Reminiscent of China Miéville and Octavia Butler, Jennifer Marie Brissett, author of Elysium, has created a disturbing and haunting sf narrative in Destroyer of Light, interweaving mythology with interdimensional aliens, human refuges, child soldiers, and genetic engineering.
Over three hundred-years in the future, all humans on the planet Eleusis are refugees following the alien destruction of Earth.
Within this society of haves and have-nots, of criminals and dissidents, of former alien conquerors claiming a desire for peaceful cohabitation, three stories intertwine: a young girl abducted by a violent warlord, twin brothers searching for the lost son of a human/alien couple, and a young woman with extraordinary powers who's risen through the insurgent ranks in the borderlands called Night. Their stories skate across years to build towards one moment, when the fate of all-human and alien, hangs in the balance.
"Reading Destroyer of Light is a disorienting experience. As with so much of the best science fiction, the details of its worldbuilding sound crazy and arbitrary if you just summarize them flatly ... And yet these details coalesce into compelling and disturbing patterns as you read the novel as a whole and reflect upon the implications not just of its plot, but also of the overall environment that
The Los Angeles Review of Books
"Brissett retells the myth of Persephone in this dystopian Afro-futuristic thriller. It is a wonderful story of transformation, survival, and what it means to be human. As effortlessly as she weaves between the past, present, and future, Brissett also blends sci-fi fantasy with a little whodunit. If you enjoy Afrocentric stories and characters this is a book for you."
