Katherine Addison and Ken Liu write neat books

[luinied]

Hi friends who like Suikoden games! Do you like reading books? Because Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings is loosely based on the same story that inspired Suikoden II, and it's also a really fun read.

It is not quite a Suikoden game in book form-- there's no silent protagonist / loquacious bodyguard dynamic*, the full-time strategists show up later in the story than you might be used to, and (thankfully) no one has a full 108 named characters on their side. But it has some very, very familiar story beats, and not just because of the source material in common-- in ways it honestly reminds me more of Suikoden I, starting as this story with really obvious villains and then becoming... much less that, all without changing tone.

It is a Dudes At War story, albeit one that's very aware of the problems with Dudes At War stories and tries to subvert and comment on them. (I suspect the next book of the series will lean more towards courtly intrigue, but of course I could be wrong.) And I honestly have no idea what it would read like to people who weren't thinking about Suikoden all the time while reading it. I hear it's been getting good reviews, at least?

I have other book/author recommendation posts to make over the next few months, but this was one (well, these two) I could make now. So look forward to either me gushing over books or me once again not making posts I said I'd make. Definitely one of those.


* If you'd rather read something with a main character who feels like a silent Suikoden protagonist-- and one in which some other characters feel protective of the poor hero-- I recommend Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor. Like The Grace of Kings it's low magic fantasy, but rather than a war story it's a story of slow progress gained through mostly working within the system. It is simultaneously a book about a series of meetings and a really compelling, heartstring-tugging read.

Comments

[coffeevore]

Okay, you've just made me realize why I prefer Suikoden I to Suikoden II so immensely.

As you point out, Suikoden I is full of obvious villains that later become to some degree sympathetic, understandable, or relatable as people. ...Suikoden II is mainly the opposite. It's full of people who begin as sympathetic characters and, through their choices, end up being villains/opposing each other. (Suikoden V is the same way, which is probably why I liked it all right but never got really sucked into it as much.)

Both stories do say "the opposing side has their own reasons for their choices", and that's why they both have the feeling of a Suikoden sense of personhood, injustice, and the horrible unfairness when people have to fight each other. But I feel like stories where a sympathetic person becomes a villain aren't unique and they don't teach much. Most people have, somewhere in their lives, someone who's betrayed them or something, or perhaps disillusionment with idols or even their parents, and they're perfectly capable of imagining a sympathetic person ending up on the other side of a huge disagreement, and the sadness that one feels thinking "how did it come to this?" That's familiar. It's easy. It teaches nothing. But there are far fewer times when people start out hating someone and everything they stand for, and end up completely forgiving and liking them. I feel like going in that direction demonstrates more. It opens more doors. It goes firmly against the redemptive justice narrative that media is so saturated with, and reminds people that there is a different way. It's the thing that I'm always looking at stories and wishing they had more of-- the thing that frustrates me because it so often doesn't seem to occur to people. So it feels to me like it's more important.

I was going to say that Suikoden III and IV match the pattern of the first game, which may also be why I latched on to them really hard despite IV being... eh... not as solid of a game, objectively speaking. But I realized that III actually mirrors BOTH patterns if you know who Luc is-- and only if you know, which is one of the reasons that playing the series in order is so very important. (Also, despite its being very majorly about different points of view all having their merits, it pulled that so early in the game that it lost some of its narrative punch. I mean, so early that some of the most impactful incidences of it were happening to characters you might not have met yet.)

tl;dr I really should read this book, yes.

[luinied]

So, the bad news is that The Grace of Kings doesn't do quite what you're mentioning, so if you go into it looking for that you may be disappointed. I will definitely keep my eye out for it when I read the sequel, though.

The good news, though, knowing that this is a thing you're looking for, is that N. K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy, another entry on my list of fiction I've read recently that I need to post about already (the first book is The Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms), does do this very well-- especially on a series level, but I think on a book level as well. (It also, at least to me, had this atmosphere to it that reminded me of SNES RPGs in the all the best ways.)

[coffeevore]

Hmm okay, maybe I should read that one instead.

[luinied]

I think you would like it a lot. My only caveats are a) it definitely requires some trigger warnings (e.g., the protagonists go through some serious despair-inducing circumstances, and there's some horrific violence inflicted on gods by mortals) and b) the first book has bits of "take down the man" perspective that may seem like something you've seen before-- but, um, then subsequent books have different perspectives, and, yeah. It is in the end a redemption story, and also a story about gods, and both of those are rather hard sells for me, but wow does Nora Jemisin pull this off.

That said, The Grace of Kings is still really good, and I think you'd enjoy it. But, like... to say it in a vague, non-spoiler-y way, it accomplishes the gradual shift from obvious right and wrong to murky shades of grey in a different way than Suikoden I does, and I wouldn't want you to be disappointed by it because you were specifically looking for something it doesn't do.