River of Stars

Under Heaven #2

by Guy Gavriel Kay

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.

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Historical Fantasy, China, Audiobook

639 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

Guy Gavriel Kay is a Canadian author of fantasy fiction. Many of his novels are set in fictional realms that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Justinian I or Spain during the time of El Cid. Those works are published and marketed as historical fantasy, though the author himself has expressed a preference to shy away from genre categorization when possible.

Reviews

[Lena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Epic atmospherically novel about the fall of the dynasty and rise of the legend based on the real Chinese history. Author did a great job creating the world that is familiar and recognisable but still magical. Interesting plot and well-written characters in the exotic background.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

What is it to fall out of love? It is has been a long time since I’ve done it and so I don’t remember. From what I recall, it was something unconscious for a long time. Something in your turn of phrase, in the explanations that you seek out and find, the articles you share and how often you choose to go to bed early. I remember it being full of protestations, a passion that was stronger than I felt and heavy with tears. The music I remember is always on constant repeat and probably confused by memories of soundtracks that sound like what I thought I ought to have felt. Then the crazy part: the whole story collapsing in a rush, like a child running through the bricks of a castle they have painstakingly constructed, and then, at the last minute, had doubts about. It’s the sort of threatening story that needs to be buried, and forgotten until years later when you can bear to look at the ruins that you’ve (of course) saved one more time.

In Persuasion, Anne argues with a sailor about the constancy of men and women’s love and claims for her sex the privilege of loving longest, long past when all hope has gone. I have no interest in making generalized assumptions about female kind, but I will say that I do this. I do this for the sake of what has come before. I do this with people, with friendships that have long since failed to be anything but pantomime and re-enactment and with formerly awe-inspiring idols who turned and showed me their zippers a long time ago.


I also do this with art, music and especially with books. It’s been a long time since I’ve fallen out of love with a person, book, movie or thing that has been a long standing favorite. At least, that is, become disenchanted with it in a way that is a conscious, deliberate process when I wasn’t quite sure that was what I wanted, rather than a slow, natural and gentle falling away that makes total sense and offers no conflict of understanding or sense of having the rug pulled out from under me. But that streak is over.

***
Kay’s books have been on my favorites pile for over a decade now. In and of themselves, they are not perhaps worth this depth of feeling now that I reconsider them. They are comfort reads, things I reach for when I want a tale told by a fireside on a winter’s night or on a lazy summer afternoon. But they are one of those names. An immediate touchstone when I’m asked for favorites, something that hit me at the right time and lead me a lot of other places. There's a lot to love in his books. He is a writer who always wanted to be a poet, and that shows, positively in his writing. The imagery can be beautiful and his settings lush and detailed. His habit of drawing from archetypes and connecting each of his books in a dream alternate universe of history serves him well. Since he stated his worship for the Old Stories in his first trilogy (Fionavar), he’s done a lovely job deconstructing each legend or tale down into the parts that matter. What I have loved about his writing is what I thought the point of this exploration was: to take the importance off the words and events and put it back where it matters- on the humans involved. Who are the people whose names turn up in history’s famous and turbulent times? Why do they make the choices that they do? Are they another race of “heroes” and Great Men or people in a particular situation who decided to be brave that one time? He did a great job making things make sense from a more everyday, practical angle, while still keeping the mystery, awe and adventure that makes these stories fun to hear to begin with. He added to the experience.

But not anymore. At least, not with his last couple of books. Since Ysabel, it seems like the focus has shifted. The lens is no longer as much about bringing out the characters from the tapestry and giving them three dimensions. It seems like now he’s decided his deconstruction is about the structure of the tale itself. He uses his usual methods of looking at an important time through the people who lived it, but the point no longer seems to be to illuminate these characters as they are and where they are. Now it seems like it’s about telling me a tired old story and sing it to comment on the nature of storytelling and its differences from history, myth and legend. We’re not being taken inside the depths to see what it’s like living there anymore. We’re back on the outside again, just like Fionavar, looking in at people we don’t understand, who make no sense in their context, and are shaped to fit the tale rather than the other way around. People are gone and story is back.

So what, you may say. Authors are allowed to and should evolve and explore different things. I agree with you. This doesn’t sound, necessarily, like a bad evolution in and of itself. If you spent that much time exploring stories through your characters, you might have found out some things that you wanted to share too. Isn’t that the point of writing? Sure. But only if it works and tells you something new. Unfortunately I think that this new tactic has ultimately gotten rid of everything he’s good at and brought into sharp relief the things that have never been his strong suit.*

To start with, since I am no longer looking at and involved with his characters or involved with the loveliness of his writing (I’ve seen enough of it to be past the first blush of that, especially since a lot of it can be repetitive), I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about his message and the ultimate point of what he says. That is: what is the function of what he writes? What is the function of this character’s thoughts, of that character’s arc? Why is it that women smile and die and men hang their heads in sorrow and live? Most importantly, why are we singing an elegy for this moment that we’re experiencing? Why do we care that one era is dying and another is about to be born? How is this enriching my understanding of why these sorts of conflicts happen or those decisions are made? Kay found his answer to this through people before. I was on board with that. That makes sense to me. People screw other people and their morals for the sake of their children. People make decisions that are hazardous to their health because they think they have nothing left to lose. People keep secrets to protect others and people hold pointless grudges because they are bitter about the way their life turned out.

Not anymore. Now characters are now a function of the plot and it shows. For example, in this book we’re exploring the nature of what makes a hero and how his legend is made after his death. This is a common theme in Kay’s writing. He’s done it well before, exploring the ambiguity of a figure like El Cid and his motivations, or a true believer in nationalism who ends up forging a country from battling fragments through twenty years of work. Now, in this book, we have a hero who we are just asked to believe is a hero because Kay says he is. Instead of proving that to us and showing us a person earning his way to the top, the man inside the legend, he decides to skip all that and just get to the good stuff. In order for his hero to be as young and successful as he wants him to be, he has him rapidly promoted from being a boss of a swamp gang to a commander of a fifty thousand strong army and more and assumes that it all goes pretty well along the way. His hero never falters and oh by the way goes on front line dangerous expeditions all on his own. In case we still doubt, he has him marked by a sex goddess. And seriously, I kid you not, he shows the goddess mark on his back to prove to everyone how Special he is. There’s a whole lot of “I was born to do this,” nonsense going on, too, as a reasoning for his motivations. Really? Because people who constantly make statements like that are someone whose hubris I would be wary of tripping over. Seriously, Kay, what are you even talking about? It seems he’s abandoned the theory that every hero is a person and returned to the Great Man theory once more.

Same goes for his main female character. Instead of showing us a strong woman who has grown up naturally out of her particular circumstances, we get a father who is supposedly quite shy and likes to avoid notice but believes in very modern co-ed equal child rearing techniques and then a woman who anachronistically shares most of the stances, attitudes and modern strength of women without peculiarities or differences like we got with Jehane or Catriana in the other books. She’s supposed to be this awesome poet and foil for the hero, but their attraction makes little sense- born out of him attempting your fake assassination, really?- and we’re asked to believe she’s awesome based on one deduction she made that one time which repeats the whole book. The poetry we’re asked to venerate is terrible, and she makes no other decisions that make sense for a woman of her position and time period. She makes the decisions she does because that’s what she needs to do to be a poignant set of eyes for us to look through and see Important People of the day through Everyman Eyes and what she needs to do to connect her to the hero. And of course- of course!- she is the only Enlightened, Special female surrounded by a lot of inferior specimens who fulfill that ridiculous stereotype that rarely exists and is completely not useful- dumb and pretty and naïve, or otherwise Lady Macbeth. Other supporting characters are barely there- with the possible exception of the main lady’s husband who is the sort of well drawn minor Kay character I remember. We spend time with a lot of other people, but the women are there mostly to be beautiful and deadly in a sexy way or stupid, as mentioned above, and the men are there to be noble or not and then die themselves. If he’s not giving me rich character development and complex scenes to evaluate, then the weaknesses he’s always had in his character creation (most of which are listed above) are going to be that much more obvious and not worth overlooking for the sake of the overall picture being painted.

So, now plot is king and the compensation that we get for this two things: the first is bigger, longer and more frequent action sequences and talk about the movement of armies. Which is tiresome in the best of circumstances and no more so than when it goes on for hundreds of pages and is centered on either really groan worthy stuff like: “OMG! ‘Barbarians’ are so good at war! It’s a shame we let our army go and have no superpower to look after us and prop up our dignity! We should have listened to Winston Churchill after all.”...or the upshot of this which it sounds like is a message about how you never evolve past the need for force and you should always Support the Troops. Which, argh. Thanks for that. Appreciated.

The other thing we’re given in exchange is intermittent musings and pauses (just like in Under Heaven) where Kay talks about the nature of the legend that gets built up around these people, how they are remembered in the history books or not remembered at all. He spends ten pages building up a character we’ve never seen before and then kills him off to make a statement about Life or something and the tales that never were. He goes through a pivotal moment in a character’s life and then tells us all about how that tale was passed down. Unfortunately, removing himself from his characters and telling me things in his narrator voice is not something that I think is a strong point for Kay. When he makes his points that way they sound obvious, trite, clichéd and hackneyed, pick your adjective. As an example, their gist boils down to: “It is sad when people die young and their potential is wasted.” “Sometimes there are unsung heroes who don’t get into the history books.” “Did you know that sometimes there’s a difference between what history says and what actually happened?” and that old favorite, “City people are corrupt and decadent and Everymen or people with a connection to the country or serious education are totally virtuous.” Which, I am happy for you to uphold education as awesome, but if we’re spending the whole book judging characters and situations based on how “smart” people are and then telling us we should be in awe of how smart they are (and of course their insights are not always worth this breathless worship) then you’ve got a fetish not a strong belief in education.

Kay's suddenly quite impressed with the Deeper Meaning and Message behind the stories and wants to make sure you know about it. It's like that thing I read once in an article about Springsteen- his music suddenly got kind of lame when he decided he was a "bard of the people" as opposed to writing great songs about specific moments, situations or places and letting the meaning precede from that.** Preaching will never beat good character development. Metanarration on your points will never beat illustration of your points. It seems like Kay has forgotten that in his last several books, or he’s made the conscious choice that he disagrees with me. He’s revealing the framework of his structure to be weaker than I wanted to know that it was, and I have no way to look away anymore or to decide that I’m crying so much right now that I can’t possibly bring myself to care. Kay has always wanted us to mourn for things that are lost, to understand why he speaks with such delicate nostalgia about things that will never be again, and why History and its making are wonderful, beautiful, brutal and sad. But he’s skipping forward to the nostalgia part without doing his groundwork first. He’s assuming we're on board before we even start, impatient to get to the emotions he loves to indulge in at a fever pitch without making them worth it. This is not the kind of story that you want to ask a whole lot of questions about. But I can’t stop asking them with these last couple of books, and not in a good way (most of them brought to you by the letters W T and F.)

And so I didn’t even finish it. I wasn’t even interested. I knew where it was going and how we would get there and I couldn’t have cared less. Unfortunately, I think that means I’m done with Kay for now. That’s a weird sentence to write, but I just don’t see that there’s anything else here on offer for me. It’s a shame, because this is one of the last reliable fantasy genre places I could go and be assured of a positive experience. Maybe the upshot of it all is I’ve just outgrown this or read enough and it’s just time to look in new directions. Sad to let it go, though! That’s all.

*An alternative to this analysis is that he’s still doing what he’s always done, especially since the form and structure are still there, and just not doing it as well. But I am going to assume for the purposes of this review that the changes are intentional.
** Please understand, unlike Kay, nothing will kill my love for Springsteen's music, and he will always be a fabulous performer, but the point is what I'm after here!

[Choko · Rating 4 out of 5]

*** 4.44 ***

I just finished, and honestly, this book has left me completely depressed! Almost more than the second Malazan, and this is saying something, because that one had me crying for days... The complete helplessness of regular people and their lack of control over their own lives, is absolutely devastating... The storytelling was gorgeous as always, but I feel like crying... The human drama and tragedy is so overwhelming... I need a drink, or at least a week of fluff and comedy...

[Traveller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel cheated. I hate these wishy-washy anti-climactic Kay endings, and the wishy-washy over-virtuous flat characters, but that was not the only thing that disappointed me here.

I must say that although I loved most of the first three quarters, I hated the ending.

The book is supposedly based on the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty in China, and a lot of the background does indeed portray this.

Sure, there was a Chinese general who underwent a fate like this, but since Kay changed and embroidered upon so much of the detail anyway, couldn't he just as well have changed history to make the end more satisfying? ....or written a parallel history, a scenario of "what if?"

If you're going to make some famous characters your main characters, and you're going to diverge from what is known about them, why then not just as well, re-write a parallel history in a more pleasing, "what-if" format? Like for instance, what if a character chose not to follow orders at a certain point in time? How could that have changed history? (Since the author portrayed aspects of their personal lives differently, in any case).

Anyhow, I think that the actual Chinese legends and history associated with the birth and end of Yue Fei, are much more interesting than Kay's rendition of them.

Also, the technological and infrastructural developments of the Southern Song Dynasty and the establishment of the Ming dynasty would have made a cool second half to this novel which was all too rambling for what it covers.

I also hate his blooming sexism! It just grated on me how he repeatedly only talks about women as objects- Kay seems to have more insight into what a horse must be feeling and thinking when ridden, than all the women who were used and raped as the spoils of war, for instance. And what about the concubines- they're like paper puppets, not to mention his version of one of the greatest female poets in Chinese history. (Shan is based on the poetess Li Qingzhao.)

In fact, if you read up on the period, you will see that many upper-class women were pretty well-educated at the time, so as to better run their households, since they were in charge of the household and often mostly of the household finances too. Nothing of this is reflected in the novel, and the fact that Lin Shan can read and write is presented as something unusual, as "unfitting" for a woman.

Sure, Confucianism was repressive towards women, but not to the point that upper-class women were not allowed an education.

Female education was still subordinate to male education and women were subordinate to men (of course!), but Kay's women are like totally flat paper-cut-outs, like objects rather than people. Never does Kay successfully manage to see the world through a woman's eyes; we always just get a male chauvinist view of things.

Also, on the Northern Steppes women were not merely helpless sexual chattels. They lived a hard life and had to run the household when their menfolk were away. Some of these women even took on military roles. So, not quite the Gor-like view that Kay paints of women being literally mindless animals.

I've been musing about why Kay's apparent sexism seems to grate on me so, and I've realized that a lot of it might have to do with the fact that I've recently been reading a lot of the work of author China Mièville, a male author who manages to present a remarkably non-sexist view of the world in comparison.
I've become spoilt!

Another niggle (not all that important, but really irritating), are all the banal platitudes, for instance: "It was an important day. Some days are", and the foreshadowings that never truly materialize, all the hints about legends in the making and so on.

-----

When the west wind blows the blinds aside,
I am frailer than the chrysanthemums. --Li Qingzhao (Li Ching-chao, 1084-1155)








Despite what Kay says, I think she is exquisite! ;) ..and quite contrary to the image Kay creates, Li Qingzhao's mother was a poetess too.

The 'real' Li Qingzhao actually loved her husband very much, and by all accounts they had a very happy marriage, sharing many interests. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty, while they were fleeing the Tartar invasion, he died of typhoid fever.

Li Qingzhao mourned her husband's passing unto her death. She also greatly mourned the world that existed before the Tartar invasion.

It is very difficult to translate the artistry of Chinese poetry into English, since a large part of the artistry lies in how the Chinese characters are rendered and 'fit in' with one another colloquially and idiomatically-- so attempts to translate to English loses a lot of the essence of what is admired in most of these poems; a bit like how it would be hard to translate things like alliteration and assonance and 'puns' from English into another language.

Nevertheless, the sadness in her later poetry shines through the translation process.

Fading incense, remnants of wine:
A heart full of remorse.
Parasol-leaves falling,
Parasol-leaves falling-
Urged by the west wind.

Haunting me always,
Autumn's somber colors.
Never leaves me alone,
The pain of loneliness.


------
LATER: I've been trying out some of the standard fantasy fare out there in the past day or so, which has greatly increased my appreciation of this novel. It might not be great literature (I've been reading the likes of Proust, Mann and Nabokov, previously, so the bar is high), but I do reckon that with the exception of really original writers like Mièville and a few others, at least this is pretty good fare for the fantasy genre.

True, the novel does have a badass character who can kill 7 men in a few seconds with a bow, but except for that, at least this is something refreshing compared to "standard" fantasy fare. My other gripes still apply though. But I do love the setting of the novel, and now that I've gained some distance, I feel more happy that I spent time reading this novel.

[Jake Bishop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread edit: River of Stars wins the most improved GGK book on reread award, or maybe it is just the one I read the worst the first time. Book did so much I didn't appreciate as much the first time, ch9 rules, and is awesome. The banter isn't as bantery because culturally it has characters who are more formal. The prose is incredible, and the characters I wasn't as attached to are awesome.

Very complex plot, very well executed, awesome book. If there is one minor criticism I have it would be that I think Ren Daiyen's interesting aspects come more from his good qualities. The thing is this never bothers me while reading it, and I really was compelled by the entire cast, but I would say thinking back initial introductions of characters tend to show that characters flaws, and then those get focused on less after a few peoples initial introductions. But like they were still fantastic

8.9


Previous review:
This is a Guy Gavriel Kay historical book, so as a result I enjoyed it quite a lot. However I also have more criticisms than I have with most of the other Guy Gavriel Kay historical books.

Edit: One more thing, do not read this before Under Heaven, they are both stand alones, but my favorite scene in this book is made about 20 times better because of Under Heaven. GGK made me angry about a tree, not just frustrated, but completely livid.

Let's look at the structure of chapter 9. This chapter follows a women named Sima Peng, and we effectively get a short story, following an event in her life. This short story intersects with one of our 2 protagonists, Ren Daiyen in a somewhat minor way, and does advance the main story. Also I thought this was really well written as a short story. On the other hand though, , as far as I can tell the result of that chapter had basically no bearing on the rest of the novel. It was purely there for it's own sake.

I am generally quite ok with bits that are there for their own sake, especially when they are good, like this one was. This was just a bit much for me. This is also not an isolated incident, this book does a lot of PoV hoping. I think by chapter 7 there was only a single repeated PoV, and GGK does not have short chapters. (granted his chapters are shorter in this book, it is 30 chapters). In the back half I did feel it got more focused, and everything we got was clearly important to the story being told. I think this is a large reason why I enjoyed the second half more. Although I did still think the first half had some brilliant stuff, it also had some frustrating stuff.

Next criticism, is that at times in this novel, it felt to me like the omniscient narration (which we often get in GGK books) did get a little repetitive. I don't have this on kindle, so don't know how many times the world "ripples" was used, in the context of the narrator discussing how events can ripple out into the world, but I'm sure that number is a lot. I can't say that any of these bits wouldn't have been good in isolation, they just stopped feeling new.

Lastly, and this is only a criticism on the standards of GGK, but I did not feel as attached to as large a number of characters as I normally do in what I consider his stronger works. I think maybe some of their voices didn't seem really distinct to me.

Ok, still though, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Especially the story of one of the main protagonists Ren Daiyen. He is who we follow in chapter one, and I really enjoyed all the events with his character, from chapter 1 to the final pages. This novel covers quite a lot of time, and I think tells a really good story. It also had some cool battles, which isn't GGK's trademark, but I appreciated the look at tactics. As Ren Daiyen is inspired by a real life general. The final bit of this book had me turning the pages, wanting to know what happened, and how it all ended.

Also of course, the politicking and the prose was really really good as it always is. Although maybe I am just used to it, but I do remember being noticeably blown away by GGK's prose more in a lot of his other works, but he is my favorite prose writer on the planet, so even if I found it marginally less magical, I still thought it was really good. As it has for a long time, the political scheming does a fantastic job of blending people acting like themselves, and sometimes being irrational, with really clever plans, and the people outside of the politics running into obstacles because of the politicians screwing things up for them.

The world of Kitai also does continue to be arguably GGK's best worldbuilding. I believe he lived in China in between writing this and Under Heaven, and I think it shows in how the environmental aspects are described. Under Heaven largely took place inside civilization, and I think he did a fantastic job of writing the atmosphere, and you can tell GGK was bitten by some mosquito's during his time in living in China.

8.6/10 (Pre great rating purge of 2024 scale)

[Mayim de Vries · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Our lives aren’t only ours.”

There are plenty of fantasy books that take us along the “from zero to hero” path. “River of Stars” is similar but the ingenious variation comes with the fact that the personal development of the hero is accompanied by a grand scale devolution of his country. If you expect a happy ending, you got a wrong book.

“River of Stars” is a companion novel to “Under Heaven” (and together they form kind of a duology inasmuch as they are set in the same alternative version of China) but where “Under Heaven” talked about an empire in its heyday, “River of Stars” takes us to a sad and diminished ruin of the former glory. We are caught between the inescapable contrasts. There is no an easy way out.

The Twelfth Dynasty of Kitai is shrunken and rotten, and can repeat after Livy (one of my favourite quotes!) “We can endure neither our vices nor their cure.” The devolution does not concern merely the material, but it affects the spirit (first of all), and as the reader wades through the symptoms of this decay, it will be apparent how this slow poison spreads and how it affects the men and women of the empire. It is evil mixed with incompetence mixed with desperation mixed with honourable intentions. The result is chilling.

You’d expect that this is where the MC steps in. You are right. But you are also wrong.

Mr Kay is known, if not renowned, for his perfect characterisation of even secondary and tertiary protagonists. “River of Stars” is not different in this regard; the problem is that we do not really have primary, secondary or tertiary figures, because the leading ones do not have the narrative monopoly. To the contrary, their voices are quire rare and we see the story unfolding through a wide array of individuals, some of whom appear, sparkle and vanish, some stay with us longer even if they linger on the margins. The intensity of this way of telling the story results in the fact that both male and female MCs become guests in their own tale.

Ren Daiyan is a great hero. But not such a great protagonist. My main problem is that he has been born to make all those great things he did. There is no development to him or in him. He does not need to grow, he needs to persevere. He himself admits that “It was more as if the choice had been made for him, he was only the agency of its working.”

Well, let me tell you, I was furious. For once, what kind of choice is it if you know you were born to be wild great. But also because all the important moments on the forking path of his life were skipped, and some only were later referred to in the retrospect. How frustratingly exasperating (particularly the first, and never properly explained one)!

The female counterpart (Lin Shan) was more interesting, mostly because she was threading a lonely path of an unorthodox eccentric among the meek and domesticated females of her time. Not an extraordinary beauty (weird that for Mr Kay, but a nice change), usually disliked by women, overeducated and altogether too clever (I could empathise). Her path, her marriage, her choices - these were well conceived and even better written.

Evidently, Mr Kay experiments with telling the story on many different levels. This way of narrative and meta narrative and then something in between did not resonate with me fully. Also, (as I’ve been trying to tell you) he experiments with the use of parentheses.

The book enticed me and drew me in but then lost me somewhere in the middle (forgive me, Father of All Books, I had even thought of skimming) only to grind me to incoherent pieces in the end. In spite of my numerous misgivings (most of them you will find in what has quickly landed on my personal list of the best reviews on Goodreads) I was annihilated and offended (both!) by that ending.

The catharsis never came.

It is not necessary to read the previous book, although I’d recommend it (especially that there is a nice crossover across time) because the predecessor is, in my opinion, slightly better.

Where it begins: Under Heaven ★★★★☆

[Algernon (Darth Anyan) · Rating 5 out of 5]

With every Kay book I read I'm tempted to say: 'This is the best one yet!' River of Stars is no exception. It may be only the fact that it is fresh in my memory, but I believe the author has reach a new height in his quest to conjure and breath life into ancient histories. I have also noticed that the supernatural elements feature less and less with each new novel, as if the actual events that served as inspiration are enough in themselves to interest the modern reader and we don't need fairies and trolls at the end of the garden to make the point. One of the characters in the book can be considered as an alter ego of the author; Qi Wai is a nobleman who gathers relics of the past, preserving lost treasures and keeping a flame of reason burning while barbarians gather at the gates of the capital city I have been a small man carrying a small torch, looking back, and further back.

In particular for this latest book, I noticed a better control of the passive, melancholy voice singing paeans to lost glories and a more ambitious plot construction, weaving together the men of action (soldiers), the political animals (emperors, councillors and dissidents), the artists (poets, archeologists, musicians) and the commoners who carry all of them on their backs. There are more battle scenes here than in the last five Kay books combined, but to me this is a bonus not a shortcoming. In fact, if I were to resume the book to one major theme it would be the balance of power between brute force and civilized behaviour, between those who build and those who destroy.

As usual, the chosen period of study is one of a great civilization on the point of collapse, the moment of change when new forces, new ideas are pushing the old ones aside (In previous books we had the passing of the Moors in Andaluzia, of the vikings in Ireland, of the Age of Chivalry in southern France, of the Romans into the Byzantines, etc). The Twelve Dinasty of Kitai, ruled by the Son of Heaven, Emperor Wenzong, is threatened from outside by the rising power of the steppe riders and from inside by corruption, incompetence and an effete lifestyle. A hero is needed to bring back national pride and to energize a lethargic society. Ren Dayan is a young boy with big dreams, with a quick mind and a talent for archery. The book follows him from the first confrontation with bandits on a minor country road, through a successful outlaw career as a kind of Oriental Robin Hood, and later as an oficial army commander rising through the ranks until he passes into legend.

Wolves howl.
I cannot find rest
Because I am powerless
To amend a broken world

He is a good character to anchor this sprawling story, but given his status as a mythical hero of the people, he tends to act in a pompous and self-righteous way and I found myself more interested in the lesser characters of the epic:

- Lady Lin Shan is my favorite : a bit of a tomboy in an age where women are supposed to be decorative and useless, a poet, a scholar, an independent spirit and a passionate woman who is forced to hide behind a facade of conformity and bow to the male egos around her. Of special interest in her early manifestation of feminine emancipation is her horror at the fashionable bounding of young girls feet, as a statement of their delicate and submissive nature. Her poetry on its own may not be so impressive, but taken in the context of the events it describes it becomes one of the most poignant moments in the whole story:

I stand upon my balcony,
Looking down on ancient bronzes
Beside the courtyard fountain.
The evening wind rises,
Geese fly overhead, going south.
Leaves fall into the fountain,
One and then another,
Far away, mountains gather clouds,
Somewhere it is raining.
Here it grows dark under the river of stars,
Then the moon rises over houses and walls.
Shadows of trees lie along the ground.
I cannot keep the leaves from falling.

Xi Wengao is an old hand at the game of thrones, the grey eminence behind the Emperor, until more ruthless adversaries push him into exile. Divided between bowing to tradition and real-politik power plays, he is not capable of overcoming the age old distrust of the civil administrators towards the military competent leaders.

Lu Chen is a dissident and a poet, a descendent of another poet from Under Heaven . Another exile, banished from court on account of polemic pamphlets, he turns to a life of contemplation, seeking peace in a retreat from the world of backstabbing and kowtowing to power: His own doctrines were about compassion, the brush strokes of words, painting, conversation, enduring friendship, family. Laughter. Music. Service to the Empire. Wine. The beauty of women and of rivers under stars.

Another particularity of the novel that I believe is new for Kay is the more frequent use of minor (one-shot) characters as narrators, looking at society and at the events from the perspective of the common man - a teenage guard at a war camp, a young girl forced to marry in a small village, an orphan boy helping the outlaws escape the guards in another village, an itinerant spirit healer. These episodes are very useful in fleshing out the society of Kitai in the times of the Twelve Dynasty. Speaking of which, there are frequent references throughout the novel to events and personalities from the previous dynasties, underlining the weight of history and the continuity of civilization like a river without a beginning or an end, a grandiose landscape in which individuals and their efforts count less than the whole.

After turning the last page I feel I have learned a great deal about the Song period that served as inspiration for the novel, and also that there is so much more to discover. I hope I will find time to search for and to read other books set in China, fiction or non-fiction.

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kay always tries, to a degree, to make his book resemble historical fiction and even history books. Here it succeeds fully and that both the best part and the worst part of this book. On one hand this has calm and contemplative tone of well directed, well narrated historical documentary even though, just like in real history, some pretty horrible things happen. On the other hand I didn't have close connection with the characters and at no point did I have dread and excitement following them. Lacking one of the main reasons I read fiction I thought about giving this book lower grade but when my impressions settled I realized I did enjoy it quite a bit despite it (I do love a good documentary).

One thing I really like that we get a lot of brief PoV's of characters that going to die. This isn't new thing, it isn't new thing even in Kay's books, Joe Abercrombie superbly does it in Heroes but in River of stars these little vignettes just fit so well and are just as big part of the story as the main characters.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Returning to Kay's richly drawn worlds is like falling into poetry, extensively researched history, and the becoming one with the horrors that beset these wonderful contemporary protagonists.

I'm tempted to call this silkpunk, but I must admit there is *almost* no fantasy and definitely no SF in it. Instead, it is just an immersive look at what could be the Song Dynasty, 400 years after the original novel Under Heaven that resembled the Tang Dynasty.

This is historical escapism at its best:
A educated woman making her way, doing the best she can in this world.
A hero warrior turned bandit and later becoming the spark to ravage the land in civil war.

The only thing I could do was float away in the text. :)

[Mogsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars. Review also posted at The BiblioSanctum

Because I've read and enjoyed Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven, I became intrigued and very excited when I first found out about River of Stars. Set in the same "universe" and timeline but approximately four centuries after the events of the first book, this isn't truly a sequel and can definitely be read as a standalone. Still, in my humble opinion it wouldn't hurt to read Under Heaven first; like I said, I thought it was a good book, but it also gives more insight into the setting and a deeper understanding of the people's sorrow in River of Stars for their once powerful empire with strong leaders that has gone soft and in decline.

It's no secret that Kay is one of my favorite authors when it comes to historical-fantasy. One of the reasons is that his stories which are often analogues of real places set in real historical periods, and in many cases infused with very powerful messages and themes. Set in a world inspired by Song Dynasty China, Rivers of Stars is no exception.

I find it difficult to just present a description of the novel, because that simply wouldn't do the book any justice. On the surface: Altai barbarians from the northern steppes invade Kitai, taking advantage of a weak emperor whose decadence and lavish spending has emptied the treasury and run the empire into the ground. A young boy grows up to become an Outlaw of the Marsh, then goes on to become one of the greatest commanders the Kitai army has ever known. An educated young woman ahead of her time changes the world with her songs and poetry.

River of Stars is about all that but also so much more; because of the way Kay writes, the book is almost like a work of art. His strength has always been his way with words, and I swear his writing gets more beautiful every time I pick up another one of his books. Reading this was like reading a book of poetry. And while I don't deny that his kind of prose can get a little tedious after a while, that's okay too, because I just put it down when that happens and pick it up again later. I think novels like these are just meant to be savored, anyway; there's really no rushing through Guy Gavriel Kay books.

His dialogue writing can be very subtle too, which is actually quite appropriate for this story in which so much unfolds within an imperial court of secrets and intrigue, at a time and in a place where saving face is everything and what you say (or don't say) can get you killed. While Kay can definitely tell a story, his stuff is probably not what you'd turn to if you want a rip-roaring book of fast-paced adventure or nonstop action. For example, though there is certainly no lack of battles in River of Stars, I find many of them are only described after the fact. Rather than the actual fighting, we often see only the results and the aftermath.

And I think that is the point of the book, really. One of the themes in River of Stars is how a single person can shape your life and bring you to places you never thought possible, how the decisions or actions (or the destiny) of someone can ripple through history to affect legions or even change the face of an empire. The happenings behind major events are meticulously peeled back, examined from different angles, to show the significance of the repercussions that can be felt for generations.

It's another reason why it was hard for me at times to tease out a real clear thread of a plot while reading this. The story is told in so many layers, and not always linearly, filled in with many narratives during the past, present or even future. Everything is woven together to form a whole in a very impressive way, cementing the idea in my mind of Guy Gavriel Kay as a true artist.

[Magill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Torn...

What do I say about this book? The trends that I hoped were an aberration in "Under Heaven" seem to have increased and not waned. I read the book, it was well-enough written but there was no magic, no sense of intimacy, no prose that made me want to stay on a page indefinitely.

Like "Under Heaven", the scope of the canvas was enormous; the dilemmas faced by the characters seemed less poignant and more inevitable. In addition, the distance placed between the reader and the characters was increased by the insertion of observations about history and stories and, essentially, the road not taken (not Kay's term, but the gist of his ruminations). The most moving scene to me was at East Slope, near the end of the book, and for a moment the poignancy and humanity of the situation and the characters was real and beautifully rendered (although slightly distracting in the present tense and seen through Shan's eyes). It made a minor character the most real, alas but only for a fleeting moment and it was back to the arc of the story and then, as on page 562 (hardcover) more philosophical thoughts. Perhaps I would enjoy reading these as an essay by the author, but not inserted as observations in the midst of the story.

Thoughts about history and story, truth and perception, paths that cannot be taken (unless you believe in infinite parallel universes) - yes, we grasp how we create our own mythologies, how we make people into something larger and more noble than ourselves, beyond mere mortals, which can excuse us of our own inaction due to our lack of super-humanity, nobility and ability; that we cannot really look back and say, "if only I had done x and not y, everything would have been different, better", for there is no way to go back and test that theory, and who knows what wild cards would be revealed if we could?

Look, this is well-written and, if by any other author, a good read. By Kay, "my heart flares like a fire", I am not transported; I am not filled with sorrow and longing; I am not revisiting and mulling over the people and the events and the ending, which is never actually an ending but simply a door to the next part of their story; I am not heart-broken; I am not shoving the book at someone saying "you have GOT to read this, it is SO beautiful, magical, human." I cannot give it less than a 3, but please, please, Mr. Kay, come back to us. Maybe you are evolving into a creature of pure energy, light, moving beyond your tales, but we want you here with us, making your own special magic and letting us share in its flickering light.

[Sud666 · Rating 4 out of 5]

"River of Stars" is the second book in the "Under Heaven" series. The first book, for which this series is named, is not necessary to your reading this book. But, the events of that story do have an impact on the setting of this second book.

This time Guy Gavriel Kay uses the decadent Song dynasty of the 1200s IRL, as the basis for the 12th Dynasty of Kitai. Due to the events of the first book, the Empire is a shadow of itself. 14 provinces have been lost, and hundreds of millions died in that civil war between the Ninth Dynasty and the renegade general.
400 years later, the great capital city of Xinian lies devastated and nearly empty. The new Court is now in Hanjin. Bureaucrats and court officials have taken power away from the military, the Long Wall is a distant memory, and barbarians from the steppes control the former provinces.

In this setting, a young soldier Ren Daiyan will go through epic changes in his life to rise to become a great general. Just in time to face an enormous threat in the form of the Altai, a young and aggressive steppe tribe that is forming an empire and their eye is on Kitai.

Navigating court intrigue and power politics, Ren must try to form a competent army to face the Altai threat. As usual, this was a great story. The historical-based setting makes for a great setting and those who have read the first book will appreciate the massive changes that have occurred. I enjoyed this story and was surprised by the ending.

If you enjoy a good fantasy7 story based on real-world history, then this second book by Kay will truly be a pleasure to read.

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
I haven’t read any Guy Gavriel Kay – he’s been on my interest list – until his two China books. Underwhelmed with them, when I had quite high expectations of Kay, I take into account a number of reviews from fans who feel he does not live up to himself in these, that they lack in character or have become self-important. I did not find the people in these books deeply-drawn or engaging, and his portentous tone drove me up the wall. Observations along the lines of: ‘Sometimes that happens’, ‘Some days are important’ – I don’t know an excuse for these fatuities even once, and there must be a hundred. What I expected from him was a profound meditation on Tang and Song history, in fantasy guise, but I don’t feel he delivered.

Part of my problem was an unreality that crept in – that he doesn’t maintain a realism, so that I cease to believe. It struck me that this happens when he takes on the plot or style of the early Chinese novels, obviously sources – Outlaws of the Marsh notably paid tribute to. I’ve seen the same in other China novels: The Ten Thousand Things: A Novel on Yuan/Ming, the Southern Swallow series, beginning with The Academician, on Northern/Southern Song (exactly the events Kay treats) – bandits who step out of these comedy-adventure tales, with superhero stunts and over-perfect plots, instead of bandits made realistic. Nothing wrong with that per se, and these pre-modern classics are fantastic sources. But throughout both of Kay’s novels I found frustrating his teetering between history and fantasy; my suspension of belief collapsed over and over, and I had to drag myself up again after these spills, to limp tentatively on. That was my experience of reading. In a related note, as I read this I began to bang my head against the wall about its want of high seriousness. I thought back to Southern Swallow’s version which, in spite of both comedy and fantasy, hit notes of high seriousness, whatever I mean by that.

I complained in my review of Under Heaven that – although I want to love his blend of fantasy-history, his use of fantasy to discuss history – it turns out, I felt he doctors history; he’s not obliged to treat whatever happened, and when he doesn’t care for what happened he uses his licence to change and invent. Wait on: don’t straight historical novels do this too? Yes, probably. His chosen focus in this novel on the Song is military unpreparedness. His historical lessons have to do with military unpreparedness. I’ll echo another knowledgeable review, to say that perhaps he doesn’t tell us much about Song achievements; yes, they tried and failed to be Tang, but they did amazing things of their own. (A fabulous, approachable read on Song China: The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China). Kay’s internalisation of the chauvinism of the Chinese record was slightly less evident in this one than in Under Heaven, or in simpler language, his barbarians were not as abysmal, though still crude, their cultures ignored. I can pardon this in a good book: I pardon Southern Swallow for cruded-down Jurchen. I’m still trying to figure out the case of The Ten Thousand Things, because it’s first-person, and the first person’s anti-foreign chauvinism is accurate and typical… I didn’t see the novel ever distance itself, though. Our hero in River of Stars is so committed to the slogan of winning back from the barbarians ‘our rivers and our mountains’ that he has it tattooed. This is his motivation through the novel, but it’s not a slogan I can get misty-eyed about, given the chauvinism involved (and the historical circumstances which nobody wants me to go into, let alone the present-day applications of this thinking) – so, for me, this set up a resistance to Kay’s novel. I do not pretend to be an impartial observer. I am interested in the northern societies of the Jurchen (here the Altai) and the Khitan (here the Xiaolu. In an irony, he names his China after them – Kitai – as did Marco Polo with Cathay; this kept me confused throughout).

[JHM · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my favorite authors, one of only two or three whose new books I pre-order -- but his last few books have been disappointing. Instead of presenting beautifully-drawn characters moving in vivid times, he seems to be talking *about* the story he is telling. The sense of personal engagement and risk, of being caught up in great times, so beautifully rendered in Lions of Al-Rassan, The Sarantine Mosaic, and the Fionavar trilogy, is entirely missing here.

I was also disappointed by the flat narration of one of the character's encounters with a magical creature. In the Sarantine Mosaic, the encounter with the Otherworldly is chilling, perilous. There is no sense of that awesomeness or peril here.

I have re-read Fionavar, Lions, the Mosaic, and A Song for Arbonne multiple times each, and each time they are a joy. I can't imagine wanting to re-read this book (nor Under Heaven).

I want the old Kay back.

[Ranting Dragon · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.rantingdragon.com/review-o...

River of Stars is the twelfth novel by Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay and is based loosely on twelfth century China during the Song Dynasty. Like many of his works, Kay weaves historical names, places and events into a fictional tapestry that still retains the feel of historical work, while engaging the reader in the intensely character-driven style that makes his works so engrossing.

Nothing happens, and everything happens
It's been my experience with fantasy lately that more and more things are becoming plot and action driven. Battles, conflicts, direct interactions seem to be the name of the game. Read any book that takes place during or around a war or invasion, and you'll find a solid percentage of the text dedicated to the action scenes: sword fights, army maneuvers, deaths, escapes. Such makes for a very attention-grabbing read, trying to keep you involved by constantly throwing something intense in your face.

In River of Stars, the opposite is true. This is the story of an invasion, of a general rising up to bring his armies to victory against a foe that seems overwhelmingly strong. And there's almost no action at all. Instead, Kay does an absolutely stunning job communicating the state of the action through implication and suggestion, concentrating instead on the characters. He shows you what these people are like, makes you come to know them, to understand them. And through this understanding, we need only see a few lines of dialogue or a short paragraph describing the action around the characters. Our knowledge of who they are fills in the rest.

It struck me about halfway through the book that more time had been spent discussing poetry than warfare, and that not only did this not detract from the work in any way, I found myself more deeply invested in what was going on than I would have been if this had been an action-oriented war novel. My connection to the characters made me care so much more about what they thought about the events happening off in the distance than I did about the events themselves.

Small stones make large ripples
Another common element to most modern fantasy is that the heroic protagonist and their group makes many sweeping changes to the world around them. They are larger than life, and nobody can doubt the influence their actions (and generally only their actions) have on the world around them. Kay instead presents a world where the actions of every character, even ones of obvious societal importance—generals, emperors, ministers—really feel... not so much small. What I mean to say is that each character feels like they are just living their lives, in their world, making the decisions that they would make, guided by their beliefs and the realities of their situation.

There are no obvious moments you can point to and say "This is when the hero's destiny is revealed" or "This is when the defining moment of this character's life happened." Everything just happens. And it feels so smooth and natural and realistic that it pulls you in and keeps you there. Not a single solitary thing in this entire novel broke immersion, reeked of deus ex machina, or fell afoul of any tropes of lazy storytelling.

Historical fantasy's Daniel Day-Lewis
I've always maintained, and will likely continue to maintain, that Daniel Day-Lewis is among the greatest actors of all time. While he doesn't always pick roles that have a wide-ranging mass appeal, he only picks roles that meet his incredibly high standards. His dedication to research and to method acting, completely burying himself in a role in a way that few people can even really understand, is what has led to him being the only person to win three Best Actor academy awards. His rate of appearances in movies is low, only twelve films in twenty-four years, but I've yet to see a performance that didn't utterly blow me away.

I include the above to really communicate what I am saying when I compare Guy Gavriel Kay to Daniel Day-Lewis. He is similarly non-prolific, with twelve novels in thirty years, and similarly dedicated to his craft in a way that few people seem to be. Each of his books contains an afterword which talks about the research conducted, works referenced, and experts consulted, and it just flabbergasts me. I've read his entire bibliography and not only was I not disappointed, I was hard pressed to find a single thing to complain about.

Why should you read this book?
The only reason I can think of why you shouldn't read this book is if you just finished reading another book by Kay. These novels need some digestion time, to really sit down and think about what you just read. I've read several of his novels multiple times each, and the idea of reading two in a row just seems like too much. You need to relax and unwind a little with something a little lighter before you dive back into the immersive worlds Kay creates. You should read this book if you have an appreciation for expertly crafted, character-driven fantasy of the highest order; if you want to really get to know characters, to get a deep sense of them, and their place in their society and their role therein; if you want to close a book's back cover, take a deep breath, set it down, and not even consider picking up another book until you've had time to just appreciate the raw artistry you've just witnessed. That is why you should read this book.

[Mirnes Alispahić · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four centuries ago, in "Under Heaven", a man was burying the bones of fallen soldiers on the shore of a lake, on the slope of a mountain, to pay tribute to his father. This act brought him a gift worthy of the gods, 250 heavenly horses. Shen Tai, with his family and horses, becomes one of the cogs in the war machine that will drive the country into a bloody civil war and tear apart a powerful nation, leaving millions dead and a devastated land.
After four hundred years, Kitai is only a pale shadow of a once magnificent civilization. Shen Tai is a hero of the nation, almost a saint. In the north, behind the Great Wall, a barbarian kingdom reigns. Even further, in the endless steppes, other barbarian tribes gather thirsty for blood because it is time for a change of rulers.
One dreamer wants to unite the nation, to bring back the provinces lost centuries ago. Reclaim the mountains and rivers. His name is Ren Daiyan, who as a boy killed seven people with a bow and arrows. A feat that made him famous and sent him to the swamps where he became the leader of the outlaws, but his path does not stop there. Through political games, Ren Daiyan becomes the commander of a large army. The only one who managed to defeat the horsemen of Altai on the field.
The second main character is Lin Shan, a woman with a man's education. Her wit is as much a gift as it is a curse because no one wants an overly smart and educated woman, except her husband. Maybe because he realized that she might be the only person who understood his secret? In a series of circumstances, Ren Daiyan and Lin Shan meet and begin a passionate relationship that becomes the emotional core of the novel as much as Daiyan's vision is the driving force of it, and their encounters, although few throughout the novel, are full of tenderness and love.
Between the two there is a rich plethora of characters, from court officials, past and present, to warlords of steppe tribes. They are all pieces on the chessboard that Kay handles so skillfully, and although the novel starts slowly, it is for a reason that Kay is not in a hurry. He sorts the pieces on the board, arranges them at will, and prepares them for a bittersweet finale because, as the narrator says, "our lives are not our lives".
As usual, the fantastic elements are reduced to a minimum, only the appearance of a mystical fox-spirit, an erotic succubus, who leaves Daiyan a gift after their meeting, intrigued by his will and dedication, and the occasional restless spirit waiting for calm.
Somewhere after "Ysabel", it is evident that Kay has changed his approach to writing. His style is still poetic, rich, and sumptuous, but he turns into a bard who places us like children by the fire in the night and tells us legends from the past. He often inserts small characters and enriches the plot with their short chapters, spreading the threads of the story and connections into a tapestry, a term I often use when I talk about his writing because that's exactly what it is. His novels are richly woven tapestries.
"River of Stars" may have a slow beginning and in some places, the pace of the plot slows down, but the last quarter of the novel makes up for everything and gives us an ending that, as Kay often does, can have a double meaning. Perhaps one of his best novels.

[Cherisa B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another terrific blending of fantasy and history (Northern Song Dynasty) with deep insights into the hearts of men and women trying to make their way in the world and the times in which they find themselves. The intrigues of emperors and prime ministers, military leaders and poets, magistrates and loyal sons, beautifully told.

3 1/2 stars

[J. Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kay has fallen into a bad habit of engaging in crude foreshadowing and irritating digressions. In both Under Heaven and River of Stars he has stopped to tell us explicitly why the story is important. It is as if he has lost the confidence to just let the story tell itself and let the reader decide why it's important.

In River of Stars the characters lack the nuance that I came to love him for. Few of them are a mix of good and bad. Ren Daiyan is essentially a superhero, capable of amazing feats and incapable of failure. Few of the characters rise above the level of two dimensional.

The scope of the story is too broad for the space allotted to it. Significant events are often briefly outlined rather than told. Compare how much history is crammed into this volume as opposed to, say, the much narrower focus of the two volume The Sarantine Mosaic. Kay is at his best when he achieves a level of intimacy with his characters and story that isn't possible here.

In short, much of the joy of a Kay novel is missing.

[YouKneeK · Rating 4 out of 5]

River of Stars is a standalone follow-up book to Under Heaven. It’s set 400 years later, so it features different characters and a separate story and could be understood perfectly fine on its own. Events from the first book did have an influence on this book, and there are some references to characters and events from it. I enjoyed catching those little connections, but anything critical to the story is explained.

The story builds up slowly. It actually felt a little disjointed in the beginning until it started to become clear how everything tied together to provide necessary background for the meat of the story. The first book was political, but this one is much more heavily so. There are also some battles as conflicts escalate between the Kitai and neighboring tribes, but those scenes were kept fairly short. Fantasy elements play even less of a role in this book than in the first one, if that’s possible. There’s one pivotal moment involving a fantasy element, but the rest was just window dressing, and sparse window dressing at that.

I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as the first one. It did seem to hold my attention more consistently, but the characters and the story in the first book captured me more than those in this book. The characters did grow on me eventually, and I was more invested in everything by the end, but it took me a while to get there. I continued to enjoy the cultural references and the characters and history that were inspired by real people and events in Chinese history, which is something I know very little about.

This book has a very ambiguous ending. You don’t know quite what happened to one of the characters at the end, you only know what people thought and what evidence they tried and failed to find. That annoyed me a bit. As I approached the end, I kept flip-flopping in my expectations of how things would end up. I was getting anxious to finally find out how it would end, and then I didn’t find out.

I’m rating this at 3.5 stars and rounding up to 4 on Goodreads.

[Althea Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent historical fiction set in ancient China, with only a light hint of fantasy in the form of mythological elements. I love nearly all of GGK’s books. This may not be his best, but it’s definitely up in the top 50% of his works.

The story is not fast-moving (although it has action-filled moments), rather it builds slowly, like a tapestry carefully growing on a loom… weaving the tales of two people, and those they touch…

Ren Daiyan grows from an ambitious boy, to an outlaw, to a military man whose decisions may change the fates of empires.

Lin Shan is an exceptional woman, a poet whose work is a mild scandal due to her gender, but whose words reach the ears of the Emperor himself.

It’s a time when invading Mongols threaten the Empire; where bureaucracy has ascended over the martial way, and when an oblivious Emperor unwittingly sows misery and destruction in his pursuit of the creation of a beautiful garden. But with all its flaws, this civilization does have beauty and value to it.

The book is rather philosophical, and is told at a slight remove, as if a poet told a tale from history. But it’s also full of convincing, authentic characters, with plenty of intrigue, and builds to a powerful climax that was simultaneously unexpected but satisfying.

[Veronica · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Kay revisits Kitai, the land/empire featured in Under Heaven, some 400 years later. The people still carry the scars from those long ago events and they mar every decision the imperial government makes going forward. Kay's writing is still elegant and eloquent and his inspiration this time is the Chinese Jin-Sun wars. I appreciated the chance to learn some history that was previously unknown to me. That said, I never felt much of a connection with any of the characters in this book whereas those in Under Heaven drew me in almost immediately. I still enjoyed the journey though there was some serious lack of emotional closure for me at the end.

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

River of Stars: Captures the Tragic Downfall of the Song Dynasty
This year I've finally closed a 20-year gap in my SFF reading, reading's all the Guy Gavriel Kay books that I've earmarked since high school, starting with the high fantasy Tigana and then moving on to the historical re-imaginings of Moorish Spain (Lions of Al-Rassan), Medieval France (Song for Arbonne), Florence, Dubrovnik, & Byzantium (Children of Earth and Sky), and finally the Tang and Song Dynasties of Ancient China (Under Heaven, River of Stars).
He captures the sweep of history with a wide-scope lens, but then enriches this tapestry with a large caste of characters that hold the story together and involve the reader in their lives and the events that they are swept up in. This book is too elaborate and detailed for me to muster the energy to describe (I regret that my reviews have gotten much shorter since moving to London), but suffice to say that it is an epic that remains centered on a number of compelling stories that complete a much broader picture of the decadent Song Dynasty as it collapses from within and succumbs to the barbarian hordes at its borders, and is an excellent read for all fans of history and great writing.

[Darcey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm normally a GGK fangirl: I can read "Tigana" a hundred times and love it, swoon about his character and world building skills, his modification of historical events into amazing fantasy settings. I can do all of this with almost everything he's written - but I can't do it with "River of Stars". The character development is weaker than his standard, the political events painfully predictable even for someone not intimately familiar with Chinese history, and the novel on the whole becomes an exercise in walking down well-trod paths, with only the daji to step outside them.

All in all - I'm disappointed, which is something I never thought I would say about a Guy Gavriel Kay book.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully told story, sensuous writing, characters that come alive. Written of the time when poetry and art were adored as much as the mandate of heaven.

I digress. Kay is my author, the one who I would read if he only had Kleenex to write on.

This book takes place 400 years after Under Heaven. The the world has become more complicated, invasion is imminent and yet it seems as though preparation is not happening. The army has fallen apart and only one man sees the future. Filled with mythology of the Far East and did I mention the beautiful writing?

Anything else I would try to say would only be gushing

[Arwe Thereyet · Rating 5 out of 5]

A profoundly moving story

Guy Gavriel Kay's books usually leave me stunned and hollowed out by the end. This one is no exception. I will read and re-read anything he writes. He is that good.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

He'd been told that Xinan, the capital of glorious dynasties, had held two million people once, and that only a hundred thousand or so lived there now, scattered among rubble.

Well, so much for the glory of the Ninth Dynasty we saw in Under Heaven. Turns out civil war will do that to a society. River of Stars picks up Under Heaven's world several hundred years later. It isn't so much a direct sequel, given that all of the characters from Under Heaven are long dead by the time River of Stars begins, but it makes a fair amount of references back to Under Heaven's characters and events. One of them a tree from the Shen family cemetery plays a very crucial role in the development of the plot.

Where Kitai was a vast, dominant empire at the center of the world demanding tribute from its neighbors and importing luxuries across the silk road, in River of Stars it has declined to a regional power that has lost fourteen prefectures to steppe barbarians. The people of Kitai are not ignorant of their past:

It would be entirely possible... to begin to hate the Ninth Dynasty if you spent time here [Xian, former capital]. There is something oppressive, humiliating about how glorious it once was.

There were people about, but nothing like in Hanjin [the current Kitai capital]… Those he saw seemed scattered, like pieces on a game board at the end of a game.

Living in the ruins of a once mighty empire can ruin anyone's self-esteem.

So we find Kitai in a state of decline, sending tribute to steppe barbarians occupying former Kitai territory, referring to said barbarian's leader as the little brother to the Emperor, letting only the most loyal (but typically incompetent) generals lead armies, and stripping the countryside of resources to build the Emperor's perfect garden. Outlaws thrive in the south, barbarians are restless in the north, and the Emperor is kept isolated from the empire's problems by his court.

With the stage set we find a diverse cast of characters to view the world through. Much like Under Heaven Kay populates this book with a few major point of view characters that we consistently return to, and a lot of secondary POV characters that we see through a few times but are still quite important in the narrative in and of themselves.

The two major characters are Ren Daiyan and Lin Shan.

Ren is the son of a government clerk from far west Kitai with dreams of restoring the empire to its former glory. He ends up leading a group of marsh outlaws and then enters army service as part of another characters political machinations. He is not a man to idealize the world and hope for the best. He knows the world is not a back and white:

"There will be no entirely correct answers… We are mortals, trapped on one side of the river of stars, with the Weaver Maid on the other, divided form us. And how shall we hope to cross to her?"

Lin Shan is a very unusual woman. Given an education by her father and extremely talented in musical arts, she is everything a proper Kitain woman should not be (more on that later). She is outspoken, clever, and willing to push propriety if need be such as the time she wrote to the court pleading for her father not to be sent into exile.

Some other key players include a two former prime ministers, a pair of brothers who ended up on the wrong side of political battle, Ren's right hand man and former imperial guardsman, Lin Shan's husband, and several steppe barbarians to name but a few. All of the characters were imbued with their own unique voice and provided a fascinating perspective of the world around them. They give the reader the opportunity to view the other characters from several different perspectives and humanize what could easily have been cartoonish antagonists. You can understand and empathize each character's life and decisions, creating very rich narrative.

Kay continued Under Heaven's theme of small events have significant consequences:

When the world changes greatly this can occur because of a single dramatic event, or because many small elements, each inconsequential in itself, fit together – like the pieces of a wooden puzzle box, of the sort sold in any village marketplace for a few copper coins.

Much like Under Heaven, River of Stars can best be described as a mosaic with small pieces, signifying little on their own, coming together to create an immense, detailed picture. What happened to one piece impacts its surrounding pieces, rippling out to the entire picture.

Taken on a higher level, I really like how Kay dealt with the societal impact of General An Li's rebellion from Under Heaven.

"Time's river flowed east, never to return... But there were so many ruins along the bank."

Military leaders became much less trusted in an environment where there was already a massive fear of generals overthrowing the government, resulting in generations of poor leadership and army quality culminating in the loss of the fourteen prefectures. Instead of leading political men cultivating military abilities and physical activities, such activities were disdained in the twelfth dynasty to the point where high government officials were carried around everywhere and grew really long pinky nails to showoff their disdain for physical labor.

On top of that, it became accepted in the twelfth dynasty that the downfall of the ninth dynasty was womenfolk (misogyny: not just a modern development). The Phoenix Throne was renamed the Dragon Throne because the phoenix was a female symbol, women were discouraged from speaking in public or really being anything but objects (be they wives or courtesans), and foot binding started to come into fashion. I particularly liked this development Kay introduced. Not the actual practice of foot binding mind you (which is a horribly barbaric thing), but that because men were carried around everywhere, they had to ensure that "proper" ladies were even more constrained than they were. A famous and highly trained singer that performed for the emperor could not even walk several paces with out (male) assistance due to foot binding.

The plot was quite compelling and I was never sure quite where it would end up. While this book is loosely based on historical events it is still a work of fiction and Kay has a tendency to piss all over Joesph Campbell's theory of heroic archetypes in myths. Plus he is just as much a character killer as George R.R. Martin which helps maintain the tension in the story. Good guys don't always win, bad guys aren't always thwarted, and the real world is a hell of a messy place. Kay is able to weave all his characters into his story beautifully and writing style and choices lets the reader understand why certain decisions were made.

But what really made me love this book was the beautiful language Kay employs in telling his story. It is light, subtle, but extremely vivid. One of my favorite lines deals with Li Shan's husband, who was a bit of an eccentric, spending time and resources collecting artifacts of past dynasties.

"I have been a small man carrying a small torch, looking back, and further back." He had tried to light the road along which they had come. It was not, he thought, a bad way to have lived.

So it is with all historians, preserving the past so that the present might be brighter for their toils, as quite and unobtrusive as they are, beautifully distilled into a few lines.

Another line I thought was elegantly delivered and truly summed up the nature of politics in Kitai, which has a highly formalized set of protocols and unwritten rules:

They understood each other. It was possible to do that, with the right man, without forcing words into dangerous existence. It was sometimes necessary to do that...

And while some books would just end a section of their book as they would a chapter, Kay utilizes some very simple, but evocative imagery to build anticipation of the coming events:

Everything to this point, this night, felt to him to have become a prelude, like notes played on a pipa to tune it, ensure it was ready for the song yet to come.

What the story came down to, in my mind, was the the limits of human agency:

There were consequences, almost always, for what you did or failed to do in life. He believed that. Fate could play a role, and chance, but your choices and decisions mattered.

Just how much freedom do we really have? Your actions have consequences on other people but their actions have consequences on you. A character's choices in life are naturally constrained by circumstances that came before them but at the same time they can take action and, in their limited way, impact their world. We are mutually dependent and impacted by those around us. They both constrain and enable us to live our lives. Societal norms, established generations ago and impressed upon us since the cradle can be just as compelling as a sword to the throat.

The river carves the canyon over the ages
The canyon guides the river through its heart to the sea
To speak of control is to miss the greater truth
Without the river the canyon is stillborn
Without the canyon the river is aimless
Together there is harmony, unity, purpose.

[Paul Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

BLURB

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.

REVIEW

I am once again in awe. I have waxed enthusiastic praise on each of the five books I have previously read by this author. River of Stars now makes six. It is a masterpiece of compelling fiction; a narrative that grabs hold and propels the reader along the meandering path of the multi-faceted plot. It is breathtaking in it's scope; the world created by the author; the characters who fit perfectly into it; the endless tale of court (political) intrigue, a tale worthy to be called a classic. 

I read a lot of historical fiction books, a good portion of them are by request as it seems my humble blog of reviews has garnered some interest among authors. I have a backlog of books to read and review, but I also like to read just for the pure pleasure of it. The backlog be damned - there are more Guy Gavriel Kay books yet to be read. 

                                                     5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Liviu · Rating 4 out of 5]

River of Stars is a very ambitious book - a very loose sequel to Under Heaven and based on the events of the 1120's - and after a shaky and somewhat boring beginning introducing a "youth of destiny" becomes very interesting in the exploration of the political machinations and the lives of a few upper class men and women who surrounded the pleasure-loving emperor.

Unfortunately from about half on the novel becomes extremely predictable as it follows the broad outlines of the actual historical events, with a sense of predestination that I utterly dislike.

Beautiful prose and more interesting characters than in Under Heaven - though the main hero is almost annoying as there - but the content this time becomes too much like watching a re-enacting of events for the 1000th time rather than the fresher feel of the previous book.

Overall, a disappointing book though its beautiful lyrical prose makes it worth finishing, but I really miss the superb earlier Kay novels like the Sarrantium duology Lions of al Rassan or Last Light of the Sun where one could be surprised, the fate of the main characters wasn't set in stone etc...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

See a master at work. Even though I became really weary of all the "This is how legends begin," "The smallest of incidents can trigger huge events," "In later years x would often remember what happened then," and like pontifications the characters and sheer sweep of this kept me reading (skipping the stylistic curlicues after the first fifty or so) and provided a satisfactory reading experience---as his books are wont to do. Here he recasts the end of the Northern Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Southern Song, with a military man who rises from outlawhood to command an army and an unusually well educated woman who unexpectedly finds herself at the Imperial court as the central couple but quite a few complex figures (many based on historical ones)in the supporting cast.

So: somewhat wordy, but a rich tale made richer for being so closely based on real events, from a great stylist who is also a pretty good storyteller.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is nothing like a book by Guy Gavriel Kay. He balances on a fine line between high fantasy and historical fiction, written with a poet's pen. Every word is carefully placed, every sentence is delicately constructed. Years of research go into each book (Song Dynasty China was the jumping off point for this book), and years of writing as well, and it shows.

RIVER OF STARS is a brilliant book. A powerful book. A tender book. The characters are painted with luminous brushstrokes; I found myself crying over the death of minor characters, angry and joyful by turns over the fate of the major characters. I took over a week to read this book, so that I could savor it. Usually I carry books around with me, read while I'm folding laundry and such, but I gave this book my full attention, and it was more than worth it. It was a joy and a treasure.