The Poppy War

  This is a book I've been excited to read for a bit now.  I heard about it a couple of years ago but didn't decide to give it a try until I read Babel, Kuang's most recent book.  I think Babel is an absolute masterpiece.  Not only did I think it was a masterpiece, it felt like a very intentional masterpiece created by someone who is a master of her craft.  Kuang made so many smart writing decisions throughout Babel that I felt I had to check out her other books to see if she was always this good.  As it turns it, she hasn't always been quite that good, but she's always been incredibly talented.  The Poppy War is seriously excellent.    I love pretty much everything about this book so I'm just going to go ahead and lavish a whole lot of praise before I get into the very small critiques that I have.  Kuang is a master at subtle worldbuilding.  While there are many fantastical elements in her stories, she always keeps her settings quite grounded in reality.  It's so easy to imagine yourself in one of her worlds sitting on one of her characters' shoulders.  This ease allows the reader to be immediately invested in her stories and I find that this is an underrated aspect of good fantasy.  You can have the most elaborate world with maps that rival an actual atlas, but if I can't imagine what it's like to be there, the corresponding story will inevitably fall flat.  Kuang does not make any of these mistakes.  She feeds the reader a little bit of info at a time, enough to make the reader feel like they're learning something, but never too much as to make them feel overwhelmed.  This attribute also contributes to the fact that her books are an absolute blast to read.  For me, reading good fantasy feels like riding a roller-coaster: yes the author has total control of the story, but the ride they take me on is so exhilarating that I feel unbounded within their creation.  Kuang delivers that feeling so many times throughout this book and each time it's more fun than the last.     I also want to give Kuang credit for how she balances the fun aspects of the book with the very dark realities of her world.  The Poppy War takes place in a country called Nikan, which is clearly based on World War II China.  Nikan gets invaded by a country called Mugen, the Japan to Nikan's China.  Kuang does not pull any punches when describing the wartime atrocities Mugen commits, some of which seem to be word-for-word descriptions about the Rape of Nanking.  These are some of the most disturbing passages I've ever read, but they are absolutely necessary to understand the motivations of The Poppy War's protagonist Rin as she allows herself to become more vengeful by the page.  Rin is a wonderful character who changes considerably throughout the book but never in a way that feels forced.  We see what she sees and feel what she feels so that by the time the book ends, we understand her decisions even if we don't agree with them.  Once again I will give props to Kuang for making her main character in her debut novel one that is conflicting.  There were many times throughout the book that I had to remind myself that this is Kuang's first novel and that she wrote it in her early 20s.  She clearly has some excellent innate writing instincts.    With all that said, there are points in the novel where Kuang's inexperience shows.  Here I'm mostly referring to her handling of Altan.  For me at least, Altan's character shift between his time at Sinegard and his time as leader of the Cike feels very awkward.  Altan post-Sinegard is great and I don't think Kuang does anything wrong with his progression from that point on, but he straight up does not feel like the same person he was before then.  This would be excusable except for the fact that it's mentioned that he's always been like this.  The whole thing just feels so jarring and it really stands out when put against Rin's very smooth character transformation.  This is a pretty small nitpick but with a book this good all critiques are nitpicky.    I love this book dearly and can't wait to check out its sequel.