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A review by ianbanks
River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay
4.0
This is a follow-up to Mr Kay's last novel, Under Heaven, and is set 400 years later. The empire of Kitai (Kay's version of historical China) is under threat from the northern barbarians massing on their borders and their armies have become deliberately incompetent due to the threat posed by overly popular and successful generals.
However, this novel focuses on Ren Daiyan, who becomes a highly efficient soldier, and Lin Shan, an overly educated woman in a regime that doesn't value women with minds of their own.
To say more would begin to intrude into the arena of spoilers so I shall leave it there and concentrate on the book itself.
Kay is one of my favourite writers of all time so to say that I was looking forward to this was an understatement. He creates exquisite worlds and backdrops for his characters, who in turn are often immensely complicated and astute individuals who often find themselves thrust into the spotlight at defining moments of history. His dialogue is rapier-like and nuanced to a degree that most authors can only aspire to and the plots are layered to a level of intensity only encountered in onions and wedding cakes.
This is no exception. There is also the same care and attention to detail lavished upon the secondary and minor characters so that nothing happens without some sort of reason or implication, even if only the reader witnesses it happening. This is a trend that Kay has been developing in his novels since his first (The Summer Tree, 1984) but has been coming very much to the fore since The Last Light Of The Sun (2004). It can be frustrating and jarring for some readers to follow the lives of characters for several pages, learning about their futures and feelings, only to have them disappear completely from the narrative thereafter, but it only adds, in my not-so-humble-opinion, to the depth of the text and your experience of it.
Where this novel falls down, though, is in the first half. I often found myself putting it down and coming back to it a day or so later. For whatever reason, I just wasn't gripped. I loved the lyrical writing, the development of the characters and setting, but it just wasn't gripping until just before the exact midpoint of it, after which I finished it in one session and was completely spellbound. So, if you find plot your main consideration, you may find parts of this frustrating. If, on the other hand, your taste runs to a leisurely development of a story or theme, you will eat this up because no one meanders or dallies like Kay on a good day. And he seems to have had plenty of good days here.
(This review also appears on my blog: http://stuffianlikes.aussieblogs.com.au/2013/07/19/review-river-o…uy-gavriel-kay/
However, this novel focuses on Ren Daiyan, who becomes a highly efficient soldier, and Lin Shan, an overly educated woman in a regime that doesn't value women with minds of their own.
To say more would begin to intrude into the arena of spoilers so I shall leave it there and concentrate on the book itself.
Kay is one of my favourite writers of all time so to say that I was looking forward to this was an understatement. He creates exquisite worlds and backdrops for his characters, who in turn are often immensely complicated and astute individuals who often find themselves thrust into the spotlight at defining moments of history. His dialogue is rapier-like and nuanced to a degree that most authors can only aspire to and the plots are layered to a level of intensity only encountered in onions and wedding cakes.
This is no exception. There is also the same care and attention to detail lavished upon the secondary and minor characters so that nothing happens without some sort of reason or implication, even if only the reader witnesses it happening. This is a trend that Kay has been developing in his novels since his first (The Summer Tree, 1984) but has been coming very much to the fore since The Last Light Of The Sun (2004). It can be frustrating and jarring for some readers to follow the lives of characters for several pages, learning about their futures and feelings, only to have them disappear completely from the narrative thereafter, but it only adds, in my not-so-humble-opinion, to the depth of the text and your experience of it.
Where this novel falls down, though, is in the first half. I often found myself putting it down and coming back to it a day or so later. For whatever reason, I just wasn't gripped. I loved the lyrical writing, the development of the characters and setting, but it just wasn't gripping until just before the exact midpoint of it, after which I finished it in one session and was completely spellbound. So, if you find plot your main consideration, you may find parts of this frustrating. If, on the other hand, your taste runs to a leisurely development of a story or theme, you will eat this up because no one meanders or dallies like Kay on a good day. And he seems to have had plenty of good days here.
(This review also appears on my blog: http://stuffianlikes.aussieblogs.com.au/2013/07/19/review-river-o…uy-gavriel-kay/