Kalpa imperial

the greatest empire that never was

246 pages

English language

Published Dec. 24, 2003 by Small Beer Press.

ISBN:
978-1-931520-05-8
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OCLC Number:
52743026

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4 stars (14 reviews)

«Oh, sí, mis buenas gentes, sí, ya lo creo que sí. Se puede vivir en el sur. Y morir también. Y se puede nacer, y crecer y aprender y matar y sufrir en el sur. ¿Ustedes conocen el sur? ¿Han entrado a ese país vedado y tentador? ¿Han ido al paraíso de los monstruos, al antro de los asesinos, al reino de la barbarie? ¿Conocen a las gentes del sur? ¿Se han acostado con sus mujeres, han bebido con sus hombres, han escuchado a sus ancianos?». Obra ganadora de los premios Poblet y Gigamesh.

12 editions

starts strong, ultimately meanders too much for me

No rating

I enjoyed reading most of this book, but as I went on from one story to the next I noticed I was taking longer and longer breaks between the stories. In the end I stopped a couple short of the end just because I was about to head out on a trip and I realised I wasn't finding it compelling enough to bring the physical book with me. I'll probably read them eventually, but I'm not in a hurry so I'm just considering this shelved for now.

The basic premise is that all the stories are pieces of the history of what appears to be one empire which has waxed and waned in size and power over a very long time, possibly millennia. But I'm not quite sure if I have that right, because the stories are generally not connected to each other - I think I caught one ruling …

Kalpa Imperial

3 stars

This book is the October/November #SFFBookClub book. It's a collection of stories about an empire that has fallen and been rebuilt multiple times, each focusing on a very different place and time, and each told with a narrated fable-like style. One stylistic choice that stands out immediately is that the sentence structure is quite long and there are often comically long lists of names or places or ideas or things or professions or or or... I found this to be overall a delight, personally.

This may be due to expectations that I had going into this, but the stories in this novel felt loose and disconnected. This is especially due to coming off collections of short stories like How High We Go in the Dark or even North Continent Ribbon, which interconnect the stories together with shared characters or worldbuilding. Kalpa Imperial had very few touchpoints between stories other …

Feel that I should've liked this more than I did

No rating

Some books that you stumble upon ends up punching you in the guts, others do not. This book was of the latter category, but I still think it should've been the former, much so based on that I like the works of the translator, Ursula K. LeGuin.

As a part of my job I support unemployed persons that have internships at my organization, among them at a few of the charity shops that we run. It was while browsing the bookshelves during a slow hour that I came upon Kalpa imperial. It seemed like my kind of book, and I still think it is.

I think I understand what the author wanted to do, and I think it is clever. She sketches the history of an empire, follows its many rulers , their surge, their downfall, internal and external strife; and how the empire and its society adapts during …

Short stories of a fictional empire and the oral storyteller that connects them

5 stars

A collection of connected short stories set in a fictional [possibly post-apocolyptic] empire about its many rulers and cities and across many years. The stories are short and leave you wanting to know more about the people in them.

The writing is tight with just enough description to convince you they're being told by an oral storyteller, but it's not flowery and at times you wish you could hear a little bit more description.

However, one failing is how the stories connect. Other than the oral storyteller and the empire they pertain to, one is left wondering what connects them together. What are the relationships between all the emperors and empresses? Unfortunately, I suspect that would require a fictional history lesson and a long kings list, which would most certainly distract from the stories themselves.

Review of 'Kalpa imperial' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This was a very interesting book. It's set up as a series of loosely connected stories, and told in a sort of Arabian Nights style. It does give the feeling that there is a whole history, basically an endless history of the empire, and these stories are just these little fragments peeking through. But they're very rich fragments.

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