while arguing about his black-ethics; sharing stale bread with a stray that becomes a sort of mascot for them. The magic system follows from the action in interesting ways. “Dawn singing” allows the user to manipulate his or her shadows, but each use erases a memory from that user’s mind. Thus, even simple action becomes a heavy burden.

It’s a clever subversion of a number of tropes. The prophecy child can refuse to be the prophecy child (Kiran is; he just refuses to be *the* Chosen One), and the big final battle is not about who-wields-the-most-power, but about who is willing to make the greatest sacrifice: Elyra using up her last remaining memory of home to power a single spell. Very messy, very sad, but ultimately hopeful.

The title of this novel is ‘Klara and the Sun’. The central relationship of the novel is stripped bare and what we are left with is a physical object being shone by a star. The ‘and’ of the title becomes meaningless as Klara learns that she and the Sun are two things in proximity. The Sun did not save her. It just shines. Klara did not commune with the Sun. She was powered by it. The beautiful fiction of the novel is undermined by the brutal, scientific truth. So the explanation of the ending of the novel is the explanation of that disconnection. The novel describes the dissolution of a much loved myth and what is left is the stark, bare facts of existence.

You can buy Iron Flame from Amazon, B&N, Bookshop.org and read in ebook form on Kindle and Kobo. The audiobook is published by Audible and the e-book is available to borrow for free from libraries in ebook form via Libby. You can also find Iron Flame in independent bookshops and get it in special editions too – prices may vary though, so have a root around online to find the best option. Happy reading!

Understand that because of how great we build up the search for a book, the book itself can end up being way more mediocre than we anticipated. Yes, good, possibly even great, but still just a book of words (hardcopy or ebook). This will be the majority of what you read, so try to temper your high expectations. Remember that most books are just stories and not, in fact, some epic mythology by Tolkien. Thus, once you find the book you’ve been searching for, you can actually enjoy it for what it is, rather than the extreme search for it that you’d gone on. Happy reading!