River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

Kitai, during the Twelfth Dynasty. Several centuries after a devastating civil war that left half the population of the empire dead and its armies disbanded, the empire has still not fully recovered. Soldiers and generals are mistrusted, the fear of another rebellion overwhelming. When Kitai is drawn into a civil war amongst the barbarians of the steppes to the north, their lack of military preparation will lead to disaster. For Ren Daiyan, a young outlaw-turned soldier who hungers to reclaim the Fourteen Prefectures lost to the barbarians decades ago, the chaos will be an opportunity to rise far.

  
River of Stars is Guy Gavriel Kay's twelfth novel and the second set in a lightly fantasised version of China. The setting being reflected this time is 12th Century China during the Song Dynasty, and specifically the events surrounding the Jurchen/Liao civil war and China's unfortunate intervention in that conflict (motivated by China's desire to reclaim its sixteen lost prefectures) which backfired quite spectacularly.

River of Stars is a self-contained novel but a few oblique references to the events of Under Heaven will resonate more for people familiar with the earlier book. Indeed, whilst being stand-alone in terms of plot and character, River of Stars's themes resonate more strongly when contrasted against the earlier book. Under Heaven was about an empire at the height of its power and River is about the same nation in what some might term decline. The excesses and dangers of the former empire that resulted in over thirty million deaths are also made clear, and make the current nation cautious as a result. If wars and conflicts (real and fictional) stem from often forgetting the lessons of history, River of Stars is about learning from those lessons, perhaps to the point of over-caution.

With Ren Daiyan (loosely based on the real General Yue Fei) Kay has created what initially appears to be a standard heroic protagonist. He is a young, callow youth with a supreme talent for archery and military strategy who grows up to become a leader of men and a national hero when he wins an important, morale-boosting victory in an otherwise disastrous campaign. Yet Kay is not interested in regurgitating Joseph Campbell. Daiyan is more complex than he first appears, his own belief in his own destiny (bolstered by a confrontation with a fox-spirit entity in the novel's only notable magical/supernatural episode) having to be tempered with what is best for Kitai, as Daiyan is - oddly for a former outlaw - a true patriot. The reaction of the Imperial Court to Daiyan's military adventurism is something that I think a lot of readers will find frustrating or even infuriating, but it's also fascinating to see how the court has learned from the lessons of the past and fears anything to prolong war and thus increase the power of the military (and again, it is based on real history; Yue Fei faced much the same opposition after he won a series of significant victories). Ultimately this conflict, between war and peace and between soldiers and governors, lies at the heart of the novel and though our sympathies may be best-won by Daiyan, the point-of-view of the emperor and his advisers is also presented with conviction.

Daiyan's story is only one part of the story. On the other lies Lin Shan, a female poet and writer (loosely based on Li Qingzhao) during a period when women are not expected to pursue such tasks. This wins her a certain notoriety at court and a difficulty in winning female friends, but brings her to the attention of the emperor. Refreshingly, this story sets up a cliche (a woman cutting her own path in a sexist world) which the author then refuses to indulge in. Shan's deportment is unusual for her culture, but she is not persecuted for it and ultimately wins respect and appreciation. However, Kay does use her to reflect on some of the less progressive elements of the period for Chinese women (such as being forced to wear hobbled footware) and muse on how this period was less free and open for women than the preceding one in Under Heaven. Kay also uses Shan's storyline to explore issues such as sexuality and the power of myth and story versus the reality of history.

River of Stars (*****), like so much of Kay's work, is a novel that moves between being bittersweet, triumphant, tragic and reflective. It engages with a variety of themes against a backdrop informed by real history and is told with flair, passion and elegant prose. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

UK cover art: Tad Williams and Guy Gavriel Kay

Some new cover art for the UK market. First up is Happy Hour in Hell, the second volume in Tad Williams's Bobby Dollar series and the follow-up to last year's enjoyable Dirty Streets of Heaven. The UK edition is released on 26 September.

More imminent is Guy Gavriel Kay's River of Stars, which is already out in the USA (and e-book worldwide) and picking up good reviews. The UK print edition is out on 3 July.

Thanks to Jussi on the Westeros forum for spotting these.

The Shape of Things to Come: 2013

I decided to roll all of my normal 'looking ahead' posts into one this year. It's a bit late, so January is missing from these lists and thus it's a list looking forwards to the next eleven months, rather than twelve.

Books

2013 looks set to be an interesting year. At the more literary end of the spectrum we have new novels by Graham Joyce and Christopher Priest (two novels in three years is, by his standards, astonishingly productive). At the diametric opposite end of the scale we have Raymond E. Feist's last-ever Riftwar novel, which is being published to a reception of stone-cold indifference by most SFF readers. Inbetween we have the ongoing re-release of David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series (set to expand by four volumes this year) and the resumption of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt series, which reaches its ninth and penultimate volume. Neil Gaiman also presents us with his first adult-oriented, full-length novel in eight years, which should be worth a look.

Sadly, we have to bid farewell to Chris Wooding's splendid Tales of the Ketty Jay series, which is wrapping up after four volumes. Peter Brett's Daylight War has some hard work to do to make up for the deficiencies of the second volume, whilst Daniel Abraham hits us with another fantasy/SF double-whammy with The Tyrant's Law and Abaddon's Gate. Richard Morgan's divisive Land Fit For Heroes trilogy (no word yet on if it is indeed expanding to four books) also reaches its third volume with The Dark Defiles.

In the area of SF, Alastair Reynolds has the sequel to his Blue Remembered Earth coming out, whilst Stephen Baxter returns to interstellar exploration and colonisation with Proxima.


Undated, but pretty certain to hit in 2013, is Ian Cameron Esslemont's Assail (working title). Easily the most eagerly-awaited of Esslemont's novels, this book takes us to the much-dreaded continent of Assail. Expect to see a showdown involving the T'lan Imass, Silverfox, the Crimson Guard and much more besides. Less certain for 2013 is Fall of Light, Steven Erikson's middle volume in his Kharkanas Trilogy, which might still just sneak out before the end of the year The ever-fecund. Brandon Sanderson, meanwhile, has several dozen novels due out, with his second Stormlight novel being the most eagerly-awaited (but also one of the most likely to slip to 2014). Stephen Donaldson is also tentatively scheduled to publish the tenth and final Thomas Covenant novel (thirty-six years after the first), The Last Dark, before the end of the year.

That's about it for the epic fantasy big-hitters. No Rothfuss, and Lynch's Republic of Thieves remains MIA. Martin fans will get some more Song of Ice and Fire morsels in the form of a narrative history of the Dance of Dragons, which will appear in Dangerous Women, and then a big coffee-table guidebook to the world with The World of Ice and Fire, which is tentatively scheduled for November (but again delays are possible).
At this stage my most eagerly-awaited novel of the year is River of Stars, a semi-follow-up to Guy Gavriel Kay's excellent Under Heaven.

February

The Daylight War by Peter Brett

Jimmy and the Crawler by Raymond E. Feist

Dreams and Shadows by Robert Cargill

March

The Art of War by David Wingrove

The High Kingdom by Pierre Pevel

April

The God Tattoo by Tom Lloyd

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

Abominable by Dan Simmons

River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

Son of the Morning by Mark Alder (MD Lachlan)

May

The Tyrant's Law by Daniel Abraham

Magician's End by Raymond E. Feist

Dangerous Women by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (ed.)

The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce

The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

June

Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey (aka Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck)

The City by Stella Gemmell

On the Steel Breeze by Alastair Reynolds

The Time of Contempt by Andrzej Sapkowski

Cold Steel by Kate Elliott

The Dragon Queen by Stephen Deas

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

A Discourse in Steel by Paul S. Kemp

An Inch of Ashes by David Wingrove

Requiem by Ken Scholes

July

Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea by Adam Roberts

The Glass God by Kate Griffin

Gallow: The Crimson Shield by Nathan Hawke (Stephen Deas)

August

Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honour of Gene Wolfe by Bill Fawcett (ed)

The Adjacent by Christopher Priest

Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

War Master's Gate by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Dark Defiles by Richard Morgan

The Ace of Skulls by Chris Wooding

Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik

Gallow: Cold Redemption by Nathan Hawke (Stephen Deas)

September

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

The Broken Wheel by David Wingrove

Shaman: A Novel of the Ice Age by Kim Stanley Robinson

Gallow: The Last Bastion by Nathan Hawke (Stephen Deas)

Proxima by Stephen Baxter

October

Drakenfield by Mark Charan Newton

November

The World of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson

Moon's Artifice by Tom Lloyd

December

The White Mountain by David Wingrove

Undated

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

The Last Dark by Stephen Donaldson

Happy Hour in Hell by Tad Williams

Assail by Ian Cameron Esslemont

New Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett

King of Cobwebs by David Keck

Possible For 2013 But Uncertain

Fall of Light by Steven Erikson

The Free by Brian Ruckley

Seal of the Worm by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Spellbreaker by Blake Charlton

Stormlight Archive #2 by Brandon Sanderson

Next Gaunt's Ghosts novel by Dan Abnett

Dresden Files #15 by Jim Butcher

The Unholy Consult by R. Scott Bakker

The Sea Beggars by Paul Kearney

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch

Endlords by J.V. Jones

Triumff: The Double Falsehood by Dan Abnett

The Wheel of Time Encyclopedia by Harriet McDougal

Games

In terms of games, 2013 is looking reasonably good at this point, though (thankfully for my wallet) not as jam-packed as last year. There's a lot of much-delayed games coming out in 2013, such as Aliens: Colonial Marines (which somehow looks less interesting with every trailer that appears) and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, which is arriving a full two years behind schedule. I expect both will be playable, but will be surprised if either is outstanding (in particular, Blizzard really need to hire some new writers).

Also long-awaited is SimCity 5: A Truckload of DRM (or just SimCity as we now have to call it). Long-term fans of the venerable city management series have seen increasing disappointment as they learned of the always-on internet connection and the fact that the biggest cities you can build in the game are disappointingly small.

Looking much more interesting is BioShock Infinite. Whilst I was somewhat underwhelmed by the original BioShock's gameplay, certainly the art direction and visuals were striking and the sequel is following up on that end of things in spades. Hopefully the gameplay will match up this time.

Unfortunately, the dissolution of THQ has left the release dates for Company of Heroes 2, Metro: Last Light and South Park: The Stick of Truth all up in the air. Though the three games have all been rescued (by Sega, Deep Silver and Ubisoft respectively), their transition has left final release dates in some doubt. In particular, there is a legal tussle over South Park that could delay it indefinitely, which is a shame as it was looking like a particularly interesting take on the RPG genre.

Also suffering a delay is Grand Theft Auto V, which slips back four months to September, but only with the console versions confirmed. We all know there will be a PC version - given they released GTA4 on PC at a time when PC sales were rock-bottom and still sold shedloads, they'd be completely idiotic not to now the PC format is back on top of its game - so Rockstar's refusal to confirm it is just tiresome.

Arriving at the end of the year will be the new consoles, and with them the first 'next-gen' titles, such as Star Wars 1313 (likely a launch title for them). However, potentially more interesting is the arrival of the first batch of bigger games funded through Kickstarter (a few, like FTL, have already come out). Wasteland 2, Double Fine Adventure and Carmageddon: Reincarnation should prove whether the concept has legs. 2014 promises even more Kickstarted goodness, with Project: Eternity, Star Citizen and Elite 4 (hopefully) all arriving in force.

For me, the most promising game of the year is easily Rome II: Total War (or Total War: Rome II under Creative Assembly's new naming scheme). There hasn't been a really good Total War game for me since 2006's Medieval II, but Rome II looks like being both more epic and more fun than the last few games in the series.

February

Dead Space 3

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Crysis 3

March

SimCity

Tomb Raider

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

BioShock Infinite

Spring/Summer

Company of Heroes 2

ARMA 3

Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse

Metro: Last Light

South Park: The Stick of Truth

September

Grand Theft Auto V

Late 2013

Rome 2: Total War

Uncheduled

The Elder Scrolls Online

Star Wars 1313

Wasteland 2

X: Rebirth

Carmageddon: Reincarnation

Double Fine Adventure 

Films

 

Film-wise, 2013 looks a bit same-old, with a strong focus on superhero movies (even if these are some of the more interesting ones). We'll have to wait and see if Zack Snyder can resurrect the Superman movies (I'm not holding my breath), but Thor, Iron Man and a Japanese-influenced Wolverine should at least be fun.

The trailers are also suggesting that Into Darkness will be a more interesting, larger-scaled movie than J.J. Abrams's first Star Trek movie (which I was underwhelmed by: all the right ingredients, but not mixed together quite well). Benedict Cumberbatch certainly looks like a far more compelling villain than Eric Bana, at any rate. Also packed full of CGI and large explosions is Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim, which initially looks like a Michael Bay Transformers movie with added Idris Elba (which is in itself quite a good idea, actually). However, Del Toro's trademark weirdness could make this a bit more interesting than it appears.

Later in the year we have sequel city, with the second Hunger Games movie hoping to repeat the better-than-the-book trick of the first one. There's also the second Hobbit movie. I'm hoping against hope that Peter Jackson learns the art of editing so we can get a lean 90-minute (okay, two hours max) action movie, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. What is likely to be a lot shorter and a lot funnier is The World's End, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's long-awaited conclusion to their thematic Three Colours of Cornetto trilogy (following Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz).

For me, the movie I'm most interested in is, perhaps unexpectedly, Riddick. The third film to feature Vin Diesel's titular character, we've been promised a picture that jettisons most of the excesses of the second film in favour of a tighter scope and more condensed storytelling. With Katee Sackhoff on board to provide support and Karl Urban resuming his role from the second film, this could be a bit of a dark horse.

April

Oblivion

May

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Iron Man 3

June

Man of Steel

World War Z

Kick-Ass 2

July

Pacific Rim

The Wolverine

September

Riddick

October

The World's End

November

Thor: The Dark World

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

December

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

TV

Crimson Nuptials. Does more need to be said?

Community Season 4

Game of Thrones: Season 3

Doctor Who: Season 33.5

Doctor Who: 50th Anniversary Special

The Walking Dead Season 3.5/4.0

Cover art and blurb for Guy Gavriel Kay's RIVER OF STARS

Via Risingshadow, the cover art and blurb for Guy Gavriel Kay's River of Stars, his sort-of successor to 2010's excellent Under Heaven.

In his critically acclaimed novel Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay told a vivid and powerful story inspired by China’s Tang Dynasty. Now, the international bestselling and multiple award-winning author revisits that invented setting four centuries later with an epic of prideful emperors, battling courtiers, bandits and soldiers, nomadic invasions, and a woman battling in her own way, to find a new place for women in the world – a world inspired this time by the glittering, decadent Song Dynasty.

Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life — in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later — and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles towards the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai from the north.

Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor — and alienates women at the court. But when her father’s life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has.

In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.

River of Stars will be published in April 2013.