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A review by vespix
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
Did not finish book. Stopped at 30%.
The difference between history books and novels is bigger than changing names and adding a few gods to provide running commentary every chapter. For starters, you're supposed to start the story somewhere, and Ken Liu failed at that rather spectacularly.
The first 20% of this 640-page book is pure exposition. We hop between characters every half chapter, most of whom never get a PoV again. Those that reoccur we meet in snippets too short to grow attached to them before Liu moves us another five years forward. There's no storyline in this part, no more than there's a storyline in history. There are just threads that may eventually converge, but at 30% the rivals promised by the blurb haven't even met!
What we get instead is an endless collage of people suffering under a bad government. It's a worn theme, but there are writers that can make it stab you in the feels. Ken Liu is not one of them. Quite the opposite; he managed to exaggerate it to the point of tedium. Yes, yes, people dying on the side of the road, children and mothers crying, you've told us. Repeatedly. The bad guys are also villainous to the point of caricature. Who needs inept or overambitious leaders when you can make them all idiots obsessed with palaces. How else, after all, could Liu make his Gary Stus shine?
Mata Zyndu is the most "I wrote him when I was a 12-year-old boy" character I've seen in a while. He's Xiang Yu except 8-feet tall, double-pupiled (but with extra sharp sight) and dual-wields a 2-handed sword and mace studded with teeth. Michael Kramer didn't help by giving him the most extra deep and gravelly voice he could manage. Sure, it probably fits the author's intentions, but made it absolutely impossible for me to take Mata seriously.
Liu Bang — sorry, Kuni Garu — was better done, but had such a small role in the story so far that it's not enough to make me continue.
I'm glad I didn't go for the Broken Binding set...
The first 20% of this 640-page book is pure exposition. We hop between characters every half chapter, most of whom never get a PoV again. Those that reoccur we meet in snippets too short to grow attached to them before Liu moves us another five years forward. There's no storyline in this part, no more than there's a storyline in history. There are just threads that may eventually converge, but at 30% the rivals promised by the blurb haven't even met!
What we get instead is an endless collage of people suffering under a bad government. It's a worn theme, but there are writers that can make it stab you in the feels. Ken Liu is not one of them. Quite the opposite; he managed to exaggerate it to the point of tedium. Yes, yes, people dying on the side of the road, children and mothers crying, you've told us. Repeatedly. The bad guys are also villainous to the point of caricature. Who needs inept or overambitious leaders when you can make them all idiots obsessed with palaces. How else, after all, could Liu make his Gary Stus shine?
Mata Zyndu is the most "I wrote him when I was a 12-year-old boy" character I've seen in a while. He's Xiang Yu except 8-feet tall, double-pupiled (but with extra sharp sight) and dual-wields a 2-handed sword and mace studded with teeth. Michael Kramer didn't help by giving him the most extra deep and gravelly voice he could manage. Sure, it probably fits the author's intentions, but made it absolutely impossible for me to take Mata seriously.
Liu Bang — sorry, Kuni Garu — was better done, but had such a small role in the story so far that it's not enough to make me continue.
I'm glad I didn't go for the Broken Binding set...