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This shared pain these two characters are plagued by pulls very evocative parallels, but it proves these character's differences more. Much praise to the author for masterfully dissecting the characters’ persona to get to the crux of who they are, and the driving forces that moved them. You are following characters that have little to no morals, yet somehow you care about them, feel along with them and wish for their dreams to become real. Zhu said dryly, “When the histories are written, such a title will surely commend me to their authors as a great man. He's maneuverered his way to the capital, where his courtly games threaten to bring the empire to its knees.
Her flirtatiousness had taken on a sheen of disdain, and Zhu had the mental image of the door to a private room slamming in her face. What enriches the already ingenious conversation on gender (alongside this addition of perception) is that of performance.The writing is so good that the characters’ emotions bleed out from the page, and make you feel as if you’re experiencing them personally. The sunshine sawdust smell and the breeze flowing unchecked through the construction sites; the uncluttered sky that seemed bigger and bluer than anywhere else Zhu had lived: the possibility contained in all that newness thrilled her to her bones. Each character plays such an important role in the story and I found the addition of new perspectives to be so interesting. Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory – one that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. chan is actually pretty great at action scenes and i'm gonna need more of that from their future work.
None of the main characters are particularly likable, nor do they have a single good bone in their body, except maybe Zhu.
Parker-Chan unrolls the painted scroll of her epic tale with the control of a master storyteller, revealing a dazzling new world of fate, war, love and betrayal. I have never before read a fantasy book that could have so easily been a product of Dostoevskij’s imagination. I recently realised that the way in which I describe Shelley Parker-Chan's books to people is "the best grimdark political fantasy I've ever read, and also it's very queer". I suppose that's the nice thing about a duology: you can cut the fat on the middle book of a trilogy. Baoxiang is only one part of a very detailed and nuanced discussion of gender and queerness throughout these books, but a new layer that I thought was added in this story was the layer of perception.
When they were together she sometimes thought she might understand—might even feel it, as if it were being transmitted by the vibration of Ma’s tender heart against her own—but as soon as they were apart, it faded like a dream. With a surge of delight, she said to the faceless woman behind the curtain, “I don’t want to be great. in real life, most marginalized people have no choice but to swallow the everyday hurt and violence and keep going, so it's strangely satisfying to read about people who feel every inch of their fury and injustice and throw that horror back into the world that rejected them simply for being who they are.He finds the secrets some of the great warriors keep indistinguishable from his own experiences and treatment.
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