{"id":9317,"date":"2017-10-05T09:18:20","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T13:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=9317"},"modified":"2018-09-19T19:33:58","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T23:33:58","slug":"river-of-stars-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/9317","title":{"rendered":"River of Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

River of Stars<\/a><\/em> (2013) Guy Gavriel Kay<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I had forgotten just how melancholy the end of this book was. <\/p>\n

That doesn’t make the book any less good, but it did leave me craving something happy when I finished it.<\/p>\n

As with all Guy Gavriel Kay books, there are a variety of characters you follow over time, and eventually these different characters intersect and interact with each other.<\/p>\n

They also change and grow over time.<\/p>\n

If the sub-prefect had had a more effective half-smile, one that conveyed amusement and superiority, he\u2019d have used it then. But his wife had told him that when he essayed such an expression he looked as if he were suffering from stomach distress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As with the previous book, this story is based upon a meticulously researched history of the time and place, but the diverges, creating characters that are similar to–but also very different from–this historical characters. But so many things are kept.<\/p>\n

And Xi Wengao, for many reasons, had never subscribed to the more extreme limitations proposed by Cho teachers on the freedom allowed women in their time. <\/p>\n

He knew too much about the past, for one thing. He loved women too much, for another. The ripple of voices, dance of eyes, their hands, their scent. The way some of them could read a gathering in an instant, and then guide it. He had known women like that. He had loved some of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He\u2019d heard a wandering holy man, one of those from the high plateaus of Tagur (which had once been an empire, some said), preaching back home to a ragged crowd that if a man behaved badly in life he would return as an animal of some kind, to make amends for his errors. Young Ziji didn\u2019t exactly believe it, but he did recall the simple piety of that man in his dark-red robe, and he treated his animals as well as he could to this day. They didn\u2019t mumble and plot against you, he thought.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But most importantly, as with all this books, there are the beautiful passages that convey so much more than they should be able to.<\/p>\n

She knows exactly what she wants to say in this letter, how many characters, how much ink she needs. You always grind a little more than you need, she has been taught (by her father). If you are forced to grind again, in order to finish, the texture at the end of your writing will be different from the beginning, a flaw. <\/p>\n

She sets the ink stick down. Lifts the brush in her right hand. Dips it in the ink. She is using the rabbit\u2019s-hair brush for this letter: it makes the most precise characters. Sheep\u2019s hair is more bold, but though she needs the letter to seem confident of its virtue, it is still a plea. <\/p>\n

She sits as she must sit. She adopts the Pillowed-Wrist Position, left hand under right wrist, supporting it. Her characters are to be small, exact, not large and assertive (for which she\u2019d have used Raised-Wrist Position). The letter will be in formal hand. Of course it will. <\/p>\n

A writer\u2019s brush is a warrior\u2019s bow, the letters it shapes are arrows that must hit the mark on the page. The calligrapher is an archer, or a general on a battlefield. Someone wrote that long ago. She feels that way this morning. She is at war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those four paragraphs tell you so much not just about Shan, but about the culture and the attention to detail that was paid to even the smallest things.<\/p>\n

As I said, these stories are winding and complex, and an utter joy to read. But right now, I think my next book will be something with a less melancholy ending.
\nRating: 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Berkley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

River of Stars (2013) Guy Gavriel Kay I had forgotten just how melancholy the end of this book was. That doesn’t make the book any less good, but it did leave me craving something happy when I finished it. As with all Guy Gavriel Kay books, there are a variety of characters you follow over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,27,31,2,41],"tags":[135],"class_list":["post-9317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-10","category-alternate-history","category-asian","category-fantasy","category-reread","tag-guy-gavriel-kay"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-2qh","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4087,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4087","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":0},"title":"River of Stars","author":"Michelle","date":"October 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"River of Stars (2013) Guy Gavriel Kay First, this cover is gorgeous. The picture links to a large version of the cover and NOT the book at Amazon. The link to Amazon is the title text (if you'd like to help me earn bits of a penny.) Like all his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/River-of-Stars.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2416,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2416","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":1},"title":"Under Heaven","author":"Michelle","date":"June 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Under Heaven (2010) Guy Gavriel Kay A new Guy Gavriel Kay book is like a small discovered treasure, something to be saved until a time when it can be enjoyed and savored. Some books I love because they are romps, others because they are long slow strolls through another place\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "10\/10"","block_context":{"text":"10\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/10-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Under-Heaven.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6272,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/6272","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":2},"title":"Sailing to Sarantium","author":"Michelle","date":"December 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Sailing to Sarantium (1998) Guy Gavriel Kay Guy Gavriel Kay is an incredible writer. He doesn't wrote epic fantasy in the sense of swords and sorcerey--in fact there is often no magic in his stories. He instead researches a subject an a time period and grounds his story in those\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Sailing-to-Sarantium.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":81,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/81","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":3},"title":"Tigana","author":"Michelle","date":"June 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Tigana (1990) Guy Gavriel Kay Why is it that every time I finish one of Guy Gavriel Kay's books, I ask myself, \"How could I have forgotten how good his books are?\" Even reading this book for a second time, I was still surprised at how good it was. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alternate History"","block_context":{"text":"Alternate History","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy\/alternate-history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/06\/Tigana.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":27,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/27","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":4},"title":"The Sarantine Mosaic","author":"Michelle","date":"June 11, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sarantine Mosaic: Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors Guy Gavriel Kay On a note unrelated to the story, I do have to say that I greatly prefer the Canadian cover art to the American. That's the problem with thorough websites. You get to find out what you're missing.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alternate History"","block_context":{"text":"Alternate History","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy\/alternate-history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/31","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":5},"title":"The Lions of Al-Rassan","author":"Michelle","date":"June 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lions of Al-Rassan (1995) Guy Gavriel Kay This is a very good, albeit very depressing book. Set in the same world as Sailing to Sarantium, this book describes the battles between the followers of Jad versus the Asharites. If Sailing to Sarantium reminded me of Rome, this book reminded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alternate History"","block_context":{"text":"Alternate History","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy\/alternate-history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}