Book review: The Burning God

Title	The Burning God
Author	Rebecca F. Kuang
Year	2020
Genre(s)	Fantasy
Length	620 pages
Average Points	7 out of 10
Comments	Characters: 8 out of 10 World: 8 out of 10 Storytelling: 8 out of 10  The epic finale. But not as epic as expected. War and war and more internal struggles.

Table – The Burning God – May 2024

Instead of a review of this book, I decided to review the whole trilogy. Here you can find my review of the first book, The Poppy War, and of the second, The Dragon Republic. Basically, the first one is the childhood of the characters, the second one is the adolescence – where they do a lot of stupid things – and in the third one we find them as adults. So on this book everybody has a determination and an attitude that differs from The Dragon Republic without losing the essence. It feels more philosophical than the previous ones, and there are whole chapters of dilemmas – a little bit too much if you ask me, since I feel they cloud the flow of the story. As bloody as the previous ones, the first one describes an invasion, the second one a takeover by the Hesperians – the particular view of Kuang of Europeans colonisers, while this third one is presenting some sort of forced de-colonisation directed by the main character, Rin, with the help of her magic and some new secondaries. It’s a good plot and a well profiled world, but I feel like the author squeezed the geography presented in the first book and left out other interesting regions. It’s anyway a proper closing. There’s no hole for a fourth book, however, we don’t get all the answers – at least I didn’t – so maybe there’s room for a new instalment, maybe from another point of view. But’s let’s be blunt and compare this with other trilogies, for example, the first one of the Wheel of Time or the first Dragonlance. Does this one reach the level of complexity of the above given examples? Unfortunately not. I don’t know if I can say that, but the writing of Kuang after the first book becomes… let’s call it popular. Allow me to explain the word in this context. One does not describe a sunset you are watching with flourished comparisons. Neither that guy that is fighting with you like a hideous one-eyed villain just to focus immediately after on how his nose look like it was broken several times by a punch. This is not popular. You simply say “Fuck, it’s you again!” or something like that. That is what Kuang does. Assuming you know the guy. A lot. Anyway, it was a fun read. A solid 8. And now back to the classics 🙂

Book review: The Poppy War

Title	The Poppy War
Author	Rebecca F. Kuang
Year	2018
Genre(s)	Fantasy, Dark Academia
Length	527 pages
Average Points	9 out of 10
Comments	Characters: 9 out of 10 World: 9 out of 10 Storytelling: 9 out of 10  Not as Chinese as I thought, but still Chinese Not as Fantastic as I thought, but still Fantasy

Table – The Poppy War – March 2024

Well as I said in my previous review, I keep an eye on Rebecca. The Poppy War was a Fantasy masterpiece, I was not feeling like this since I read the Drangonlance (The Chronicles). I found my paper copy on the Dark Academia section of my bookshop, but only the first part of the book covers the days of the main character Rin in Sinegard, some kind of twisted military version of Hogwarts. Rin has friends and enemies, and they have sweet and sad moments together – nothing like in the book of Rowling. I guess Sinegard works as a kind of introduction of the characters. Surprisedly the rest of the book is war. In fact, the transition from book I to book II – where the invasion starts – is not as smooth as one could think of, and the story becomes very quickly a bloody mess. There are twists, bad guys at the school becoming good, and vice versa. No doubt a good story, it flows very well from the beginning to the end, in a crescendo, so when I was approaching the end – Book III – I was asking myself how the hell where they going to end it. Spoiler alert, it finishes. No need to read the next, but I will. And I can’t leave this review without commenting about the world, an interesting and familiar setup where it is easy to identify China (Nikara), Taiwan (Speer), and Japan (Mugen). It’s not the first book with a poor map I find, but it may be the first one where no more detail is needed. And I like that a lot, I hate to need to come back to the map each time one general takes a decision. However the map is not the highlight of that world. It’s the display of racism (once more!) and drug abuse that it tells. I’m not specially soft about drugs, and I think it’s OK how threaded are them into the plot, but some readers may find that aspect disgusting. So you need to be warned. Racist people are real monsters, and drugs help the main characters. Now you know what you’ll find.

Image above taken from this goodreads page.

Book review: Babel

Title	Babel
Author	Rebecca F. Kuang
Year	2022
Genre(s)	Fantasy, Alternative Reality
Length	542 pages
Average Points	9 out of 10
Comments	Characters: 9 out of 10 World: 9 out of 10 Storytelling: 9 out of 10  The first “round book” of the year. Love every aspect of it

Table – Babel – March 2024

I liked this book so much that I started right away a previous work of R.F.Kuang, “The Poppy War”. It’s been a while since I devour a title like this one. I chose it because I wanted to understand the noise it generated – something about being banned from the Hugo prices – and if you read it, you’ll understand. The white guys are the bad guys in the book, and it’s an alternate reality where magic in the world is under the control of Oxford academia. So you can guess against whom the book is directed. Fortunately, not against me! But allow me to explain more my marks. The four protagonists were very relatable, I have friends who behaved the same way. With academic pretensions but complicated background, and brilliant on their own. Happening in Oxford 1830 – the book comes with a map of it – and starting the story with a child of a mixed race I was expecting a kind o Harry Potter spin-off or retelling but I was completely wrong. There’s a lot of world-building in the book, and I was forced to cross-check some facts in the text with the reality, since I really wanted to find a mistake on it. I didn’t find any. If I was annoyed by something, it was the Chinese footnotes: I would have extended the explanations about the kanjis: not everyone has a first degree on Chinese. Well, we’ll see soon enough if her previous work was half as good. As a final remark: I’m happy after the end, but not happy the story is over. Cover picture taken from this post.

Dream : a charred planet

I’m walking through a desolated field, where lava pools pop up with a gleaming orange. At some distance from us, others like me are wandering, looking at the floor, sometimes crouching and digging carefully in the grey dirt. One needs to be careful or a new lava stream may pop up from your hole. At some distance from us, a 5-stores silver building, covered with gadgets, seems to be beaming at us. I know my mission, and it’s to find seeds and bring them to the structure, to be check for viability. We want to find out what can grow in the pyroclast, our Society depends on it. Everyone works on this, old people, children – a few – and of course women. There’s no unburned land, there are no vehicles, and the only way to reach the next settlement is by foot. But I feel better, I feel like I can trust any of the barely hundred people living with me in the facility. They are mostly scientist, and you can’t cheat the data but you can’t bend the scientific method. Facts are facts. Around us, we have miles and miles of wasted land. The sun doesn’t even shine as before, hidden by ash clouds. It could be worse, anyway.

Most of us are aware of the climate change. Yes, it’s definitely getting hotter, and we don’t know how this is going to evolve and where are the limits to the rise of temperatures. Later on I’ve been thinking also too much about it and about supervolcanoes, and obviously both things mixed in my mind to create the above picture, straight out of my dream. Thanks pixlr X for it!

Interview with a Faun

“I need to tell you something. I’m not human.” He stared at me with his mellow eyes. I just kissed him, and we were laying on his couch. I did agree to come to his place, and I though we were going to make it right there. And now this. He was pretty funny, but I thought I got him, and if I was right, he was not joking. I stand an separate myself a couple of meters.

“What do you mean? Are you a robot or some shit?” I arrange my blouse and my skirt, while I look around, ready to leave as soon as the shit hits the fan. If it hits the fun. He doesn’t answer right away, but calmly stands from the couch and make a little bit more distance.

“No no no. I’m not a machine. I’m a faun.” With a swift move, he removes his trousers. They were clipped or something. Then I see it. His legs were pretty strong, I did observe that when I first met him. Now they were showing up in all its goat-like glory. I look at his feet. A moment ago, they were human. Now they are nice and shinny cloven hoofs.

“How did you do that?” What I stupid question. Magic or some shit, of course. “Never mind. What do you want from me?” I can’t stop myself looking at what is hanging casually between his legs. Not bad, I must say. I remember the legends. Satan was part goat also, right?

“Well, a little bit of hypnosis, a little bit of magic. And if you are tired, a little bit of technology. Do you really want to know?” I shake my head.”Answering to your second question, one man has his needs. And I’m a man as you can see.” He casually points to it. “When I met you I felt this electrical discharge that I learn to identify with a good lover. We are half animals, you know, so I have some sort of sixth sense for it. I’m unfortunately not like the others and I need to reveal who I am before making it. Call it a personal treat.” I smile to him. Some men are able to lie all his way to bed. I met more than a couple that the only authentic part they had was between their legs. Yes, those ones that become something else after they manage to get what they wanted. My host comes closer. With the spell gone, I can see also two little horns raising on his forehead. I raise my hand to caress them. He flashes a seductive smile. “Are you scared? If you want I can bring the spell back.”

“No, no need.” More and more beast-like features start to appear, but for me it feels like if they were always there. The tail waves friendly. I can’t stop myself grabbing it. It feels like a furry string.I step back to the couch. “So far so good. I like men when they are sincere. I appreciate it.”

“Then let me be sincere once more with you. I can’t wait to see what do you hide under your clothes! ” Nice move. I open my blouse and let the skirt go a little higher than usual.”Do you want to go somewhere else, like… I don’t know… the dormitory?” I nod. He grabs my hand, very gently, and we walk together out of the living room.