Kuni Garu, now known as Emperor Ragin, runs the archipelago kingdom of Dara, but struggles to maintain progress while serving the demands of the people and his vision. Then an unexpected invading force from the Lyucu empire in the far distant west comes to the shores of Dara—and chaos results.
But Emperor Kuni cannot go and lead his kingdom against the threat himself with his recently healed empire fraying at the seams, so he sends the only people he trusts to be Dara’s savvy and cunning hopes against the invincible invaders: his children, now grown and ready to make their mark on history.
What can I say? 5 stars. This book just ups everything I already loved about The Grace of Kings, introducing even more interesting and well crafted characters into an even more epic and high-stakes conflict.
The writing is great. The world-building is intriguing.
The main problem is the lack of editing work. This book is close to 1000 pages long. This could have been stripped down to 400 pages and the whole book have been great. I mean the plot completely change at 50% of the book. I have read comments about the other books and it seems that they have the same problem. I think I will stop there with this series.
The depiction of women and LGTB is kinda of unnerving. The Lyuccu appear to be based on the Mongol invasion and are very one-sided.
Ignoring the fact that I took the entire month to read this, because it was still interesting and entertaining despite its lenght^^
Writing is fluid and poetic, intense/to the point or slow/meandering depending on the scenes, Ken Liu has a great handle on plot and characters, but it was big, I think it could have been divided into 2 books, I also wish I felt more of an attachment to the characters, still wanna know what happens next to this dynasty, over the years..
4.5 stars
