“The Sacrifice of Darkness“ by Roxane Gay, with art by Tracy Lynne Oliver is a graphic novel set in a place where the sun no longer shines.

When a miner flies a spacecraft into the sun, the light is extinguished. The people in the town have to learn how to create other kinds of light for comfort and sanity. The wife and son the miner left behind are vilified for his actions and the offer to sacrifice them is made, but they refuse. The story parallels the miners life as well as his son's life. Will the sins of the father be revisited?

I wanted to like the story, but it had a really nonsensical premise. The art was kind of sketchy and drab also. It’s based on a short story. Perhaps the short story is better

The Sacrifice of Darkness is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel. However, the plot and story telling simply didn’t match up to the gorgeous artwork. This was labelled as sci-fi - however there were very few sci-fi elements in this graphic novel.

This was a quick read which I finished it in one sitting. The illustrations by Rebecca Kirby were stunning. The artwork was so detailed and I loved the atmospheric use of colour. If I were rating this purely on the artwork I would have given it five stars.

However, the artwork was let down by the plot and story telling. The world building didn’t quite make sense, it could have done with some more context to explain the ambiguous science and technology, especially as it was such a major plot theme.

The ending felt rushed and disappointing.

Im so sad I can’t review this as my copy didn’t low load properly and now it’s been archived. Thanks so much for giving me the chance to read it. Hopefully I’ll get another chance to soon!

It is exciting and superbly entertaining. This well-written work is a must read. As far as the writing style and narration is concerned, it is absolutely fantastic. The way author has wevaed the story with the mastery of writing style and narration, it is truly commendable. Overall, it was a great experience. I highly recommend this work and give it full 5 stars for the writing, narration and overall presentation. Happy Reading.

This was so well done, I can't wait to see more!! The art ,the story, the characters - all excellent! Definitely recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review

The Sacrifice of Darkness is a graphic novel adapted from a short story written by Roxane gay. The story is set in a surreal science fiction dystopian world. A man struggles with the stress of life, and in an attempt to reach some level of comfort and warmth, he flies into the sun. In doing so, he kills himself and destroys the sun. This cast the world into darkness. In turn, his wife and son are ostracized and bullied by their community. A young girl seeks to comfort the young boy, and the story follows these two young children as they group up and their relationship develops. This mirrors flashbacks that show us how the man’s relationship with his wife developed.

The story explores the harms of capitalism, worker abuse, and mental health. I felt like it was fairly effective in what it was trying to do. However, I found the story disappointing overall. While well written, the story feels overly mundane. It’s essentially a love story with a convoluted world that feels like it’s nothing more than a plot device. The semi-sci-fi world was fascinating, and it felt underused. Perhaps it is wrong of me to expect this to be more of a sci-fi novel, but it kind of set itself up that way.

the book took me by surprise

The art is gorgeous.

The light and dark, the faces, the everything is just amazing. I love how well the story and art pair together. Neither overpowers the other.

The story!

So I knew I should expect something great, but this was just amazing. It wasn’t necessarily about a physical light source, but more about the greed and dehumanizing of the working class. It was about how the light went out for people that were used for profit. It was about so much more than just what was shown.

It was wonderful. It is something that hit really hard. It made me think about how much of my world was destroyed by the greed of the holiday season when I worked retail. The company did not care that I had a life as long as there were bodies in the store to ring up sales. I was no longer a person. It is not as intense as mining for 16 hours, but the idea is still there. The greed of some can destroy the lives of many.

There is also the element of the poor being punished for the greed of the rich. The demand for a blood sacrifice was so infuriating. It fit so well and it made no damn sense at the same time. It was the best detail. This is very much the issue with climate change and health care wrapped up so nicely.

This story could be read just as it is, but there is so much under the surface that is not hidden at all. I am not one to go into themes and the real meaning behind books. This was just that obvious, but not heavy handed. I loved this story. I really shouldn’t have waited this long to read Roxane Gay.

•Character development- 4☆
• Story Plot- 4☆
• Side characters- 3.5☆
• Flow of the story- 4☆
• Overall - 4☆

I can't believe how this graphic novel assembles on the Covid 19 situation 😳

'A tragic event forever bathes the world in darkness. Follow a woman and a man's powerful journey through this new landscape as they discover love, family and the true light in a world seemingly robbed of any. As they challenge the world's notions of identity, guilt and survival, they find that no matter the darkness, there remain sources of hope that can pierce the veil.'

This graphic novel was a quick and amazing read altogether. From adventure, to pandemic situation, romance and lots of death, grief, guilt and survival encounters, there was nothing I didn't like about this book
I am a lover of graphic novels and especially when the art is this nicely done. I would definitely recommend it to everyone 🤍👏

Thank you netgalley for the advance readers copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Very entertaining read. Dark graphic novel - both literally and figuratively. I can see this hitting people in different ways, but I was really struck by the class-consciousness, class struggle elements and the role blame plays in prolonging anguish and preventing suppressed populations from fighting the oppressive system.

**I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

I really loved the concept of this book! It kept me captivated the entire time. My first scifi comic and so happy to have received a copy!

This is a beautiful graphic novels that takes Roxanne Gay’s short story to another level. Highly recommend.

The art was just okayish but what I did have issues with were the huge holes in the story. For instance, why would a miner coveting life under the sun blow up the star itself? Why did they call in his family to answer for his crimes and then do nothing but jeer at them? Or, how did his son have the expertise to build another spaceship let alone that he was able to build one -- being a miner and all? And how was the world even surviving without sunlight? And so on.

Suffice it to say, I can suspend my disbelief to some extent if I consider this to be a romance. However, it doesn't work as scifi at all. On the positive side, I got to try some of Roxane Gay's work.

*Received via NetGalley for review*

A miner, angry at his government's exploitation of their labor, flies a ship into the sun and extinguishes it. Now the world is in permanent darkness, and while lamps are lit at the beginning of every "day," people suffer and turn their hatred and anger to the man's wife and child that he left behind. The town demands a blood sacrifice in the hopes that it will return the sun.

While there are some interesting themes in this story (hatred, exploitation, forgiveness, light vs dark, etc.), it' read pretty dull :/ I was never really invested what happened to the characters or the world.

Catching up with reviews that have caught up with me.
I wasn't much of a fan of the art style and font. Which made it a struggle to read, however the plot was enjoyable and strong.
Thank you to Netgalley for sending me a free copy to review.

I really enjoyed this story. One thing to keep in mind reading this is not everything is necessarily possible; can someone fly a spaceship into a sun and destroy that sun, as Hiram Hightower does? Not that I'm aware of, but it's a metaphor, people, just roll with it.
The story follows two timelines: that of Hiram, a miner, and Mara Blessings, the daughter of a rich family, in the past, and that of the couple's son Joshua, and his childhood friend Claire in the present. After Hiram destroys the planet's sun, his wife and son are ostracized, moving to the outskirts of the mining town they've lived in. When Joshua starts school, he endures bullying by his classmates and teachers, until Claire, with the encouragement of her mother, befriends Joshua, and they become inseparable. So we have two love stories, one ending in tragedy; how will the other story end?
We have themes here of light and darkness, tragedy and hope, being othered and compassion. I think readers will pick up different things from this story depending on their own stories, so I'm not going to speculate on the meaning of this story. Like I said before, it's an allegory, take what you will from it.
Now, the artwork- oh my heart! Rebecca Kirby works magic here, showing us beauty in a dark world, portraying emotions so real you feel them along with the characters, yearning, hoping, despairing with them. The colors are so vivid, you can taste them It's all just so gorgeous.
Overall, this is a great story with fabulous art, and y'all should read it.

#TheSacrificeofDarkness #NetGalley

A dark, yet far too realistic future, The Sacrifice of Darkness is a gripping graphic novel co-authored by beloved writer Roxane Gay. With haunting, atmospheric illustrations this is a book you will not be able to put down.

The love story in this was so cute! However, the plot didn't seem very thought out. Although it didn't really bother me (because I'm not that knowledgeable about science-y stuff) apparently some parts of the book were scientifically impossible.

The Sacrifice of Darkness is more than a Graphic Novel. It is a thought provoking piece of work covering a multitude of societal constructs that many in this day and age would prefer to gloss over. Roxanne Gay delves into class relations, expectations and consequences, bullying, single parent (mother) households, mental illness, death, grief, and the ultimate resurrection of life and hope.

The artwork is beautiful and the storyline written to perfection. There was nothing I did not like. I would highly recommend reading this Graphic Novel. The writing combined with the artwork make The Sacrifice of Darkness a powerhouse.

Thanks to NetGalley, Archaia, and Roxanne Gay for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I was expecting to like this graphic novel. Maybe expectations are where I went wrong. Although I read the whole thing, I was left unsatisfied an the end. The art is beautiful, but I just couldn't turn my brain off enough to enjoy the story which had major issues.

A romance set in a nonsensical science fiction world. A miner flies a spacecraft into the sun extinguishing its light (for absolutely no reason). But all the town needs to do is build some gas lamps and everything is fine. It's a strange dichotomy of world building. The setting seems to be a depression era coal mining town except they have the occasional spaceship that is available to snuff out the sun. Then there is talk in the town of sacrificing the miner's family as the darkness lasts for years. Oh yeah, there's still a moon even though there's not a sun for its light to reflect off of said moon. Gardens also grow in the darkness.

As a sci-fi story, this is crap. As a romance, it's serviceable. Much of the story flips back and forth between the miner falling in love and then his son doing the same years later. The art is decent. I really enjoyed the coloring though.