Under Heaven is a novel of heroes, assassins, concubines and emperors set against a majestic and unforgiving landscape.įor two long years Shen Tai has mourned his father, living like a hermit at the edge of the Kitan Empire, next to a great lake where a terrible battle was fought between the Kitai and the neighbouring Tagurans years before a battle for which his father - a great general - was honoured, but never recovered from, and where the bones of 40,000 soldiers still lie exposed. ( )Īn epic historical adventure set in a pseudo 8th century China, from the author of the 2008 World Fantasy winner, Ysabel. The lives of 'nobles' have no more to teach us of the human condition than the lives of others and an author choosing to tell the story of high nobility now seems like laziness or pandering. Increasingly I also am bothered by courtly stories, whether Western or otherwise. I had trouble NOT hearing him read those lines. So many lines had the form and tone of a Burt Kwok epigram to the beginning of an episode of The Water Margin. To me the text too often felt like Orientalism, the characters too inscrutable and Chinese so that, despite the omniscient third person narration, it was impossible for us to know their mind or their heart because one could not know the foreign. Why was it a difficult read? It felt that GGK was trying too hard to make it a Chinese book. I did actually read it throughout the period, generally in bursts of a couple of days every couple of months while travelling. I had a lot of difficulties with this book, hence the nearly 5 years it took me to finish reading it. I can't imagine giving a book by Guy Gavriel Kay two stars and yet here I am. Kay has the ability to make the quiet moments profound and make the big moments deeply personal.

As with all Guy Gavriel Kay books, I was riveted the entire time, even if it wasn't an action-packed moment. This sets into motion events that will change the whole world. This man, Shen Tai, has his world changed when he is gifted 250 exquisite horses from the Princess of the rival nation as a thank you gift. This battlefield is famously haunted, and therefore strongly avoided by both nations who battled many years ago, but who now share a peace treaty. He does not distinguish sides, but tries to bury any dead he comes across. One man's life changes drastically with one seemingly small decision to devote two years of his life to burying the dead at the site of a battle. With this book, his inspiration was the T'ang Dynasty from China circa 700 CE. And by that I mean he changes names so as not to write about anything real, but basically takes whole swathes of cultures from the past and writes novels about these new creations that have small elements of fantasy, but are otherwise political, familial, or revolutionary dramas. He writes fantasy-lite novels inspired by history and culture. Guy Gavriel Kay writes historical fantasy.

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay