The Veiled Throne by Ken Liu

From the winner of the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, the epic third volume of the Dandelion Dynasties series, named by Time as one of the Greatest Fantasy Books of All Time, continues.

Princess Théra, once known as Empress Üna of Dara, yielded the throne to her younger brother in order to journey to Ukyu-Gondé to war with the Lyucu, and has crossed the impenetrable Wall of Storms with a fleet of ships and ten thousand people. Constantly facing adversity, she faces new challenges by doing the most interesting thing and not letting the past dictate the present.

In Dara, the Lyucu leadership bristles with rivalries, as power and perspectives change between the remains of the Dandelion courts. Here, mothers and daughters, Empress and Pékyu alike, nurture the seeds of plans that will take years to bloom. As the conquerors and the conquered jockey for position in these new regimes, tradition gives way to new justifications for power.

Ken Liu returns to the series that has helped bridge the great epics of our history from the Aeneid to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms into a series that is unsurpassed in its depth of scope and adventure.

'Beyond ambitious in scope... You are swept into a world of political intrigue, hopeless sieges and compelling characters. Liu seamlessly blends philosophy and politics with tense battles and compelling action... Sad, funny, poignant and addictive, this book will leave a lasting impression on the genre' SFX

Amazing...simply amazing.

The characters, the plot, the prose.....the cooking (if ya know, ya know).

Ken Liu has created a masterpiece--3 epic volumes, with one last volume to go.

I have no idea how this is going to end, only that it is going to be epic.

Do yourself a favor and read this series--you will not regret it.

“Stories are as alive as we are, and surely they change with each retelling. All my stories grow and learn, just as I grow and learn.”

“Everyone is a storyteller. That's how we make sense of this life we live. Misfortune and affliction test us... We have to tell ourselves a story about why to make all the random manipulations of fate and fortune bearable.”

I have the phrase “The stories we tell ourselves” tattooed on my wrist. One of the reasons is because we construct narratives about everything around us to make sense of the world. We truly are the storytelling animal. I think Liu and I agree on this, as the theme of this book is how central stories are to the human experience.

It's tough to talk about books deeper into a series if it's a series with lots of deaths and plots, because even mentioning a character's name can be a spoiler. I am in love with the world Liu has crafted and it feels very lived in. The character work is superb and economical. Characters can disappear for 300 pages, show up again for 5 and I am awed at how complex they manage to be. Two of these characters are so well drawn that I wish more people knew about them so I could gush. Liu does so many bold things with the prose that leaves me constantly wowed- two of my favorite passages are from the perspective of a whale (whales call humans “half-octopuses”) and from a character who is new to human life and learning how to breathe, see, smell, experience for the first time. There are so many fantastic quotes that I eventually just stopped writing them down out of exhaustion.

That said, this was my least favorite of the series, which is a bit unfair. The final book was split in two, and this is the first half. I knew that going in, but the pacing really suffers in the second half as you know the book is reaching the conclusion without any sort of resolution. There's a competition section that went on a long time that I felt could have been trimmed for extra time with different characters. This book is Dune part 1, but it paved the way for an epic ending.

8/10