The Grace of Kings

DNF page 385. I don't know how this book is so highly regarded. One of the most boring books I've ever read yet somehow it kept me locked in for so long. After 200 pages I asked myself why I'm still reading this? It wasn't bad but nothing great was happening at all. I had faith since it's a Hugo winning story butttt no thanks.

I really wanted to like this book, but as another reviewer pointed out, it's basically a recounting of the Qin's decline and ensuing Chu-Han contention with some minor cosmetic changes. It's like the author took a period of Chinese history, made up random names, borrowed some choice scenes from Three Kingdoms (the inventions remind me of Zhuge Liang), sprinkled in some political philosophy from the era, and called it an original work of fiction. The whole book feels uninspired and derivative, almost like a mish mash of all the cool Han-era stories he'd heard as a kid.

Honestly I was very disappointed. Ken is a smart guy and a good writer, and I really enjoyed his translation of Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem.

tl;dr: Don't buy this book. Get Three Kingdoms instead.

Started original and very well written, then quite fast changed shifts and lost my interest (and originality). Also, turned into YA, a big no-no for me

DNF at 50%

I gave this a good crack but it felt too dense with all the characters and plot, and hard to keep up with / actually enjoy reading.

Jakoś mi nie pasuje ten typ narracji. Żadna postać mnie nie chwyciła i świat też nie wydaje się ciekawy. Może kiedyś spróbuję jeszcze raz.

Read most of this on the plane to Japan. Pretty enjoyable and unique way to tell the story...the politics and inventions especially were cool and I hear there's more of that in the future books so I am excited to visit them someday.

6.75/10

May edit when home!

Read most of this on the plane to Japan. Pretty enjoyable and unique way to tell the story...the politics and inventions especially were cool and I hear there's more of that in the future books so I am excited to visit them someday.

6.75/10

May edit when home!

2.75 stars? 3 stars?

probably the book i've felt the most mixed feelings for... i went in with such high expectations, wanting to love it, and found it mostly alright. too many characters and too many places – definitely a book to be savored slowly. overly filled with sometimes inconsequential details but had a handful of endearing characters. hated the portrayal of women for most parts in the story...

3/10 - DNF around 60%

Yeah, I tried. I was just waiting for something to happen for way too long. While waiting, there were no other redeeming qualities that kept me interested. So, after not touching this book for a month, it's time to just realize that this isn't for me.

This is the first book of an epic fantasy quartet that has a little something for everyone. We meet our cast living in an empire where the gods meddle. This is not a world where its humans widely wield magic nor does the book explore the characters or the maneuvers of war ad nauseam. If you don't need all that in your epics I strongly suggest this one. I loved the writing style (it was both lyrical and concise) and the balance of a quick moving plot with a fair amount of character development. My absolute favorite books are ones that show the nuance of character motivation, power and choice - this is a book that shows the world as more than black or white and you will not find mustache twirling villains here. If you like historical fantasy, battles or political machinations this would be worth checking out. I liked all the characters, even the ones I didn't actually like. And, wow I did not expect the ending.

This book was fascinating. On the surface this doesn’t seem like a book I would like. The Grace of Kings has been described as a history book setting up the rest of the series. I have not read the rest of the series but this feels right. There are good characters but I felt a bit distanced from them, kind of like a history book. This lack of connection to the characters would normally move me away from a book, but I was prepared for this and felt compelled to read this book. I really enjoyed the plot and the ideas being examined. The characters arcs were also very interesting. If Ken Liu can keep me interested in a history of the world he has created, I’m excited to see what he can do with the next books in the series.

Solid epic fantasy with phenomenal world-building. The characters are somewhat lackluster; it's very much a “warring of ideas”-style book, where the characters are (in essence) representatives of ideals. Overall, it felt like a lot of other epic fantasy—thus, not special per se, but nonetheless very well done.

Lost the library hold for a bit but managed to get it again and finished. Such a fantastic book. All the characters are written so well I found myself so invested in their relationships and felt so much emotion for some of their betrayals and the world building is fantastic. I was really pulled in. While I usually listen to audiobooks on the go from place to place, this book had me laying in bed just listening for hours. Themes of power, ambition, and the stark reality of revolution tie so well with ideas of friendship, loyalty and hope. The book ended really well and is satisfying as a standalone book but once I realized it was a series I couldn't hold my excitement. Overall would definitely reccomend for fans of the genre.

4.5 stars! I am very surprised I enjoyed this story as much as I did! In theory, not my cup of tea, but I found myself captivated with the story and wanting to read “just one more chapter” time and time again!

4.5 stars! I am very surprised I enjoyed this story as much as I did! In theory, not my cup of tea, but I found myself captivated with the story and wanting to read “just one more chapter” time and time again!

Holy shit I'm exhausted.

Day after edit: I only just processed my feelings. I loved this book. Absolutely fantastic. War is horrible, war is a tragedy. I don't know if I have the energy to read the second book but this one alone was beautiful. My heart aches.

This book got me back into reading I couldn't drop it even though I had deadlines due the next day. If anything this is a book I'd come back to

I really enjoyed this book, the main reason this isn't rated a perfect 5 is because the first 15-20% of the novel is an infodump and a half. I had to read the opening chapters twice just to get a grasp of all the different character threads and plotlines. Did I mention plotlines? This is a story with a lot of moving pieces; there is an entire world that needs establishing and a context that needs to be delivered in detail, thanks to this breadth the story trips up at its start.

Ken Liu catches his stride fairly quickly with our introduction to Kuni Garu, the central protagonist of the story. Kuni Garu is an incredibly likable and entertaining main character, and I found the entire cast of the story to be bright and alive on the page. This is all rendered in excellent prose, Ken Liu's voice and style has always been clear and descriptive, and he isn't afraid to reference and interpret Chinese literature. It is refreshing to experience a different set of tropes and reference, but I think at its heart this is a classic fantasy story about a hero and a wise king.

I had to take a break from Iain Banks after I finished Excession and this book was a wonderful palate cleanser. It was incredibly refreshing to see female characters who were well written and had agency. I absolutely loved the character of Princess Kikomi and her story arc was a big positive of the book: The female characters in this book are awesome despite the feudal setting. The women in this story are shackled by the time and setting but they are not robbed of their agency. Where another author might have exposited their tragic ends or romantic inclinations (alongside philosophic platitude and social commentary), Ken Liu breathes life into his women. The girls in this book make choices that impact the plot, and their perspective is represented in notable depth. The character of Lady Mira was very well done and I thought her story and monologue in chapter 45 were some of the best written passages in the novel.

I did have one small gripe and that was that the story felt limited by its genre and there were elements of the plot that seemed to bend in favor of trope and contrivance. This is a story that threatens the boundaries of a traditional fantasy story. Despite the rise and fall theme, it so wants to write the world in the image of its characters but can't because its world is the way it is (Because it's the dark ages bro, life sucks dude, the gods are vindictive friend, this is grounded my guy). I sensed an element of metanarrative in the way that the story rubs against the reins of its premise, and the way that the will and agency of the characters rub against the prophetic whims of the gods who oversee the plot from their perch.

Excited to see more of Kuni Garu, excited to see if the next book will shake up what has been a fairly predictable plot.

After reading the last few chapters, I was reminded of all the old anecdotes, stories we(the children of the 70's) had to brave (We had to study this again and again, from our primary schooling until our secondary, the product of two cultures, you had to study Filipino/English, and in the afternoon Chinese)through, This hero did that, this hero followed this greater hero, and was backstabbed, and so forth and so on, perhaps the best story to compare this to was The Three Kingdoms, Kuni Garu as Liu Bei, Mata Zyndu as Cao Cao, and Gin Mazoti as the genius strategist Sun Quan.

What made it different was the introduction of Gods which added some spice(only some, since there was no magic system), some ideas that could have made China into a powerful nation(I mean mechanical crubens or steel boats/submarines), kites and dirigibles.

Aside from that, this novel gave me the impression of a Westernized version of those old books we studied, the heroics, the double crossing, was it better, ummmm I would say not that much, I would have preferred more mystical abilities, this was man at his best and brutal at the same time. I am having second thoughts on finishing the series but as per my principle, once I start a series, I try to finish it, whether a trilogy, quadrology, quintology and so forth.

This is a DNF for me at 30% for now. I'm not saying I will never try again, I might, but this is just not very fun.

I want to start out by saying this. I do not know about Chinese history. Some other reviews talk. either positively or negatively, about this basically being a retelling of Chinese history in a kind of fantastical way. They are probably right. But as that is not something I know about, I can't really offer an input on it, other than the fact that...
So far the fantasy elements don't seem to be worth it that much. Some gods show up, trying to subtly manipulate history through pushing their champions. They are messy, there are too many of them. It's just not that interesting in my opinion. It's just one more layer on top of my biggest issue with this.

My big issue, you ask? So much exposition!
I accept that the history of this world is rich. Hell yeah, it's obvious. But. Do we need to be told about all of that before we connect to anything at all? We don't know much about the main characters (more on that later), we don't know what the tone will be, what sort of a story we are reading. But we already got the names of the states, their capitals, their principal gods, a bunch of generals, heroes, people who even change their names once they become emperor. A bunch of conflicts, more new characters just mentioned.
Did we need that? Sure, add them when they become truly relevant, but we just bounce between literally everything, from the kind of funny, typical fold hero chapters of Kuni Garu, the revenge story flashbacks of Mata Zyndu's.... uncle, some minister, an accountant, some bandits, an old soldier, the gods, more and more and more. Every freaking chapter is a new tangent.
Again, all these could have been introduced, sure, go ahead. But be a bit more subtle than “OH, and this random side character tells you his story for no apparent reason” and much later, when we already get a feel for what is going on.

Now you might say, sure, history is an amalgamation of everyone's personal stories. Yes. But this is a novel. It needs to be at least somewhat of a consistent narrative that has a focus, or else it will be a jumble of parts that don't work together.
This one tries to do too many things and therefore it doesn't succeed at none of them.
Maybe Chinese historical storytelling works differently and tastes differ, but even considering that, this is a fantasy story with fantasy names and places, so you have to freaking learn them
regardless, which makes it cumbersome still.

Now... Kuni Garu is charming. If the book focused on him, it would be fun. But it doesn't and that kills it for me. Hearing about the 99th freaking person for one chapter doesn't add much context, more like it bogs it all down.
After some time I skimmed. I skimmed over names and the random useless information about whichever state has a mountain and whatever lake and then it all became even more boring.
Many minor characters seem to be added just to be added. Oh, they just show up, they have one scene where they do something, then they die/are gone. Why? Nothing seems to have that much of an emotional impact because, again, we are not allowed the time to get attached to anyone.
So it makes the story read more like a distant history than immediate events. Possibly the point, not very engaging as a book.

All in all, the book has a definitive character that really turned me off. All the choices made were ones that made it a harder, less pleasant read for me.

6/10

A very slow and boring start. But the last third was pretty good.

3.5 ⭐️ The first third of the book felt very slow, mainly introduced the “universe” envisioned by the author, the characters, and setting up the stage for the story. Then the pace picked up but I only got really hooked at the last 200 pages or so, which I binge-read.

DNF. I'll probably give it another go someday. It was far too complicated for me to listen to the audiobook - I'm a distracted listener at best.

I loved The Paper Menagerie—one of my favorite books in recent years. It was full of life and really fascinating ideas and characters. I didn't feel the same about The Grace of Kings, which felt, for large swaths, like a summary. I only really settled into an understanding of the main characters and the thrust of the novel in probably the second half of the book, and even then many new chapters started by introducing characters, spending a while telling their back story, and then having them pop into the “present” timeline just to vanish for one reason or another. By the end of the book, it had established a rhythm and had focused more on the lives and stories of a few primary characters, and I enjoyed that. But I'm giving it a 3 because much of the book was spent summarizing great historical events and jumping around a bit confusingly in time, and not focusing on the human elements of the story.

Although filled with a lot of “telling” prose as opposed to showing, this is one of the few books that I could handle with that kind of prose. It was done in a masterful way, and I never got confused with the amount of characters nor subterfuge ongoing. The plot is woven wonderfully, and for a debut novel, I'm going to definitely be adding this to my favourites. I can't wait to read the sequels, and see how these dynasties rule.