50books_poc | What Fire Cannot Burn

20)What Fire Cannot Burn by John Ridley is the sequel to his mutant-hunting novel Those Who Walk in Darkness, which I reviewed here a while back. And in many ways, it's more retcon than sequel. Its structure is very unsatisfying, with the novel's most important event taking place at the midpoint and the rest of the novel feeling like anticlimactic denouement. But it does address many of the problems I complained about in reviewing the first book, and takes an aggressive approach to fixing them.

The moral difficulties that I spoke of, brushed over in the first book, are given fuller attention here. There is not a cleaner resolution of the issues, but there is a more satisfying resolution. And Soledad's emotional unavailability isn't solved here, but Ridley figures out how to find closure for that story and move on to characters and emotions he finds more interesting.

If you've read the first book, I'd recommend reading the sequel. But there's not much here for you otherwise.