All the Seas of the World

“You always want a hidden staircase, he'd told his brother once. The world was too unpredictable not to have one.”

A random quote chosen for this one, but one that made me smile a bit reading. Everyone should have a hidden staircase.

I liked this one, but I didn't love this one in the way I've loved other GGK books I've read. I've read the other two in the series (A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky for anyone counting) and liked-but-not-loved those as well. The prose and themes are certainly there to enjoy that I know and love from his other books, but I thought the story being told was a little slow (even for GGK standards) and only drew me in at certain points.

We follow two characters throughout this book for the most part: Nadia bint Dhiyan a female assassin working through some personal trauma after being liberated from being an owned slave for rather unsavory people, and Rafel ben Natan a mostly-merchant, sometimes-pirate who helped rescue Nadia from her slavery and now employs her on his ship. There's also a whole host of side characters, some more important/repeated than others, that I won't get into because of how complex things can get quickly. Suffice it to say there's many points of view of this story, but the story itself revolves around Nadia and Rafel and what comes out of an assassination they perform right at the beginning of the book.

There's a ton of GGK-specific terminology in play here. While the story (and all of GGK's works really) is framed around a specific period of world history, there's always a slight magical bend to things that make them his own. It's not a direct 1:1 translation between Mediterranean history and the book, but there's enough similarities there for anyone familiar with the period to make connections. That said, though, I wouldn't recommend this as someone's first GGK book, I don't think, because of how little the book explains in terms of setting/worldbuilding. There's a large infodump period in the beginning, but you'd almost had to have read the other two books in the series to really get the most of it. There's also only the barest hint of magical realism in this book, so if you're looking for that dream-like GGK quality where things feel just on the edge of historical fiction and fantasy, you'll be a bit disappointed here.

All that said, I really did enjoy the book, and I liked the leadup to the ending. This is still a very good book for anyone invested in the A Brightness Long Ago / Children of Earth and Sky series, as many characters are either referenced or make a direct appearance. It's a GGK book through-and-through, and definitely give it a read if you're into his writing.

Wow, this was so good! As always Kay made me cry...

This takes place in the alternate Europe Kay has been working in for so long, and it was gratifying to see little signs not only of the other two books at this stage, but also things like Jehane's statue, and Crispin's art.

I loved the story, characters, themes, and as always Kay's writing style is so beautiful.

I finished this approximately 8 minutes ago, I may add to/change this when I've had some time to gather my thoughts.

I was torn between 3 and 4 stars, but I'll be generous, because there was so much to like about this book. Kay is reliably excellent, and All the Seas of the World is no exception.

Things I liked:

Multiple complex female characters (one of them a main character), each with her own strengths and weaknesses. Kay is one of those rare male writers who a) can reliably write female characters well and believably, and b) patently understands that “strong female character” need not mean that the character in question is physically strong or a good fighter... or that if she is, that need not be the only thing that makes her strong. (In fact, it may not make her strong at all.) Kay's ability to write women has not always been very good, in all honesty, but that fact makes his skill at this now all the more welcome and impressive – many male writers would not have noticed or tried to rectify a weakness in this area. It means a lot to me that Kay has.

Multiple Jewish (well, Kindath, but...) characters, including Raina Vidal, an interpretation of the real-life Doña Gracia Nasi, who I had never imagined I'd get to read about as a fictionalized character in a fantasy novel, let alone get to see her have hot lesbian sex with the book's heroine (it's fade to black, which is just as well. Her appearance in the book as a background player is excellent – I guess we may know little about the real woman's personality, but I really liked how Kay chose to characterize her, incredibly strong-willed, sharp as a tack, and still with a warmth and sensitivity to her, because she was after all a human person, even if she was everything else that she was – businesswoman, humanitarian, philanthropist, political strategist, and community leader.

Rafel ben Natan was a delight. A friend of mine pointed out that his was a rare example in fiction of Jewish ideals of masculinity rather than goyish ones – Rafel is quick-witted, smart, subtle, courageous, creative, and tenacious. His experience of migration under duress continuing to affect his life is one that resonates with many Jews (and others) today.

Other Kindath characters include Gaelle (another excellent female character, though one that could have used a bit more development), Rafel's absconded gett-refuser brother, Elie the mariner, and Tamir, Raina Vidal's fool of a sister-in-law.

Things I liked a little less:
Not much to complain about! I will say some characters could have used a bit more development (Gaelle, mostly), but insofar as I'm left wanting, it's just because there are so many tertiary characters whose lives I want to know more about... Antenami Sardi, Guidano Cerra, Gaelle again, and Rafel's brother.

The middle section of the book dragged a tiny bit in places.

On reflection, there were some places where the resolution seemed a bit... neat, and there were some allusions to previous books (not in this series) that felt more like Easter eggs than real enhancements.

Final thoughts:
This isn't my favourite Kay book (that probably is still Lions, followed by the Sarantine Mosaic), but it makes a fabulous capstone to the series (preceded by Children of Earth and Sky and A Brightness Long Ago, both of which I loved) of which it is a part. Emotionally resonant, exciting, thought-provoking, and with a satisfying ending.

This can be read as a standalone, but I wouldn't advise it. You'll get much more out of it if you bother to read Children of Earth and Sky and A Brightness Long Ago first.

I felt very clever at picking up on the thread here of finding home as an adult, of returning ‘home' (even if when that home is a place that no longer exists) and creating ‘home'. Of taking events that happen to you when you're young and letting them be part of you, but not all of you. Of the consequences of surviving. And then Kay explains all this in the afterword, and I felt less insightful.

All the Seas picks up four years after A Brightness Long Ago, whose main thread is an event that happened in the past and how that shaped the narrator of that story. That narrator is in this tale too, as well as many people you've already met from Brightness and also Children of Earth and Sky, set twenty years after All the Seas. They wind together, as you'd expect from Kay.

I don't know that this is as strong as others I've read by Kay, but is that just because it's my first reading? I find they need at least a re-read to solidify what they have to share with me. It's absolutely solid Kay, in that you're getting a large cast, a sweeping tale, events that change lives in unexpected ways, and of course no neat ending. It'll stand alone, but I think you'll get more out of it having read Brightness first.

Kay's evocation of a world that is almost, but not quite, the Renaissance Mediterranean is terrifically atmospheric, and he peoples it with characters you care about and believe in. Perhaps the most elegant fantasist working today, he marshals events on intimate personal and global political scales and walks us through their effects and reverberations in wonderfully smooth prose. No one else produces work like this in the genre and this new novel is to be celebrated.

All the Seas of the World is a novel by Guy Gavriel Kay – and, if you are familiar with any of his work, that should already tell you a great deal about the contents of this book. Lots of characters. A rotating cast of limited third-person points-of-view (and one first-person). Brief interludes in an omniscient voice. Chekhov's guns you never even noticed paying off 400 pages later. Characters and places from previous novels showing up. The two moons, the sun, the stars. It's all there.

Somewhat unusually for Kay, this book serves as an almost direct sequel to his previous work, A Brightness Long Ago, taking place merely a few years later and featuring many of the same characters and locations. This is, effectively, the middle entry in a trilogy-of-sorts, with Children of Earth and Sky serving as the ultimate conclusion.

As is often the case with Kay, however, the conclusion isn't the point. There's a reason he has most of his characters tip-toe around actually being involved in the story – his own, quarter-turned version of history – instead of being straight up heroes. They each have their own lives separate from what will be written down as history, and their stories matter.

Unfortunately, All the Seas lacks that special something to elevate it above “a good Guy Gavriel Kay novel” - which is hardly a slight, coming from me especially. This book simply never reaches one of those heart-achingly beautiful highs for which he is loved. A Brightness Long Ago made me cry, several times. All the Seas of the World didn't. Simple as that. Perhaps it's a case of my own biases here (the theme here, home, never resonates with me the way A Brightness's theme of loss does). That doesn't mean it's not a good book, though.