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A review by nooralshanti
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
4.0
The Grace of Kings is a great, sweeping fantasy epic. I haven't enjoyed a fantasy book this much in a while. It does a great job of telling the tale of the collapse of an empire as the characters struggle to bring about a better world. The characters are flawed, well-written. Ken Liu does something that not many authors can actually pull off: he believably portrays characters with differing world-views. It's great.
I also find the author's use of the omniscient POV refreshing. Most of the time he writes in the third person limited that is to be expected in the genre, but he doesn't hesitate to pull back at the right time to show us a broader view of what's happening.
Including intrigues and conflicts between multiple gods is not my cup of tea at all, but in this book these scenes were few and spread out and most importantly they didn't interfere with or overpower the rest of the story so they didn't take away from my enjoyment of the rest of the book.
Overall, I would recommend this book to lovers of fantasy. It's excellent. Well-written and engaging as well as thoughtful. The best part for me was the world-building. It was so smooth and effortless. instead of inventing many ridiculous words for every last thing (which is what seems to be passing for world-building these days) Ken Liu just tells the story and the world-building just comes with that, with things being explained only when necessary. That's how you do world-building!
I also find the author's use of the omniscient POV refreshing. Most of the time he writes in the third person limited that is to be expected in the genre, but he doesn't hesitate to pull back at the right time to show us a broader view of what's happening.
Including intrigues and conflicts between multiple gods is not my cup of tea at all, but in this book these scenes were few and spread out and most importantly they didn't interfere with or overpower the rest of the story so they didn't take away from my enjoyment of the rest of the book.
Overall, I would recommend this book to lovers of fantasy. It's excellent. Well-written and engaging as well as thoughtful. The best part for me was the world-building. It was so smooth and effortless. instead of inventing many ridiculous words for every last thing (which is what seems to be passing for world-building these days) Ken Liu just tells the story and the world-building just comes with that, with things being explained only when necessary. That's how you do world-building!