2ish stars.An okay book that I recognize has many merits but that I must concede isn't for me. This book is very well written. Ken Liu uses a very efficient, utilitarian style that somehow also manages to be quite poetic at times and it works well with this mythology-inspired content. I think my biggest issues are personal ones: this isn't what I expected and it's just not my thing. I was expecting/hoping for fantasy and this really isn't that. As mentioned, there's some East Asia-inspired mytho...

The Grace of Kings is, in a word, stunning. Normally I try to avoid making comparisons with my reviews, but here it's fitting. Ken Liu's debut possesses all the epic grandeur, intelligence, and dignity of a Guy Gavriel Kay novel, accented by the complexities, intricacies, and smirking humor of Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen. It's a huge, sprawling epic, with a cast of characters that are challenging, but so well-rounded and distinct as to be immediately memorable.There's a little bi...

I am somewhat conflicted by this book. On the one hand it has some fantastic world building and a fast paced story. On the other hand the characters felt very undeveloped and descriptions suffered from too much telling, not enough showing. In the end I decided on three stars for much the same reason I gave Name of the Wind: it felt like lots of yummy, but ultimately empty, calories (albeit with a much, much, much less aggravating protagonist).So first the good, namely the world building. The wor...

A few disjointed thoughts on the book, which I finished yesterday. I like this book. I like this book a lot. It's a very important one--it's epic fantasy using Ancient China as its foundation. A cross between the Iliad, Three Kingdoms and Lord of the Rings. But it's also very adult and very modern in its handling of power--who gets it, who is worthy to handle it and how you cling to it. And very very cynical and dark in some ways (the violence is always drily factual, but I'd argue that makes it...

5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2015/04/20/b...I was never a really good student of history. But my family background being Chinese, I’ve always been taught to embrace my heritage. I grew up listening and adoring the history and legendary tales of Ancient China told to me by my parents and grandparents, who have learned these things themselves when they were children. My great uncle was also fond of watching old Wuxia operas and historical dramas, and he used to record...

As, I suppose, many other readers of The Grace of Kings, I discovered Ken Liu due to his extraordinary translation of Cixin Liu's excellent The Three Body Problem and Death's End as well as his collection of marvelous short stories, The Paper Menagerie. Unlike all of those works, in this first volume of The Dandelion Dynasty series, we are treated to a fantasy universe with middle age technology, interfering gods, and a wonderful mashup stories and legends inspired by classical Chinese and Polyn...

DNF-ed at page 340.Rating: 1 stars on principle of 'I don't think too highly on people passing their fanfics rip-offs as published novels/their own original creations'Random Thoughts when reading the book: The opening scene does remind me of Records of the Grand Historian, and the Biographies of the Assassins.Actual review starts here:What I think should be the real title of this book: Chu-Han Contention, the Fanfic Rip-Off. Edited@09/03/2021 But wait, to think about it more carefully, calling...

King Réon of Xana conquered the seven kingdoms of Dara and forged them into The Xana Empire. With his new empire Réon gave himself a new name Emperor Mapidéré. The Emperor had grand plans for The Xana Empire and to accomplish them he plans to enslave many of the conquered men of Dara. As the years pass the people of Dara yearn to be free and two special men rebel against the empire. Kuni Garu an intelligent youth with little motivation and Mata Zyndu the giant last son of the Zyndu Clan fight ba...

Why two stars?:*Women* - Where were they? For 400 pages we had one "main" female character, who ended up being treated way too much like a secondary character. The rest of the women were minor characters. And the main female character spent most of her story arc picking herbs, getting pregnant, having babies, encouraging her husband to take a second wife, and then becoming stereotypically jealous of the new woman in her man's life.We were given one token female warrior character in the latter ha...

This is a very interesting tale, reminding me as I read it just how little I still know of Chinese history. I want to romance kingdoms and wallow in all the warring states, and yet, from everything I do know, this novel is and remains unique. It borrows from the old histories to make a thoroughly modern fantasy epic. And when I say epic, I mean epic rises to power and grand falls, with a few memorable characters (mostly women) and an absolutely huge supporting cast. Armies march from the start a...

Absolutely tremendous.

I finally got around to picking this book up and I am so glad I did becuase I flipping loved it. It's kind of what I would describe as an Eastern version of Mage's Blood or Game of Thrones, and it's bloody brilliant!I thought before going into this I would probably like it. It's by Ken Liu and I've read some of his short fiction in The Paper Menagerie and I loved that entire collection. This book is his debut novel, and it's such a strong book.We follow lots of different characters so this is ce...

Omg!!! This is one of those where you like no one because they either die or piss you off. Sigh.... it was still a 5 star for me! Now I can't say my favorite character! *shakes fist*I have the paperback but listened to the audio and realized it was Michael Kramer! I love his narrations so that explains why that was so good! I will be adding it to my Audible library as well! Happy Reading Y'all! Mel 🖤🐺🐾

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Intertextual SF: "The Grace of Kings" by Ken Liu "Lord Garu, you compare yourself to a weed?” Cogo Yelu frowned.“Not just any weed, Cogzy. A dandelion is a strong but misunderstood flower.” Remembering his courtship with Jia, Kuni felt his eyes grow warm. “It cannot be defeated: Just when a gardener thinks he has won and eradicated it from his lawn, a rain would bring the yellow florets right back. Yet it’s never arrogant: Its color an...

Alas. Grace of Kings breathes Chinese mythology into the modern epic fantasy -- a worthy cause. But for me, I found this book to be a mythology with no grandeur, and an epic with no gravity.It also suffered from constant speedbumps, painstakingly recorded for your amusement and edification at the end of this review. But here's the overview:It's a story of rebellion against a callous empire. And it's a story about power - who has it; how to get it; how to keep it; and at what price it will come.

I loved Ken's book so much I blurbed it as the wuxia Game of Thrones. Yes, I went there.

It is hard to know where to start with this book. What was lovely about it (and redeemed it up to two stars), or the reason I will not be reading past book one of this series?I suppose I'll start with what there is to glow about. Silkpunk!! I never knew how much I wanted to read Silkpunk until Liu wrote it. Beautiful. Adventurous. Complex. Thoughtfully crafted and researched. Wow do I love Liu's prose and ability to put together an epic, multi-threaded story. This lives up to all the promise we'...

Actual Rating: 1.5 StarsYeesh...It's such a relief to have made it to the end of this book.So let me start with the positive. I love the Asian influence in the story. We don't see a lot of High Fantasy series with such a rich historical element that are based outside of Europe. This is something I definitely appreciated. But unfortunately I just could not connect to any other part of this story.The first 40%-50% of this novel is an absolute jumble. It hops around from character to character tell...

I think most literary scholars would agree that it’s a good thing Achilles didn’t survive the Trojan War. Paris, sneaky little turd that he was, was at least a good enough shot to spare Ancient Greece the unenviable task of having to figure out what to do with a guy like Achilles in peacetime: a guy who lives only for blood and glory, who considers the ability to paralyze others with fear by his mere presence a cardinal virtue. The long and the short of it is: you want Achilles to fight your war...

An ambitious, epic fantasy... that at times felt more like reading a history than a novel.I've become a fan of Liu's short stories, so was eager to read his debut long-form novel. (At over 600 pages, it is pretty long).We're introduced to the archipelago of Dara, a collection of islands which seem to be constantly at war. The book follows a number of characters who plot coups, rise to power, form alliances, betray each other, and sometimes die miserably and violently.It's a fantasy-with-not-much...