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keilexandraUnder Heaven
by Guy Gavriel Kay
573 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Historical
Let me say first: READ IT NOW, if you are a Kay fan. Or a historical fantasy fan. Or a lyrical-writing fan. Or a Chinaphile (great references to follow-up in the Acknowledgements). Or a GRRM fan, because this reminded me of his epics. One similarity they share: what do you say in summary, when so much has happened?
In the beginning, this is the tale of a minor-aristocratic man in imperial Kitai who mourns his father's death by burying the dead of a great battle by a long-haunted lake. In honor of his travails, after two years, Shen Tai receives an outrageous gift from the White Jade Princess who married into foreign Tagura: 250 Sardian horses, Heavenly Horses from the far west, so very rare in Kitai. And so Tai is thrust unwillingly into a world of dance and music, of words and blades, of beauty and sorrow and love.
More than that, you must read for yourself--the journey is awe-inspiring. Though he does not shied from violence, Kay manages to evoke a sweeping epic feel without quite as much bloodshed as George R.R. Martin. There is beauty in Martin's story, too, but what I love about Kay--what shines in all of his novels, but especially this one and in Tigana--is the brief lingerings on significant minor characters, or insignificant major characters, and their paths decreed by the twin whims of fate and will.
Okay, I'll stop waxing now, I promise. Under Heaven ranks with Tigana and the Sarantine Mosaic duology in being one of my favorites of Kay's work. So go READ IT NOW.
by Guy Gavriel Kay
573 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Historical
Let me say first: READ IT NOW, if you are a Kay fan. Or a historical fantasy fan. Or a lyrical-writing fan. Or a Chinaphile (great references to follow-up in the Acknowledgements). Or a GRRM fan, because this reminded me of his epics. One similarity they share: what do you say in summary, when so much has happened?
In the beginning, this is the tale of a minor-aristocratic man in imperial Kitai who mourns his father's death by burying the dead of a great battle by a long-haunted lake. In honor of his travails, after two years, Shen Tai receives an outrageous gift from the White Jade Princess who married into foreign Tagura: 250 Sardian horses, Heavenly Horses from the far west, so very rare in Kitai. And so Tai is thrust unwillingly into a world of dance and music, of words and blades, of beauty and sorrow and love.
More than that, you must read for yourself--the journey is awe-inspiring. Though he does not shied from violence, Kay manages to evoke a sweeping epic feel without quite as much bloodshed as George R.R. Martin. There is beauty in Martin's story, too, but what I love about Kay--what shines in all of his novels, but especially this one and in Tigana--is the brief lingerings on significant minor characters, or insignificant major characters, and their paths decreed by the twin whims of fate and will.
Okay, I'll stop waxing now, I promise. Under Heaven ranks with Tigana and the Sarantine Mosaic duology in being one of my favorites of Kay's work. So go READ IT NOW.