The Judas Blossom

This book was decent, some really good parts mixed with some not as good for me personally.

It follows four POVs, all co-mingled around Hulegu, a grandson of Genghis, and his quest to subdue the middle East. The twist here is that all the POVs (besides Hulegu's) are trying to prevent him, one way or another. I really liked three of the POVs, particularly Hulegu's which dealt with the political and cultural politics back in Mongolia with his brothers as well as his desire to fulfill his grandfather's wishes.

Kaivon's POV was also really good; a Persian general turned bodyguard for Hulegu who wishes to undermine him. Where this book fell apart for me is almost everything to do with the fourth POV; Temujin.

Temujin is one of Hulegu's sons and the one that everyone hates. My first issue is that people's views of Temujin felt a bit too modern or...not Mongolian enough? They hate him because he's fat. Okay. I am not an expert on Mongolia but Kublai Khan is in this book and a few decades later he is supposedly very large and it's not treated as a big problem. There's also a rumor that Subutai was fat, even if it's untrue the evidence suggests this wouldn't be a big issue with the Mongols. The second reason they hate him is because he's not a fighter. This again feels like someone trying to think of WHY a strong warrior would hate their son and not considering cultural context. If this was Genghis's generation or before, sure. But Genghis' whole thing was finding uses for people that suited their talents. His brother Temuge was not a good fighter, but was a highly trusted administrator and counsellor in the khanate. So everything to do with why Temujin was utterly rejected just fell flat for me.

Beyond that, I found his internal struggle to be not very compelling. He flips switches on his father on a dime and his sensibilities feel so modern that it's jarring. Finally, most of his story doesn't get started until near the very end; he basically spins his wheels until 80% into this book, and even then, he is basically just training. I'm sure there was a way to bring this forward or make his storyline more dynamic in this book. Kokachin's storyline also had a lot of training, but it has way more going on to keep it interesting. Temujin's just didn't do it for me. I will read the sequel though; the combat and political stuff in this book was good, and the set-up seems over.