The Veiled Throne by Ken Liu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Cooking, Conversations, and Cross-Cultural Exchange The Veiled Throne: The Dandelion Dynasty Book 3 (2021) is a nearly 1000-page epic fantasy novel whose long set piece climax is a three-part cooking contest between rival restaurants that even the gods of Dara show up to watch. Although the novel does also feature infiltrations, massacres, and escapes, as well as a large-scale naval battle involving a gargantuan city ship, a submersible ship, a large-screen shadow-puppet show, explosives, hand-to-hand combat, cow-dragons, and whales, author Ken Liu seems most interested in cooking and conversations—about politics, love, philosophy, strategy, engineering, storytelling, truth, taste, drama, disguise, parents and children, teachers and students, literacy vs. orality, genius vs. nature, character-based writing vs. alphabet writing, accommodation vs. war, and more. The Dandelion Dynasty is closer to traditional sf than to traditional epic fantasy, in that the books are novels of ideas based on the concept that the universe is knowable, with biological/scientific explanations for the seemingly fantastic creatures (like the flight and fiery breath of the cow-dragon garanafin) and convincing cultures (art, religion, war, language, cuisine, ethics, funeral customs, gender roles, families, and foundation myths) extrapolated from different environments and histories. No magic. Although gods do play a role, at times trying to influence events, they generally fail to prevent the mortals from doing what they want to do and mostly serve as a chorus for the action. It has been called a silkpunk epic, with technology, devices, and inventions based on scientific principles, e.g., silkmotic (static electricity) lamps and lances, airships, submersible ships, programmable mechanical carts, a roller coaster, etc. The main plot starts eight years after the events of the second book, The Wall of Storms (2016). Two years remain in the uneasy ten-year truce between the “barbaric” Lyucu invaders of two Daran islands (Unredeemed Dara) and the rest of the “civilized” Daran islands (Free Dara), with Daran Empress Jia still wielding power as Regent for still “unready” to rule twenty-year-old Phyro, while mollifying the Lyucu occupiers by giving them tribute and ignoring their atrocities and attempts to use pirates to kidnap scholars and craftsmen from Free Dara. As usual, Jia is working on a secret scheme “to uproot the weeds of war and cultivate the plants of peace” despite knowing it will alienate her from her people and family. (To—unfairly—generate suspense, Liu narrates much of the novel from Jia’s point of view so that whenever we’re in her head she avoids thinking about the details of her it’s-fine-to-fight-evil-with-evil plan, apart from a highly addictive drug she’s developing.) The conquering Lyucu stuck on their two occupied islands are divided between their accommodation faction wanting to treat the local Darans as subjects rather than slaves and wanting to learn Daran writing and technology and to incorporate the Darans into their government and army and the hardline faction wanting to destroy the language, religion, bodies, and souls of the Darans to turn them into obedient slaves and their towns into pastures. The Lyucu ruler Tanvanaki is trying to strengthen the accommodators with the help of her righthand thane Goztan (whose son Kinri is secretly learning Daran history and language and culture from a Daran scholar), but the hardcore haters are persistent and potent. At the end of the second novel, Thera abdicated as Empress of Dara to sail on a desperate mission with about 1000 Daran soldiers and scholars and her husband to be, Takval, scion of the Agon (ancient enemies of the Lyucu) to the scrublands on the far side of the world across the Wall of Storms to make an alliance between Dara and the Agon which will (she hopes) end in the Agon conquering the Lyucu so they’ll be unable to send another invasion fleet with which to complete their conquest of Dara. In this third book Thera is discovering the unexpected costs of merging her Darans with the native Agon. Whew. Liu develops all those situations and sub-plots through a rotating array of compelling characters from various classes and cultures. Most of his villains have appealing qualities, as his heroes have disappointing flaws. One of my favorites is Rati Yera, an elderly, illiterate, wheelchair-bound, graverobber-inventor and the leader of the do-gooding Blossom Gang of street performers, but I also like the earnest Kinri, drawn to Daran culture despite being the son of an important Lyucu thane, and the naïve Princess Fara, aka Dandelion, who likes art and stories, unlike her martial, older brother Phyro who’s all, “Free occupied Dara from the yoke of barbarian oppression NOW!” It’s very much a novel of cross-cultural conflict and influence. Many Lyucu see Daran writing (“word scars”) as an evil force stifling the natural breath of the spoken voice, farming as soul-destroying, and Darans as cowardly, sneaky, scheming villains, while many Darans view the Lyucu as illiterate, savage, sadistic, treacherous monsters. As characters say, “In war you tend to become like the enemy.” Indeed, the Darans are working on raising Lyucu garanafin, while the Lyucu are working on adopting Daran military technology. Is it possible to merge with the other by sharing non-martial things like language and cuisine? Where should one’s loyalty lie when one has a parent from each culture? Will it all end up in an Adrian Tchaikovsky-like salvation via enriching cultural interchange or in a mutually destructive apocalypse? We’ll have to read the fourth novel to find out. Liu too often indulges in easy plot contrivance, moments where careful characters get sloppy with disguises, or shrewd characters get gullible with untrustworthy villains, etc. But there are also many more impressive scenes (like the cooking contest) and many cool lines like these: “To hold competing ideals might save your life.” “Why should we listen to the gods or to dead scholars? What do they know of being alive?” “History is always a story told through the present.” “Young people who haven’t experienced suffering easily romanticize the past.” “One of the best things about teaching is learning something new from one's student. Audiobook reader Michael Kramer does a professional job of enhancing the story. By the end of this book, Liu has set up situations with different sets of characters in different places, all of which ought to come together in a massive climax in the last novel, so I’m looking forward to the (41 hour, eek!) conclusion to the series, Speaking Bones (2022). View all my reviews
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