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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
There is an event later in the book that feels poorly foreshadowed. Afterwards, the book does a lot of telling as it zooms out to a much more birds-eye level of the narrative. This happens again towards the very end. Both times felt jarring and left me wondering if I'd missed something.
Aside from the those, the book is enjoyable. It's fantasy in a world that feels distinctly inspired by a real time and place, but feels just fantastical enough that the the wilder elements don't feel out of place. I didn't enjoy the entire ride but I was engaged enough to keep reading until I finished it.
Aside from the those, the book is enjoyable. It's fantasy in a world that feels distinctly inspired by a real time and place, but feels just fantastical enough that the the wilder elements don't feel out of place. I didn't enjoy the entire ride but I was engaged enough to keep reading until I finished it.
Beautifully crafted with the final threads coming together at the end in a weave that was amazing!
Staged within a framework of The Tang Dynasty (7th and 8th century China), this fiction, mixed with just enough fantasy to awe, is about the machinations of ministers, rulers and power brokers. The characters must tread carefully to avoid assassination and other schemes to achieve their goals. There is love and sadness here. Your emotions will peak as you read the final chapters and epilogue. Mine certainly did.
Horses and wolves work well together, but separately in this saga. Something to think about. :-)
Staged within a framework of The Tang Dynasty (7th and 8th century China), this fiction, mixed with just enough fantasy to awe, is about the machinations of ministers, rulers and power brokers. The characters must tread carefully to avoid assassination and other schemes to achieve their goals. There is love and sadness here. Your emotions will peak as you read the final chapters and epilogue. Mine certainly did.
Horses and wolves work well together, but separately in this saga. Something to think about. :-)
I love love loved this. Much more than "Ysabel", which I was kind of lukewarm about, more even than "Sailing to Sarantium", which I really liked and possiby even more than "Tigana" , which I thought was brilliant. Here, the fantastic elements are very subtle and the real joy is in Kay's evocation of 8th century Tang China. The voice of the novel harkens to a bygone era. The characters feel as though they've stepped out of the past. As with the best novels, whenever I opened the book, I felt as though I had fallen down the rabbit hole into another world, this one filled with political intrigues, maneuvering monarchs, imperiled maidens and men of honor. I swooned.
Having only read [b:Tigana|1281367|Tigana|Guy Gavriel Kay|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|1907200] and [b:The Fionavar Tapestry|1148721|The Fionavar Tapestry|Guy Gavriel Kay|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1181410214s/1148721.jpg|2846394] from Kay, this book was rather disappointing in the magic and monsters departments. It was still fun but just not as epic as the other books. I never found myself wanting to cry or screaming at the book as I had with his other works.
I really had no idea that the story was based off actual events. I kept wondering why he was sticking so close to Asian culture but not calling it Asian. Also the treatment of women in the culture was very off-putting. It did help later that strong female character's appeared (although they were still completely subservient to the men around them and basically just property).
I thought the main character was kind of boring. Nothing about him really stuck out. The other characters were decent. The writing was beautiful at times (which is something one can always expect from Kay) but I don't really go for that free form poetry (I don't know maybe it was haiku?). It's really strange because I never got bored with it even though it was a long book and not super exciting.
Overall I would say I'm not mad that I spent my time reading it but it's not the kind of thing I would want to read very often.
I really had no idea that the story was based off actual events. I kept wondering why he was sticking so close to Asian culture but not calling it Asian. Also the treatment of women in the culture was very off-putting. It did help later that strong female character's appeared (although they were still completely subservient to the men around them and basically just property).
I thought the main character was kind of boring. Nothing about him really stuck out. The other characters were decent. The writing was beautiful at times (which is something one can always expect from Kay) but I don't really go for that free form poetry (I don't know maybe it was haiku?). It's really strange because I never got bored with it even though it was a long book and not super exciting.
Overall I would say I'm not mad that I spent my time reading it but it's not the kind of thing I would want to read very often.
Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my top two or three favorite authors, one of the very few whose books I buy in hardback. His "Lions of Al-Rassan", "Song for Arbonne", Sarantium duology, and Fionavar trilogy stand up to endless re-reading. I have high expectations for his books.
This story, while definitely engaging, did not sweep me up as the previously mentioned stories did. The setting was unique, but the characters were not as vivid as those in other stories. The court intrigue felt like a somewhat pale echo of the Sarantium books. Shen-Tai was a pleasant enough protagonist, but did not burn with Crispin's passion nor capture my imagination or heart as Ammar or Rodrigo did. The mystery of strange gods was there, but -- again -- not as deep or as vivid as the Bull, or the gods of Fionavar, or the goddess of Arbonne.
And yet. . . I read this book, all 576 pages, in two days because I did enjoy it, and did want to know what happened next. I wanted to know what would happen to the horses, to the family, to the poet, the women. I just wish Kay had somehow given them the lighning brilliance of his other characters and work.
This story, while definitely engaging, did not sweep me up as the previously mentioned stories did. The setting was unique, but the characters were not as vivid as those in other stories. The court intrigue felt like a somewhat pale echo of the Sarantium books. Shen-Tai was a pleasant enough protagonist, but did not burn with Crispin's passion nor capture my imagination or heart as Ammar or Rodrigo did. The mystery of strange gods was there, but -- again -- not as deep or as vivid as the Bull, or the gods of Fionavar, or the goddess of Arbonne.
And yet. . . I read this book, all 576 pages, in two days because I did enjoy it, and did want to know what happened next. I wanted to know what would happen to the horses, to the family, to the poet, the women. I just wish Kay had somehow given them the lighning brilliance of his other characters and work.
I liked the non-European setting.
Did start finding one feature of Kay's writing grated on my nerves: his foreshadowing. I find it heavy-handed.
Did start finding one feature of Kay's writing grated on my nerves: his foreshadowing. I find it heavy-handed.
Excellent fantasy novel with interesting historical grounding.
Epic(ie: long). You know how sometimes historical fiction can be frustrating in that written-exclusively-with-the-way-they-probably-talked kind of way, that can come off as pompous at best, and hacky at worst? This book is not like that, which is particularly positive given it takes place in 8th century China. Don't let that setting turn you away - Mr. Kay makes it awesome (not in a "dude" way, but in the Merriam-Webster's way). Clever, creative, and satisfying.
Excellent historical fantasy set in 8th century China. Not Kay's best work, but engrossing nonetheless. Read this if you're interested in a glimpse of a China that might have been, told by a master storyteller. Having written that, the book does have a flaw, in that the he loses control of the narrative at the end and resorts to craftsmanship to close the story out. The read will see this coming well in advance and merely wonder if the book will end on a cliffhanger to be continued in the sequel (no) or will he be closer to the Euripidean tradition (yes). Still, recommended.
2.75⭐
My 4th ggk and least favorite till now
One can't really complain about his prose, its musical, magical and makes you yearn for worlds and people that don't exist in real life.
This time though, the story left me wanting so much more, than what it offered...
My 4th ggk and least favorite till now
One can't really complain about his prose, its musical, magical and makes you yearn for worlds and people that don't exist in real life.
This time though, the story left me wanting so much more, than what it offered...