Skip to main content

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

 


The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang is the first book in a fantasy trilogy set in a country that looks a lot like China. In fact, early twentieth century Chinese history is the inspiration for this story. Most sword and sorcerer fantasies that I am familiar with, seem to be set in land that looks an awful lot like historical Europe (Middle-Earth, Westeros, etc.), so why not have one in a land that looks like historical China? The story takes place in a large mainland country, Nikan, which often finds itself at war with the powerful island nation Mugen.

We meet our protagonist, Rin, at the age of sixteen as she is taking a test to get into Nikan’s military academy (the only way she can go to college as it is free but very difficult to get into). The first third of this book feels almost like an adult Harry Potter with martial arts in place of magic, as Rin makes her way through the rigors of the academy. But then war comes and the story takes a very dark turn. Kuang shows war in all its brutal horror. This is not a YA book. It is not for the squeamish.

There is a massacre that Rin misses, but what happened there is described to her and her companions in all its gory and disturbing detail. It is so brutal and evil that I kept telling myself this is a work of fiction, right? I found that this massacre was based on the Rape of Nanking, which most people in the west don’t know much about because it was happening at the same time as the Holocaust in Europe. After reading the book I had to go and look up the Rape of Nanking which I admit, I did not know anything about other than the name. The horrors described by Kuang are exactly the same horrors that happened in Nanking. Fiction it may be, but it is based on real events. She did not exaggerate, and that is the most horrific realization of all.

The character of Rin is vulnerable and makes for a lovable protagonist, at least at the outset. She is an outsider wherever she goes. She is a war orphan who is not loved by her foster parents. She goes to the academy where she is an outsider by virtue of her dark skin and rustic accent. She chooses to study with a master that no one else studies with. She joins a military unit of outcasts and she does not even fit in well with them. Rin grows, discovers her power, and changes in the course of the book (not always for the better). This is a war story after all, and war brings out the worst in humanity. Eventually she has to ask herself if accomplishing her goal is worth the price. There is always a price.

I don’t want to make it sound like this is a dreary depressing book. There are certainly moments of that, but it is also an adventure, a quest for good over evil. Rin does make friends along her journey that help her along her way. She grows and she learns. The Poppy War is a character-driven dark fantasy that will hook you to the end. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, The Dragon Republic.

 

(My science fiction novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources).

Star Liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Second Wind

  You have heard about athletes getting their second wind? It is not that they feel better, that they are warmed up and ready to run more easily. It is not psychological (at least, not all psychological). No. There is an actual physiological truth to a second wind. It all has to do with respiration. When I say respiration, I am not talking about breathing. Respiration is a biochemical process that happens at the cellular level. It is how the cell gets energy. There are lots of chemical processes that are constantly going on in each cell, and those processes require energy. Without a constant feed of energy, the cell will die. The more demands there are on a cell, the more energy it needs. For example, every one of your muscle cells need more energy when you are running.   In fact, you won’t be able to run if the cells don’t have sufficient energy for it. The energy currency of the cell is a molecule called ATP. You may have heard that sugar is how our bodies get energy, wh...
1 comment
Read more

The Outsider

  I am reading The Outsider by Stephen King. The first 150 pages or so I found disturbing. Not for the reason you might think. It is not scary, not creepy in a traditional horror way, but disturbing in a tragic way. The first hundred to 150 pages is tragedy on top of tragedy. The most disturbing thing to me (it is disturbing to me anytime I encounter it in any story) is a false accusation. A man is falsely accused and may well be convicted of a horrific crime. That kind of thing disturbs my soul. It makes the whole world seem wrong. I have always been disturbed by stories with that kind of thing. And why not? It happens in real life too. That makes it all the more horrific. In the Jim Crow South, all you had to do was make an accusation against a black man to set the lynch mob in action. No need to bother with a trial. But even if there was a trial, the outcome was a foregone conclusion, innocent or not. We see Vladimir Putin inventing charges against people and they get locked up...
1 comment
Read more

A Child of the . . .

  What was it like to grow up as a child in the 90s? How about the 1940’s? Thinking about a child growing up in each different decade, conjures up images in my mind. But that is all they are: images. I was a child in the 1960’s. I can tell you what it felt like to be growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, but what it felt like to me is not what the history books remember. History will tell you the 60’s was about the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the space race. The 70’s was Disco and Watergate. I remember being aware of all of those things, but to me this era was about finding time to play with my friends, something I probably share with a child of any decade. It was about navigating the social intricacies of school.   It was about the Beatles, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane. It was Bullwinkle, the Wonderful World of Color, and Ed Sullivan. There are things that a kid pays attention to that the grown-ups don’t. Then there are things the adults ...
Post a Comment
Read more