The first half of The Poppy War has an expected slower pace, but the second half is rich with a brutal, beautiful bevy of bloody battles.” RT Book Reviews “Kuang’s debut is a thought-provoking, coming-of-age fairytale stocked with myths, legends, lore, politics and power struggles…Setting the stage for an epic fantasy is an understandably enormous undertaking, but Kuang does an exceptional job of world and character building. “ Spectacular, masterclass, brilliant, awesome…If you like dark adult fantasy then check out this masterpiece by grimdark’s newest and perhaps darkest daughter.” Fantasy Book Review “Moving from academy, to battlefield, to metaphysical plane is no small feat, but Kuang pulls it off with a grim, gleeful sense of sadism…It’s dark, it’s daunting, and it’s heartbreaking in equal measure.” The Book Smugglers “ A study in every kind of violence…Kuang pulls from East Asian history, including the brutality of the Second Sino-Japanese war, to weave a wholly unique experience.” Washington Post The Poppy War is a Goodreads Choice Award finalist (twice over), Nebula Award finalist, Locus Award finalist, and winner of the Stabby, Crawford, and Compton Crook Awards. The Poppy War is the first installment in a Chinese-history inspired epic fantasy trilogy about empire, warfare, shamanism, and opium. Norrell - grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of translation as a tool of empire. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down?īabel - a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal response to Jonathan Strange & Mr. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel’s research in foreign languages serves the Empire’s quest to colonize everything it encounters.
There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation - also known as Babel.īabel is the world’s center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.ġ828.
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