The Last Sun

A very good debut urban fantasy. It has the fast-paced feel of this genre, with lots of banter and action scenes. So many action scenes. Overall I enjoyed the core of the book, but the experience of reading it was often pretty exhausting, because the characters are constantly battling enemies. At some point I got drawn in, but it didn't happen for at least three-fourths of the book. So it was a slow read for me, even though I did end up really liking it.

First: major content warning for rape. The main character is a rape survivor, and his whole life crumbled around him as a result of the attack. He relives his rape in detail at one point. Two villains also taunt him about it, using explicit language.

Most of the major characters are something like demigods or superheroes, called Atlanteans, who live in their own community in the human world, but can use magic in various ways. The rules of magic are defined pretty well. Usually, Rune tells the reader important information in a fairly conversational style, which I liked. But I was confused sometimes, because you really only see how magic actually works when it's relevant to the plot. I felt like I had a decent handle on it about halfway through. The Atlanteans' everyday lives are mostly like human lives from our own world, although most of them are fabulously wealthy, except for Rune and his household.

The characterizations are all very good and consistent. The book is completely in the first-person PoV of the main character, Rune, and I felt like I knew him very well. He's easy to like, yet not a reader-insert type of character. He has his own experiences and his own personality. He's very powerful and makes a living as a sort of badass-for-hire, along with his bonded human companion and best friend, Brand, a highly trained warrior.

The plot is about Rune and Brand finding an Atlantean who has been kidnapped, rescuing him, figuring out who kidnapped him, and fighting against monsters. The monsters are mostly zombies; I hate zombies, but it isn't an overly gory book. This plot is totally resolved in this book, but other plot threads are introduced which I'm sure will be explored in the rest of the series.

Atlantean society has an “everyone is bi/pan” feel, with some exceptions. Rune reads as almost completely gay to me. But I thought that his love interest Adam was a great example of bisexual representation. He is flirty and promiscuous, but neither of those are portrayed as especially negative traits. He's also shown to be loyal over the course of this story.

This book's major flaw, to me, is its serious lack of interesting female characters. Almost any of the major characters could have been female, with no changes to the plot: Lord Tower, Kiran (sorry if I misspelled that; I listened to the audiobook), Brand, Quinn, Max. I found the most important female characters impossible to sympathize with, and I don't think any of them were meant to be sympathetic. There are also jokes about anorexia, and about the size of Rune's butt, and I consider that kind of humor to be in bad taste.

On that topic, I don't really like fast-paced banter in general, especially with a lot of real-world references, so I wasn't really the target audience for this book. But I know many readers would like the humor.

I think Rune and Brand are in their late 30s, but Atlantean society works differently, because people age more slowly and live longer lives. They are good at what they do, but the story is very much about Rune coming into his power. So, I'd probably categorize the book as new adult.

It was the gripping plot, as well as my fondness for Rune, that kept me reading, even though there are a few elements that aren't my kind of thing. I'm really eager for the next book. The audiobook narration by Josh Hurley was perfect for an action-oriented story.