Award-winning author Guy Gavriel Kay evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of 8th-century China in an masterful story of honor and power.It begins simply. Shen Tai, son of an illustrious general serving the Emperor of Kitai, has spent two years honoring the memory of his late father by burying the bones of the dead from both armies at the site of one of his father’s last great battles. In recognition … battles. In recognition of his labors and his filial piety, an unlikely source has sent him a dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses.
You give a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You give him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor.
Wisely, the gift comes with the stipulation that Tai must claim the horses in person. Otherwise he would probably be dead already…
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Kept me hooked! Excellent writing, fascinating semi-historical plot set in a midieval Chinese-like world. What are the effects of an amzing and unprecedented gift to one man? Also, I read fast so I love a good, long book!
Under Heaven is loosely based on the 9th century Tang dynasty. The main characters are interesting and well-developed. Its overall theme is how people deal with situations during times of turmoil that, at best, are only partly under their control. It is very well written and researched. If you like Chinese period films, you should enjoy Under Heaven.
This book was very good.
Thought provoking
Many of us enjoy Game of Thrones. Now, think if it were set in an alternate-history China. This book, and ‘River of Stars’ are fantastic, yet relevant. Great characters; fun plot twists. Enjoy!
It took me a while to understand that UNDER HEAVEN was set in an alternate version of Tang dynasty China, so realistically was it told. Guy Gavriel Kay is not afraid of letting silences be eloquent, and narrator Simon Vance deploys his voice to give life to those silences and the slower pace of life in 8th-century China.
In a lesser author, this would become boring. It does not in this wonderful novel. Guy Gavriel Kay is talented enough to start with a slow opening, that nevertheless captures the reader’s heart by taking the time to allow the emotions of the moment to unspool on the page.
We meet Shen Tai, a young man of around 20, who is living in self-imposed exile from the Tang court for two years so that he can honor his recently dead father by existing in the arid uplands (where the Silk Road loops around the impassable desert of the Tarim Basin), burying the bones of dead enemies.
His father was a famous general. He was supposed to be a famous general. But something dark happened when he was a young officer. He went to an elite training school for assassins, altered course, returning to court to take the all-important-exams to become a civil servant.
But his father dies, causing Shen Tai to wander into his self-imposed exile, becoming a hardened veteran of a frightening place where ghosts sing every night.
Someone bestows a poisonous gift on him, in the shape of 250 magnificent horses. The rest of the novel deals with the consequences of that gift, and how Shen Tai uses his considerable wits to survive.
There is a love story here, of course, but one that does not have a predictable ending. For a cold winter’s night, you could do worse than snuggle under your comforter, mulled wine at hand, and listen to this tale. Five stars. #guygavrielkay #underheaven #tangdynasty
I liked Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay’s take on 8th Century China, but it might be the first historical fantasy I’ve read that felt too realistic.
The magic in Under Heaven (shamans, ghosts, etc.) only exists on the margins, yet that isn’t what threw me off. And I respect how much research Kay clearly did on the Tang Dynasty, even though he occasionally delivers his version of the details as bald info-dumps. Mostly, I just wish the protagonist’s decisions and actions mattered more.
Initially, it seems like they will. The book begins with Shen Tai—the second son of a dead general—nearing the end of his mourning period, an interval he spent burying bodies left over from a battle his father directed many years ago. Tai doesn’t discriminate as he works, laying his own peoples’ warriors to rest alongside those of the rival army. To honor this labor, a princess from the opposing nation gives him two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, a gift that will make him a wealthy man … if he can avoid an onrush of assassins long enough to claim it.
So far, so good! But the next chunk of the book is mainly Tai meeting with increasingly powerful people who want his (still-unclaimed) horses. Eventually, he reaches the capital and finds it swirling with more intrigue he’s incapable of influencing. And when a power struggle breaks into the open—a clash based on a historical conflict—Kay’s focus wanders so far from Tai that he’s not even in several key scenes. Ultimately, his horses don’t matter much either.
I wish they had. A less-accurate rendering might have had the Sardians tipping the scale one way or another, perhaps because Tai used them to try and pick a winner. Instead, he’s caught up in events he has little control over. So is his sister, the other primary point-of-view character. These are real-world outcomes … but not necessarily the most satisfying for a fictionalization already altering history in ways large and small.
As I said, though, I still liked Under Heaven. Kay is a skilled writer who made me care about his characters—even when they’re just along for the ride—and the setting is vivid. The history might have hijacked the story a bit, but it remained enough to make me curious about River of Stars, a sequel of sorts set four hundred years later. I’ll be back in this world soon.
(For more reviews like this one, see http://www.nickwisseman.com)
This book is an historic fantasy (two of my favorite genres rolled into one) set in a fascinating place and era. It was probably one of the best books I’ve read in a while. I highly recommend it.
Hands down one of the best books I’ve ever read !