This was good but not anything spectacular. I enjoyed my time with it and thought it was different from my normal Greek mythology it was still good and recognizable. The multi time lines for the characters worked well to bring it all together and I weirdly enjoyed that the time convergence point was a couple of chapters from the end so the end chapters were then in future tense.
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This was a hard book to read. So many content warnings: especially abuse, child soldiers, slavery, child abuse. So please be wary going into it if you’re sensitive to reading about such content.

This book is extremely well written and I was sucked in and it held me tightly in its grasp right until the end. The world building was probably my favourite part of this book, it was very unique and interesting to read about. I also really found the authors writing engaging. I flew through this book and I would highly recommend.

This was a deeply thought provoking and poignant story focusing on the intertwined connections between an alien species and the humans who once fled from their homes to escape and now must interact and co-exist with their oppressors. Told in a variety of timelines and perspectives, the narrative is initially very confusing as the author leaves us to find our own way through the plot without spoon-feeding. What emerges is a brutal and yet beautiful tale of what it means to belong and the lengths we will go to for those we love. This is definitely not a book for everyone, but for those who are willing to put a bit of effort into the first 50 pages or so to find their feet with the writing and narrative style, they will almost certainly enjoy the experience.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I really enjoyed that this was a dark sci-fi Hades and Persephone retelling. I thoroughly enjoyed the setting and world building of this novel. It was very fleshed out and I could picture all the settings. The multiple perspectives and timelines did make it a bit confusing at times and I wasn't sure how they were all going to connect in the end but I was satisfied with how it all came together. It was a lot more violent than I anticipated and while that did not affect my overall enjoyment of the story, it was sometimes difficult to read those scenes. All in all this was an enjoyable stand alone sci-fi novel and I look forward to reading more from this author.

A fully immersive science fiction story. Not the most linear story line so at times confusing but definitely a page turner that I couldn't put down. I would check out more by this author.

This is a very dark sci-fi retelling of Persephone. There are on page graphic depictions of child abuse, there are children soldiers and the world itself is very dark. None of these things bothered, my issue was that although I found the world intriguing and the narrative structure compelling (although very convoluted and confusing) I was kept at a distance from the characters so I was never truly immersed in the story. I really appreciated the project of this work and wished it was the start of a series instead of a standalone to flesh out the global/intergalactic conflict a bit more. I did like this enough to try more works by this author because the ideas and world were extremely interesting to me and it was like nothing I have read before, which I am always looking for.

One of my more memorable SFF reads from 2021, and I'm sorry not to have left a review sooner. Although this book is not perfect, at 3 stars on NetGalley and 3.6 stars on Goodreads currently I believe it's tragically underrated. Like a lot of my favorite SF these days, this narrative plays out beautifully on scales both intimate and cosmic, and the story (and main character!) kept me on my toes the whole way through. Would love to buy a hard copy of this one and will be looking out for the next book from this author for sure. Recommend to all contemporary SF fans (be sure to heed the content warnings).

Destroyer of Light is Jennifer Marie Brissett’s long-awaited follow up to her critically acclaimed debut Elysium, winner of a Philip K. Dick Special Citation and a finalist for the Locus and the Tiptree awards.

Elysium is set on Earth after people have been wiped out by aliens while Destroyer of Light takes readers to another planet and far into the future to meet the humans who survived Earth’s destruction.

The frame of Destroyer of Light is a mystery—a search for a missing boy. But the deeper story is about the relationship between a mother searching for her young daughter, who is kidnapped and abused by a warlord overseeing an army of child soldiers, and the relationship between humans and their former antagonists, the four-dimensional aliens known as the Krestge. Though the Krestge destroyed civilization on Earth, some of their descendants now live peacefully among humans, and while some humans are willing to forgive the crimes of the past, going so far as to start families with the Krestge, others see the crimes of the aliens’ forbears as unforgivable.

“There’s a lot of difficulty in answering questions as to what kind of people the Krestge are because to get to know one is not to get to know all. The first alien you meet in the beginning, the step-father of the missing [human] boy, is really worried about his son and wants to do everything he can to try and find him,” Brissett tells me on the new episode of New Books in Science Fiction.

“And yet I think the distrust that humanity has for the Krestge is not unfounded, and it’s not without its history and not without its reason. The feeling of not being told the entire truth, of not owning up to past sins, to just sort of pretending that it all just went away because you’ve decided to not be that anymore, doesn’t really happen.”

Real Rating: 4.75* of five, rounded up because it's really soooo close to perfect!

↡↡↡ HEED. THE. CONTENT. WARNINGS. BELOW. ↡↡↡

Humanity is clinging to existence on the tidally locked planet called "Eleusis." Their enemies, the krestge, have destroyed Earth (no one knows why) and evacuated them to Eleusis without doing anything more to complete the extermination (no one knows why). But life must go on. Being humanity, you know what this means: infighting, resource grabs, atrocities, all the usual stuff.

We follow the entire nightmarish fight between people, used in the sense of "humans," who would do better to question the hows and whys of the aliens who exist among them, as the entire planet careens towards some climactic cathartic cleansing of...of...of what, exactly? Is it time for Humanity to finish its extinction at the hands of its squabbling selves? Or is it just barely possible that this awful mirror is held up to make Humanity confront its worst and most enraging aspects?

You don't know Author Brissett's work if you think she provides an answer to that question.

Intricately interconnected strands of Eleusis's enhanced and unenhanced human remnants, violently abusing themselves and each other, aliens with the demonstrated capacity to end the entire human lineage sitting still and doing nothing are some of the mainstays of this book's architecture. The manner in which Author Brissett makes one care about the architecture is, in common with the subtle and unjustly undercelebrated [Elysium], left for you to discern. The clues are there. The point of the read is to get out of it what you put into it. While I myownself am indifferent to spoilers, having watched <I>The Crying Game</i> decades ago and thinking The Big Reveal was...kinda obvious...but in any event anticlimactic, I still think you'll enjoy the read more if you're left to mull over the roles of the krestge, the enhanced humans, the nature of the need for child soldiers, and the book's title. Hang on until the ending, and you will feel so very rewarded for your efforts.

There is MUCH to unearth. The pleasures in these words are very significant.

CW: sexual assault, CW: violence

4.5 stars.
This short sci-fi book written by a BIPOC author is just stunning.
This book in a nutshell is about humans trying to start over again on a new Planet Eleusis whilst trying to co-exist with an alien race that destroyed Earth 300 years (or more) ago. (Its not the alien's planet, rather they followed the humans there.) Like in every society, there are humans and aliens alike that do not agree with their co-existing situation. Younger generations had been genetically modified to better understand/fight against their alien invades. The tenuous peace is waiting to shatter with a rebellious army forming in the outlands of build civilization.

Whilst it had a slow start, I was blown away by the storytelling once it got going. Told from three POVs and multiple timelines, we mainly follow Cora our MC as we learn about her past, present and future... The other POVs originally seemed separate but it all cleverly came together in the end. The story kept jumping back and forth between the different planet sections and timelines but after the first few chapters it just worked - the intrigue kept me turning the pages. What i loved is that we see the interaction between the humans and aliens, and how some have embraced their differences. There is such a strong message of acceptance for those who are "different". At only around 300 pages, it was the perfect length for this story.

Be warned though there are a lot of trigger warnings in this book (such as rape, child abuse, sexual abuse, drug use), as its dark and realistically so (ugliness of humanity).

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor publishers for a eArc of this book in exchange for a review.

This was definitely a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”. I don’t know what I was anticipating but I struggled with this book! I love science fiction & I love the lore this is based in, but the book just didn’t click for me… I found it to be a disorienting reading experience! That being said, it’s definitely going to be a hit for a lot of sci fi lovers & if you’re someone who doesn’t need your stories to be linear, many of my objections won’t apply!

Thank you so much Netgalley & Tor for the eArc!

Based loosely on the myth of Persephone, Destroyer of Light at first follows three narrative strains: a missing boy in the city, young Cora kidnapped from her home, and Stefonie, a woman under the influence of a dangerous man. Having destroyed Earth, alien conquerors have resettled humanity on a distant planet divided into sections known as Day, Dusk, Dawn, and Night. Afrofuturist and intense, Destroyer of Light touches on sexual violence, family, horror, and home, all swirling to an unthinkable climax. Check it out, though maybe sleep with the light on when you do.

Ultimately, I enjoyed Destroyer of Light. I went in completely blind, which did me a favor as far as expectations went. I see a lot of other reviews mentioning they expected something more romantic based on Hades/Persephone mythology, but I had no such notion to color my reading. I really enjoyed the world building, the alien race was fascinating, and the pacing was fine as well, even if I feel like too much time in the beginning was spent on Okoni's child army. I think my only complaint would be hopping not just between character perspective but timeline as well, which I found a little needlessly disorienting and made it take longer for me to find my groove with the book. I'm fine with that kind of device, but it felt not immediately clear that that was what as happening (this may be due to my e-reader, which didn't seem to italicize some areas early in the book which were time indicators, but this was an ARC so that's to be expected)

Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brisset is filled with a very unique combination of themes on colonization, religion, cultural relations, and the intertwining of our present with our past and future. The non-linear timeline of the book was thematically interesting, and I found it stylistically reminiscent of authors like Tony Morrison and China Mieville. Overall, I enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it for readers who enjoy very theme driven explorations of both sci-fi world-building and characters!

Lastly, I’m going to add that I switched between reading physically and listening to the wonderful audiobook narration read by Chersie Boothe. As much as I loved the narration, I did get lost in the timeline a bit without visual cues like page breaks. In some ways, this narration made the themes on time more poignant; however, keep in mind that it also can be confusing.

A new sci-fi favorite. Jennifer Marie Brissett has created a masterpiece that is easily accessible for any reader. I couldn't put it down!

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This book is set in the future where aliens called krestge have attacked earth and humanity is now on a new planet, Eleusis where they live together with the aliens. It follows quite a large cast of characters that seem to sometimes be very disconnected because of the time jumps. If you don't pay attention to the time at the beginning of each chapter, expect to be confused, especially near the beginning when you are getting to know the characters.

There were a few things that I loved about this book. Firstly, the world-building. Eleusis is vividly described as being separated by Dawn, Dusk, Day, and Night. Wherever the characters go, I was able to easily visualize the setting. Brissett also does a fantastic job at characterization and arcs. The krestge are a super interesting species and the technology that this book uses are very cool. There were some stories I didn't much care for because they didn't show up very often and their story just wasn't as interesting to me as others.

This is a very, very bleak story that gives you flashes of optimism. It is incredibly violent, which normally I don't have an issue with as long as it serves to further the plot seems purposefully done. However, there were times where it didn't seem to have a point and was just in for shock value or just to reiterate the terrible world humanity is now forced to live on.

I also found myself thrown out of my flow of reading from the constant time jumps. I don't mind jumping between characters, but the time jumps always seem to get me. It is jarring and difficult for me to keep track of. I can admit this is completely subjective, it just wasn't my favorite organizational choice. This book was very well written and I was able to immerse myself in the world for the most part. There are plenty of trigger warnings at the beginning so if you plan on reading this, please pay them attention.

I would recommend this book to readers that I know like complex science fiction. Some readers will be put off by the way the story is told from different points in time.

This was a very good book that I really enjoyed reading. The dynamic between humans and their alien antagonists is compelling. Given the history of what the Krestage did to Earth and humans, you would assume that humanity would bind together for a better and greater purpose. However, that is not the case. Even off-world, humanity continues to separate themselves in to haves and have-nots while aligning themselves with the Krestage as equals and friends.

Humanity turns a blind eye to history, even though the tragic truth still looks them in the eye every day. It takes a kidnapped child with special abilities to make humanity realize the truth and ultimately set them free and on a path to a better future.

Character building is great, world building is great, and the overall story was well told. Definitely recommend.

I had a really hard time following this one. One of the big "twists" was very obvious to me pretty much from the beginning; I don't know how obvious it was supposed to be but that's neither here nor there. Between the alternating timelines (I'll admit that modular style isn't my favorite and I tend to prefer my stories linearly told), POVs that were super confusing (sometimes they were first, sometimes third, and there was some random character who came out of nowhere and turned out to be really important??), and a very complicated sociopolitical structure that was never fully explained, I was left unmoored.

Note that there are also a lot of on-page cruelties and content warnings such as child trafficking, rape of a minor, and emotional and physical abuse.

There were a lot of different things that sort of emerged partially-formed in what could have been an epic and very complicated analysis of society which instead obfuscated and confused.

I would still certainly read another book by this author though!

Brissett showcases masterful worldbuilding. Destroyer of Light is set on another planet where humans have fled to after an alien race violently ravages Earth. But there’s one catch: the alien race responsible for the carnage have followed Earth’s refugees to their new home on Eleusis. Even though the aliens claim to want to live in peaceful coexistence, many humans remain wary of their could-be conquerors. One such skeptic is a brutal, abusive warlord who roams the countryside abducting children for his army of child soldiers to one day stand against the aliens. However, his motivations for these kidnappings are twofold: he’s also in search of certain kinds of children marked by their eye color and super-human abilities. One such child is a young girl named Cora, who the warlord takes as his child bride, trains, and grooms for some unknown-to-the-reader purpose.

Like much good sci-fi, Destroyer of Light explores contemporary issues in a futuristic setting. In particular, Brissett examines postcolonial relationships between former colonizers--responsible for great atrocities and oppression--with the formerly colonized. Racism, classism, and prejudice are also at the fore of most relationships in the book. And finally, there are heavy, heavy depictions of rape, abuse, and intimate partner violence.

While there is much to appreciate about Destroyer of Light, I found it slow reading at times. It was also a challenging read with few moments of respite from the trauma. Most of the characters are complex and morally murky, which was interesting to read, but didn’t inspire deep attachment. Read it--but don’t expect to feel warm and fuzzy. My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for giving me advance access to this book in exchange for an honest review.