Dark Moon Shallow Sea

I’m slowly beginning to think that David Slayton may not be the author for me. My reactions to this book feel very similar to his fairly popular series (by gay fantasy standards at least) White Trash Warlock. I don’t want to say that I don’t have any concrete issues with the book, but the biggest one is that the writing style just didn’t resonate with me. It just ended up being the type of story I likely won’t remember in a month.

Elevator Pitch:
In the recent past, knights of the sun god killed the moon goddess and her priests, accusing her of consorting with demons. Now the tides have stopped, bloodthirsty shades haunt the night, and poverty is rampant. Rafe was raised in a temple to the moon goddess, and barely escaped with his life. Now a thief, he hears rumors of a strange container being moved by the Knights embossed with the symbol of his goddess. Inside he finds a human named Kinos, and the who escape in hot pursuit by the Knights, including Seth. Seth is an impure Knight, who can call the fire of his god, but isn’t protected from it like the other Knights. And Seth will do anything to claim his god’s favor, including hunting down a thief and a mysterious boy sought out by the church.

What Worked For Me
I should have loved this book. This book is everything that I say that I claim to be looking for in Fantasy, but that rarely gets published. It’s got some really interesting worldbuilding ideas, characters placed on opposing sides of a conflict, and a gay love story that doesn’t overwhelm the main plot. It’s definitely epic in nature, and religious introspection normally is a big hit for me. A series of checkboxes ticked that should result in a perfect book for me.

And what I can say definitively is that I don’t think it was bad. I have some criticisms, but I think mostly the vibes just weren’t a good fit, to the point where I’m having trouble identifying anything that felt like a standout, even though I should have a bucket of compliments to give a story like this.

What Didn’t Work For Me
I never ended up caring terribly much about any of the characters or felt like they were particularly well-realized. Seth’s grappling with religion echoed my recent read of Greenwode, which featured a lot of questioning of religions you’re a part of, but I feel like Greenwode handled that content in more interesting ways. The world should have been interesting (the moon was killed!) but ended up feeling like a fairly generic human-centric fantasy world with deadly shades. And the cat & mouse nature of the plot never really felt tense or thrilling. Part of this might be due to my reading this book in audio format, where I generally find my appreciation of books to be on the lower end, but it just lacked any sort of ‘it factor’ or standout element that gripped me. I wasn’t dong extra housework as an excuse squeeze another 30 minutes of listening time in. It was just … fine.

Part of this might have been a relatively quick disengagement with the romance plotline elements. This isn’t a romantasy by any means, but there’s a clear love triangle with Rafe in the center. However, I didn’t feel any sort of chemistry between characters. The core romance between Rafe and Kinos kicked off very quickly without any discernible tension or flirting I could see. Looking hot might be enough in the real world, but it doesn’t make for a great story. I needed flirty banter, or slow building tension, or something to convince me they were falling for each other. To me, it felt like they were in love because the story demanded it, rather than because it felt right for the characters. I suppose this connects to my earlier thoughts. Perhaps this book felt too forced. A book for the sake of being a book, rather than something that felt coherent and tightly written.

The other major criticism I had was that there were some twists near the end of the book that I didn’t think landed the way Slayton intended. Some were great, specifically tidbits of information about the greater world and the gods that helped set up for sequels. However, character/plot focused reveals felt contrived. Even though they were explained in-narrative, I couldn’t ever shake the feeling that, had this been real life, there’s no way these convoluted choices would have been made. Not when safe, obvious, straightforward, reliable, and effective options were available to the antagonists. Several moments of ‘really, that was your plan all along?’. I already felt relatively disengaged by this point, so I didn’t get nearly as riled up as when I read Shoestring Theory and found the twists to unravel what could have been a fantastic story. It was simply a ding against a book I was already just floating through, instead of excitedly reading.

Conclusion: a book that felt tepid to me, even though little was ‘wrong’ in any sort of objective sense (as much as a review can ever be objective)

• Characters: 2
• Worldbuilding: 3
• Craft: 2
• Themes: 2
• Enjoyment: 2