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A review by ielerol
All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay
4.0
I've reached a point where I don't actually read anything about Kay's books before starting them, I just assume I'll enjoy whatever I'm going to get. So I didn't expect at first that this would be so much of a direct follow-up to A Brightness Long Ago. But it is, focusing mostly on a pair of new characters, but many of the important characters from Brightness show up too, and it was very nice to see more of them. It expanded a bit more on the major transformations that Antonino and the High Patriarch both went through earlier, and while I still find Antonino's journey a lot more believable than the High Patriarch, I did appreciate the callbacks and following through on the consequences. Reflecting on consequences is the dominant theme of this book, which is in all respects very similar in tone, pacing, ideas, to Brightness. Maybe even a little slower. Almost all the pivotal scenes here are emotional, the more action-y parts get told in a deliberately distancing, flashback sort of way.
I do think this book involves more killing people. Still not much in the way of big battles, but a lot of kinda casual killing. Which is the kind of thing that can really put me off a book (or at least a character), and yet, somehow the way Kay writes about war and murder really works for me. He takes it seriously in a way that I think a discouraging number of genre authors sort of don't. Like, I don't want to read about violence just because it makes a plot "exciting." Kay doesn't do that in the least, in fact he deliberately undermines the plot tension of all the violent scenes in this book. I love it when I don't have to go hunting for plot spoilers for a book myself because the author keeps doing it first. No, people die in this book because Kay has something to say about their deaths. And I like what he has to say.
I do think this book involves more killing people. Still not much in the way of big battles, but a lot of kinda casual killing. Which is the kind of thing that can really put me off a book (or at least a character), and yet, somehow the way Kay writes about war and murder really works for me. He takes it seriously in a way that I think a discouraging number of genre authors sort of don't. Like, I don't want to read about violence just because it makes a plot "exciting." Kay doesn't do that in the least, in fact he deliberately undermines the plot tension of all the violent scenes in this book. I love it when I don't have to go hunting for plot spoilers for a book myself because the author keeps doing it first. No, people die in this book because Kay has something to say about their deaths. And I like what he has to say.