Katherine Addison and Ken Liu write neat books
Friday, August 21st, 2015 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luiniedHi 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.
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.
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Date: Mon, Aug. 24th, 2015 08:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thu, Aug. 27th, 2015 09:09 am (UTC)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.