The Sunless Countries
What do you do when you've created an open-ended universe of
unmatched richness and potential? You keep exploring it! I'm very far
from exhausting the possibilities of my world Virga, and here's The Sunless Countries
to prove it. This novel is connected to the previous three in the
series, but doesn't require that you've read them. It introduces new
characters in a new setting while retaining enough links to the other
books for fans of those stories. It really is all one grand epic tale,
but I've tried to keep the action local in each book, and that's
definitely the case here.
Meet Leal Hieronyma Maspeth. She's a history tutor at the University of Sere, in the nation of Abyss. Leal's a curious mixture of discipline and unbridled imagination: she works hard to get ahead in her cut-throat academic world, but nonetheless dreams of being swept away by the dashing sun lighter, Hayden Griffin, who has recently come to Sere to build a new sun for some other country.
As events conspire, she will end up meeting Griffin, but nothing is like she imagined it would be. In particular, she never dreamt that something ancient and terrible might awaken in the darkness beyond Sere's streetlights--perhaps a fabled worldwasp, come to wreack vengeance on humanity for some long-forgotten slight. Nor could she have anticipated that, in Abyss's current anti-intellectual backlash, she would end up being the only person who even knows what a worldwasp is, much less how to deal with it...
Initial Reviews
Publisher's weekly had this to say about The Sunless Countries:
The inventive and solidly enjoyable fourth novel set in the bubble world of Virga (after 2008's Pirate Sun) takes place far from the artificial suns that light the central regions. As entire towns fall victim to a mysterious threat, perhaps from "outside," a religious movement begins insisting that the world is eternal, not created. The Eternists confiscate books, censor the news and force through a referendum subjecting science to popular vote, while sun lighter Hayden Griffin, familiar from previous books, teams up with local historian Leal to investigate the attacks. They find an expedition killed by rain, meet up with groups officially deemed "mythical" and fend off political threats and outside forces that aren't what they seem. Schroeder paints his unique world with deft touches while keeping the story moving briskly. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Here's the first reader review, which appeared in early spring and therefore must have been based on the Advanced Reading Copy rather than the final product:
First review of The Sunless Countries
Schroeder evokes the slow, crushing drift into ideological nonsense in a distressingly compelling way, & puts Leal [Maspeth] in the heart of it; should she collaborate with the Eternists to try to salvage some representation of science & history (even if she has to teach it as heretical, along side accepted dogma) or should she make a meaningless stand?
