The stars that rise at dawn

This book is unlike any other book I’ve read, but if you want to know what books it is similar to, the closest is this: If, when you were a kid, you loved A Wrinkle In Time, but no longer need dangers and villains in a story about existential beauty, spiritual ecstasy, philosophy, and most of all, self-knowledge, this is a book for you. Also motorcycles.

In The Stars That Rise At Dawn, the dangers and obstacles are the baggage of one’s past, the pressure of childhood friendships that no longer fit the people within them, and the challenges of living truthfully that only arise after a young adult has come of age. It melds the religious impulse of awe at what already exists, the creative drive to bring new things into existence, the overwhelming need to express one’s consciousness that has likely characterized young humans since the beginning of time, and the characteristically millennial experience of new adults realizing that they don’t know the people they have been around all their lives from Adam (no pun about this book, where Adam himself figures in passing, intended!). One cannot do everyone the disservice of failing to discover oneself and one another — even if that includes befriending the angel Lucifer, who is overly concerned with ensuring that everyone is Completely Themselves, due to trauma of (literally) Biblical proportions, and....well, that’s where the millenial angst fades back and the fantasy comes in.

However, the fantasy is intensely psychological in nature. The main form of magic, Theurgy, is the ability to manifest one’s soul in a tangible form that embodies the naked truth of who one really is, perfect and inviolable under the pretensions, presumptions, and blind spots that obscure them. The vivid differences from one person to another are highlighted by the cast’s variety of neurotypes and gender identities, and in their needs and wants. There is gentle, shy, and anxious Yenatru, who has no trouble knowing or manifesting his soul, but much trouble with showing any hint of it to other people, in spite of — or because of — how deeply he cares for them. Bold, unwavering, impulsive Tamar, who has possibly never felt an anxiety in her life, who feels no need to manifest her own soul, only the need to carry the full glory of God’s presence within her forever. And determined, single-minded, scrupulous Eliya, who is so hyperfocused on the meaning and ethics of what she does that it takes the whole book for her to understand the facts of who she is. And then there’s Lucifer. Who is. Well.

The fantasy universe the story takes place is equally committed to showing the validity of diverse ways of living – a thoughtful and delightful take on Abrahamic mythology, where God, Angels, Demons, Lucifer, Lilith, Eden, the Covenant, holy mountains and holy people abound, with a compassionate, intelligent twist that is a reconstruction, not a deconstruction, of Biblical depictions. The society is one of mixes: a culture with a mythical archaic vibe that is soaked in religion and spirituality and where crossing paths with divine beings and magic users is only slightly unusual, but with none of the real world's dogmas, taboos, hierarchy, moral haranguing or institutional control to twist it. Teeming desert cities where the technology hovers vaguely around that of the 1970s or 1940s, but the social norms, especially around gender, sexuality, and neurodivergency, are highly advanced and futuristic. A vaguely incomplete utopia, where most socioeconomic problems are solved so that the people in it can live their lives with few obstacles other than themselves. People sporting demons' horns, manifestations of their own souls, or the literal fire of God lounge in college libraries, go on motorcycle roadtrips, and casually debate each other in coffeeshops.

The deeper worldbuilding is just as creatively rebellious without being negative or iconoclastic. For example, Lucifer is a fallen angel, but is an unconditionally good (if somewhat neurotic) person. However, this story is not one of those resentful role-reversals where Lucifer is a maligned and unfairly-punished escapee of an oppressive and tyrannical divine hierarchy (an interpretation that may have once been provocative, but, in my opinion, has been getting exponentially staler and more useless in the 200 years since Prometheus Unbound). Rather, it is a statement about the sheer variety of different peoples’ souls — that what one person wants more badly than breathing can be unbearable torture to another. The message of this book is that this diversity is not only allowable, but is emphatically good to act upon, and that baring and facing your most honest nature and desires is, as one character says, so, so worth it. The pinnacle of spiritual joy, if you can deal with the consequences that come with it.