I’ve unfortunately sat on this book for longer than I should have. The Fractured Dark—the second book in Megan O’Keefe’s The Devoured Worlds trilogy—is an excellent follow up that sets the stakes for the final installment, raising new questions and creating new fears. Spoilers for The Blighted Stars follow.
Naira and Tarquin are struggling to reconnect since Naira’s sacrifice on the Einkorn. She was unable to upload her memories before her valiant death, so the time she spent romancing with Tarquin is gone. Acaelus, father of Tarquin and head of the Mercator family, has spirited away with the remainder of the relkatite—the precious mineral required for printing the bodies people inhabit. There aren’t many people who know the true nature of canus, the shroud and relkatite, but Naira and Tarquin plan to change that. With Acaelus gone, Tarquin sees an opportunity to step in as head of Mercator and warn the families of MERIT that something awful behind the scenes is going on. And Naira spirits away to find out just where the hell Acaelus and the rest of the Mercator family has gone, so she can find out their plans once and for all.
As this is a sequel, and as it is the second in a trilogy, I’ve had to take some time to think about how to approach this review. Ultimately, I liked The Fractured Dark, but it feels a lot more like a stepping stone to the final book than I would have liked. O’Keefe still shows that she is a master at writing relationship struggles, and how individuals perceive their place within them. She also keeps her hands firmly on the controls when it comes to the themes, exploring them more vividly and deeply than before while keeping them open for the final installment. Where this book sort of lost me a little bit was in its plotting. O’Keefe loves to accelerate towards oblivion and The Fractured Dark has certainly forgotten the meaning of the word “brake,” but I sometimes found myself a little at loss for what was going on.
Let’s deal with some of the good stuff first. Tarquin and Naira are a pair that feels specifically designed for my taste. A soft boy and a hard woman. Their interactions are as delightful as they are heart-rending at times. Sometimes their reluctance is a little repetitive I will admit, but generally I enjoyed their dance the second time around. A lot of the issues revolve around the climax of the first book, and expand from there, making the tension in their relationship palpable. Where O’Keefe succeeds for me is that the anticipation still existed even though as a reader we’ve been through it before. I still waited with a bated breath on whether Tarquin and Naira would keep it going. Their flirting was tantalizing, partly because Tarquin wanted to be thrown around like a sack of potatoes, but also because O’Keefe knows how to highlight their anxiety and tension with each other that they have to find ways to break through. The addition of someone from Naira’s past, trying to force themselves into a love triangle only strengthened the dynamics of the duo. While I can see why some find it unnecessary, I do think that O’Keefe is playing a longer game with it that I want to see to its end.
The plot however, left me a little confused this time around. I think O’Keefe’s penchant for acceleration back weighted the sequel pretty heavily leading to a lot of weird questions that go unanswered. I also feel that even a few weeks after reading the book I am confused on what exactly happened in some of those moments. I will say the parts that could have been the most confusing though, were deftly handled by O’Keefe’s writing ability. I think I just got lost in the pure density of events, not the handling of them. For the most part, the book is pretty even, with escalations that feel appropriate for the trajectory of the story. Choices have to be made by characters who are slowly losing control of their own ability to make said choices. Priorities begin to shift as the characters try to salvage what they can from the decaying system in order to fight the Canus fungi that is infecting everyone. O’Keefe sells questionable decisions, and while she could have leaned overly heavily on plot reasons, it didn’t feel heavy handed to me. And that’s where the themes come in baby.
When I initially read The Blighted Stars, I liked the direction that O’Keefe was headed in but had a few reservations about the canus infection. I felt it could have easily fallen into “collective hive mind vs individual” territory even if it didn’t necessarily go there. When I reread the last ten chapters of the book as a refresher, I immediately recognized Canus as something else. That’s right folks, it’s everyone’s favorite bad guy… Capitalism. And with this in mind I dove into The Fractured Dark, commie senses tingling. And at the end of it, I think that still holds. Canus is unrelenting in its pursuit of spreading itself and maintaining a hold on those under it’s thrall. It can’t be seen, felt or heard, yet it permeates every decision made by the characters. Extraction, environmental degradation, personal relations, the structure of society and the relations of the people within it are all tainted by this unseen force. Much like how the need to make more money is an outsized force in our decision making, canus directs the attention of the characters to stabilize things for its continued growth. Where O’Keefe plays with it a little more is in how people are unable to make the “right” decisions because something is influencing them, whether or not they are “infected.”
Since this is only the second book, there is still time for this to spin out of control, but I am curious as all hell to see where O’Keefe takes the reader. I know that the third book will feel like an unrelenting rain of terrible revelations and tightening tension, but I have faith given her history with the Protectorate trilogy. The Fractured Dark is a solid book even if I felt a bit more harried and confused by it than I would have liked. I imagine this series will be best read straight through, but until I read the final book, we’ll just have to hold out and hope Naira and Tarquin can make it work.
Rating: The Fractured Dark – A Choppy But Promising Stepping Stone to the Finale.
-Alex
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
