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    River of Stars
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    River of Stars
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    River of Stars
    Audiobook20 hours

    River of Stars

    Written by Guy Gavriel Kay

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In his critically acclaimed novel Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay told a vivid and powerful story inspired by China's Tang Dynasty. Now, the international bestselling and multiple award-winning author revisits that invented setting four centuries later with an epic of prideful emperors, battling courtiers, bandits and soldiers, nomadic invasions, and a woman battling in her own way, to find a new place for women in the world - a world inspired this time by the glittering, decadent Song Dynasty.

    Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life-in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later-and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles towards the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai from the north.

    Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor-and alienates women at the court. But when her father's life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has.

    In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 2, 2013
    ISBN9781101605943
    Unavailable
    River of Stars
    Author

    Guy Gavriel Kay

    Guy Gavriel Kay was born and raised in Canada. He lives in Toronto, although he does most of his writing in Europe. His novels include ‘The Fionavar Tapestry’ trilogy (described by ‘Interzone’ as ‘the only fantasy work… that does not suffer by comparison with ‘The Lord of the Rings’), ‘Tigana’ and ‘A Song for Arbonne’.

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    Reviews for River of Stars

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    • 3/5
      River of Stars is a historical fantasy novel based on Song era China. This book would probably appeal to historical fiction readers more than those looking for fantasy. Magic is limited to a few ghosts and spirits as well as an overall sense of destiny.According to the back cover blurb: “In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.”River of Stars has a large cast of characters but spends the most time with Ren Daiyan and Lin Shan. Ren Daiyan has dreamed of reclaiming Kitai’s lost provinces since he was a boy, but after a fateful military uprising hundreds of years before, Kitai’s elites keep the army deliberately weak. Daiyan sets off on a path from outlaw to solider to legend, always focused on the prosperity of Kitai above all else. Lin Shan is the daughter of a court gentleman and a rare female poet. She was raised as if she were a son and occupies a strange position at court.While the back of the cover suggested this was both Daiyan and Shan’s stories, River of Stars really belongs to Daiyan. Shan is intelligent and educated, but she has little impact on the overall events of the novel. In the end, it felt like she had little role outside of being a love interest. She’s also pretty much the only female character. There’s a couple of other women who have one scene each, but none of these reappear or even interact with Shan. Shan never speaks to another named female character, and it’s justified in the narrative by saying that other women dislike Shan because they feel she acts outside the proper role of a woman. Still, Shan has to speak to another woman at some point. Servants? Her mother-in-law? Other court ladies? The “other women don’t like Shan” would be a lot more believable if we saw any of them actually have a conversation with her.While I’m on the subject of gender, there’s also a lot of objectification and sexual violence going on in the background. While rape is never explicitly described, it’s going on in the background. I got the feeling that Kay was trying to make a point about how horrible this time period was for women, but to do so I think he needs to have actual conversations between women, female characters who impact the plot, or heck, just more female characters in general.Oh, there’s only one gay character, and he dies. Fortunately, his death isn’t a direct result of his sexual orientation but know this going in.This is the second novel I’ve read by Kay, the first being The Lions of Al-Rassan, which I really enjoyed. Like River of Stars, The Lions of Al-Rassan was long and started off slow. Unlike River of Stars, the ending contained a sense of overwhelming urgency and tragic destiny. At the end of River of Stars, the only feeling I got was an annoyance that I’d stuck with this one for six hundred pages.Other people may very well like this one better than I did. As I said above, people looking for historical fiction may very well like it. However, I would suggest avoiding it if you prefer books where female characters have a role outside of love interest or evil, scheming (and shortly dead) wives.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
    • 5/5
      I'm not familiar with Chinese history, let alone the dynamics of each dynasty, so I'm not aware of how close to the actual Song dynasty RoS goes. However, Kay's masterful prose and use of a long historical perspective (events in the novel are periodically referenced as being elaborated by historians or argued over cups of wine by students) make for a compelling narrative.
    • 5/5
      This was a good book. Excellent development, and a fun sequel. I hope that he continues to write in this universe.
    • 5/5
      River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay is the second book that he has set in his version of an alternative China. This book follows his previous novel, Under Heaven and takes place some 400 years later. I have loved every one of this author’s novels and this one was no exception. He writes of epic battles, violent deaths and profound love and delivers a multilayered emotionally intense story he has drawn from the history of China’s Song Dynasty.The country of Kitai has become corrupt, weak and luxury loving over the last few generations. Soldiers are not revered and armies are not being trained properly. When the country is suddenly facing invasion by barbarians from the north, a hero is badly needed. One young man does arise to fulfill this need and thus the legend of Ren Daiyan is born. He firmly believes that it is his destiny to restore Kitai to it’s former glory but unfortunately, there also comes a time when Emperors and politicians find heroes more dangerous than their actual enemy.River of Stars is a powerful story with a complex plot and multifaceted characters that explores an entire culture while still managing to make this a story about two lovers who are, perhaps, born at the wrong time. This book was a wonderful reading experience that totally captivated me with it’s depth of emotion and lyrical writing.
    • 5/5
      This was a good book. Excellent development, and a fun sequel. I hope that he continues to write in this universe.
    • 4/5
      First let me say I love this man's writings. He could do the blurb on a package of Kleenex and make it sound like poetry. But I have to say this time that I was briefly left wanting. At least for the first half of the book. His strength is not just in his exquisite writing but in his flawless characters and the emotions they evoke in the reader; but it took a very long time before we were given a chance to know the main characters in River of Stars and all of the background to this hefty tome was a deterrent, for this reader anyway, to getting lost in the worlds Mr Kay creates so wonderfully.
      That being said the second half of this book I read in less than two days and it gave me that "un-put-down-able" feeling I get from this author's novels.
      Guy Gavriel Kay always manages to be the best devil's advocate in his writings; presenting complicated characters in difficult situations where the outcome is never easy or comfortable, never wholly good or bad, where you end up loving and hating in equal measure.
      Thank you again, Guy, for giving us novels that educate, entertain and squeeze our hearts for all they are worth.
    • 4/5
      dense and flowing, atmospheric, but somehow, the setting maybe, the realism of it taking away from a traditional "high romantic fantasy" ending. As with Kay's other books, things will become more clear for me on re-reading, somewhen.
    • 3/5
      More of a Chinese history lesson than was Under Heaven. The two books are only related by their setting, not by any plot or characters. There are many characters in River of Stars and it's difficult to keep the plot straight between the chapters.
    • 4/5
      Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my favorite authors and I particularly loved and would highly recommend his previous novel, Under Heaven. River of Stars takes place in China several hundred years after Under Heaven. The story is interesting and the characters are well drawn, but the novel is slow to develop and is bogged down by too much detail. The author also much too frequently uses parenthetical asides to various characters thoughts and this technique becomes annoying after a while. Overall, River of Stars is disappointing and not up to the standards of Kay's best works.
    • 5/5
      beautiful, fully realized version of Song Dynasty China told as fantasy. second in a series of works on early China, the first one, Under Heaven, set in the Tang Dynasty. the language is spare and poetic, matching the landscape and the times.
    • 4/5
      Another lovely work by Kay. It has an epic, heroic scale, while simultaneously delving deep into characters yet keeping the story paramount, and also capturing the little moments in life. I find his books such a joy - Kay has such a gift for details, for scope both big and large, for surprise - or maybe for not giving you what you wanted or expected.I liked the characters, complex and nuanced. I think Kay does a good job writing strong women, which I appreciate, but this is a very male story.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book a great deal more than Under Heaven, the previous book by the same author in the same (fictionally Chinese) setting. What made the difference for me was that this book had a clearer arc of growth for its primary protagonist, more interesting themes, and more pleasant minor characters. The story was unpredictable, but easy to follow, with humor, action, romance, and plenty of twists.

      As usual what makes Kay's books really unique is the way that he weaves thematic ideas together with an exciting story and how he conveys depth in characters with very few words. I think the central theme of this book was whether destiny (or one's sense of destiny) is a blessing or a curse, and how one should react to disappointment, opportunity, and change. He presented a wide variety of views, and left the conclusions open to the reader. I also appreciated the way that different sorts of love and loyalty (romantic, filial, professional, and national) were examined, tested, and questioned.
    • 4/5
      The scene opens with young Ren Daiyan whipping his wooden sword around a bamboo grove, battling imaginary barbarians, imagining great things while the Empire is in decline all around him. Suddenly, a small seemingly insignificant decision sets his life and dreams into motion. How does one man rise as a Empire falls?In Under Heaven, Kay described life in 8th Century China. In River of Stars he returns to China four Centuries later, in his fictionalized version of the Song Dynasty.Kay's writing is as poetic and sublime as ever. The first paragraph sets the tone:"Late autumn, early morning. It is cold, mist rising from the forest floor, sheathing the green bamboo trees in the grove, muffling sounds, hiding the Twelve Peaks to the east. The maple leaves on the way here are red and yellow on the ground, and falling. The temple bells from the edge of town seem distant when they ring, as if from another world" (3).My only problem with River of Stars is Kay's tendency to overstate one of his favourite themes: that apparently small random choices have the power drastically change the course of a life and the history of a nation. The theme is interesting, but he mused on it so often, it felt overstated in such a subtle novel.River of Stars is a gripping account of one man's life as chaos, war, affluence, and political subterfuge swirl around him. Kay is clearly at the height of his literary prowess.
    • 5/5
      I'm a huge Guy G. Kay fan, so I can't really give an unbiased review. I love his stuff. I don't always know why I love them until a second reading. Last Light of The Sun was like that for me. It grew on me after thinking about it.

      As for River of Stars I have two non-plot-related thoughts on it. The first is that it feels like a prediction. Kay's choice of the fall of the Song Dynasty from a decadent civilization to anarchy is deliberate. Our decadent civilization may be falling to internal and external discord. The second is Kay's use of the legend as a literary format. At first I was a bit thrown by the impersonal treatment of the protagonist. He was much less of fleshed out person than previous Kay protagonists. In his acknowledgements at the end, Kay mentions the legend as a literary format and how he intentionally wrote a character informed by multiple re-tellings over the years. It is a bit jarring, but I want to think about it. I'd almost prefer he had chosen to tell the story of Zhao Ziji and Shao Pan, two side characters who appeared more human than the epic legendary characters Ren Daiyan and Lin Shan. Kay was doing something intentional with the scope of these two, something I'm going to have to process. I'm glad he's stretching himself as an author, I don't want to read rehashes of old successes or the same stories in slightly different settings. It is just going to take me a while to process what went on in River of Stars.

      I should note that I really loved the book and was emotionally engaged by the story. It deserves its five stars, I just have to think more deeply about it to process.
    • 5/5
      GGK can always be relied on for an interesting and absorbing read and River of Stars gives you that.It is written in his usual lyrical style which I'm sure many people would hate but I love.A historically interesting time which I knew nothing about. Unfortunately, being able to look up instantly the real history of the time was a mistake as it pulled me out of the story.I did enjoy it and thought it better than Under Heaven.But he still seems to have lost his ability to make you really care about his characters. I used to be able to guarantee that a GGK book would make me cry at some point but his China books are just not doing that for me. Too many viewpoints? Too alien a culture? Not sure why.But any GGK fan is not going to want to miss this.
    • 4/5
      Kay is known for his immersive historical fiction with great, well-developed characters, and River of Stars certainly delivers on those counts. The protagonist Ren, his renaissance-woman paramour Lin, the master politician Hang, and even the short-sighted Emperor are all very intriguing characters, and as a reader, I felt very invested in their fates. However, the story begins with their disparate backgrounds, and the early novel feels a little disjointed as we learn about characters who have no connection to one another. The background of Song dynasty China seems very well-researched, but on the whole it seems like a rather depressing topic, as it's a period when the leaders are either too introspective or too self-interested, no one knows how to address external threats or the dissatisfaction of commoners, and everyone agrees that the nation is in decline. While the book's plot does nothing to ameliorate any of these (in fact, it tells of the disasters that can result), I do find myself particularly satisfied with the ending. Ren's ultimate choices do little to mitigate the fall of civilization, but they do immortalize him as a shining beacon of loyalty in a country with a long history of anything but.
    • 4/5
      Meets expectations. I got through it while still caring about the characters, which I don't think I've managed with some of his other historicalish books.
    • 3/5
      It pains me to give only three stars to one of my favourite authors, Guy Gavriel Kay. The story Kay relates takes up events several hundred years after the fall of the great dynasty in a China-like world Kay created in Under Heaven, revolving around, primarily, an unorthodox and intelligent woman, an unwitting and reluctant warrior/hero, and the usual cast of supporting intellectuals and likable villains.I could not help but feel, however, Kay revisited what have become familiar and comfortable character-types and plot constructions, and thus the experience of reading River of Stars lacked lustre. His heroine is of course intelligent, an unorthodox woman in an orthodox society. His hero is caught in both political and magical nets. Both characters can easily be found in any of Kay's previous impressive canon. And thus, by now, one could hope for something new, something fresh from that highly literate and artistic mind of Kay's.Certainly Kay's writing remains evocative and lyrical, with some breath-taking images and descriptions that cannot help but move the spirit. Yet even that was marred by Kay's understandable love of poetry and the poetic form, so that much of the narrative ended up lost beneath esoteric discussions that stopped all action. Beyond that, Kay has chosen a narrative style in this novel wherein many subsidiary characters are introduced in detail, so that the reader is set up to believe this is a character which will continue throughout the novel because of the level of detail devoted to them, only to find by the close of the chapter they've been exiled, or killed, or in some manner marginalized, their complete future revealed and summarized and ended. By the second or third introduction of such a character, the reader no longer invests either attention or interest, longing to return to the main thrust of the story. Most readers, I suspect, will enjoy River of Stars. Indeed there is much here to enjoy. But this reader, who longs to be surprised, found only the familiar, relatively well-executed tale, but without that lingering bouquet of a fine story-telling.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written book. If you enjoyed "Under Heaven", then you would really enjoy this as well. In typical Kay fashion, he retells with added detail and a very human touch a historical event - in this case the conflict from Song dynasty in China between a cripped and frail Imperial China and her northern barbaric neighbors from the northern steppe. Wonderfully rouded with interesting characters and gorgeous details.
    • 4/5
      Set in an alternate history/fantasy-lite version of Song dynasty China, this is as elegantly and elegiacally written as any of Kay's works, and the sense of decay and loss is palpable. However, I find the characterisation a little thinner than I'd like, and it's certainly possible to grow impatient with his frequently non-linear storytelling and his patented narrative "teases". While I think he's aiming here for the spare and fleeting feel of much historical Asian poetry (that nostalgic sense of the ephemeralness of things), it tends to be more distancing than otherwise, and the reader is terribly aware of the writer and his toolbox. This is why I probably enjoy his early and middle books more; his later books are simply too acutely self-conscious about the storytelling process, and that means that I, at least, admire them more than I like them (others may have the opposite reaction, of course. It's a YMMV thing). Having said that - it's a very fine book, telling a compelling story, and I gulped it down in one weekend. Even lesser Kay is still pretty damn good!
    • 4/5
      I couldn't wait to read this book, and it didn't disappoint. Kay is at home in his Chinese setting, and I love learning about real history from him this way. It always amazes me just how much of his stories really happened! The story hooked me in as usual, and although the characters weren't as compelling as in some of his other books, they were still a sufficiently interesting cast. That said, his habit of foreshadowing literally everything that is going to happen in the book is starting to really annoy me. It seems like every three pages there's a sentence along the lines of "but that was not, in fact, how it turned out. How strange it is that the course of history can be changed by such a small thing", again and again and again. I get it! Any halfway intelligent reader will be able to appreciate when a plot turns on a slight coincidence, without neon signs pointing you at it. As a device I think it can be effective, but only if it isn't overused. I'll go back and read Under Heaven now, as it's been a couple of years since I read it. The plots of Kay's books are so complicated it's hard to remember what happened, and I suspect these two books will blur into one otherwise.
    • 4/5
      Summary: In centuries past, Kitai was a mighty empire, demanding tribute from their neighbors to the north and west. But centuries after a military revolt shook the nation, Kitai is only a shadow of its former glory. It is still unsurpassed in the areas of art and culture, but it has lost most of its political influence and military superiority, and has ceded more territory than it cares to admit to the nomadic barbarian people in the North. Infighting and scheming amongst members of the court are common, and the emperor cares more about his extensive gardens than about the realities of life in his realm.This is the Kitai in which Ren Daiyan has grown up. A clerk's son who secretly longs to be a soldier, he is still a teenager when he manages to kills seven bandits singlehandedly, on the day that he walks away from his old life forever. He becomes a bandit himself, working to disrupt the worst excesses of the government and their tax collectors, but he holds tight to his dream of reclaiming Kitai's lost lands and restoring the empire to its former glory.This is also the Kitai of Lady Lin Shan. An only child, she was educated by her scholar father far beyond what is typical for women of that dynasty. She is clever as well as being educated, but in the court of the emperor of Kitai, cleverness can be a danger as well as a blessing, especially for a woman.Ordinarily, the lives of these two would likely never intersect, but when war descends on Kitai from an unforseen enemy, they - and many others - will have to sacrifice much to preserve their homeland.Review: I know I have said this, or things to this effect, every time I've reviewed one of Guy Gavriel Kay's books, but ye gods, he is a wonderful writer. It's not so much that he can turn a phrase (although he certainly can), but more that he can craft these beautiful perfect indelible scenes out of the most basic moments, and give them a power and a vibrancy and an immediacy that you would never expect. Scenes that would otherwise seem inconsequential take on incredible significance just from the way that Kay writes them, which dovetails perfectly with his themes about the minor moments that can change a life and alter the course of history. Other things that I've said about Kay's books are also just as true for River of Stars. This is not an easy book, nor a particularly quick-reading one. Kay is a very subtle writer, keeping his exposition to the barest minimum, and instead letting the reactions of his characters drive the story forward. It's a style that can be devastatingly effective, but it also demands a high degree of attention from the reader, especially since Kay is fond of cutting away from the climax of a scene, and leaving readers to piece together what happened from what they know of the characters, and from the consequences of their actions. This could be a dangerous ploy for a writer to pull, but Kay manages it, in large part since his characters are so finely crafted that I typically felt as though I knew what they would do next, even when the text leaves it ambiguous.River of Stars does not have the world's quickest moving plot, particularly in the first third or so of the book. Because Kay has to set up all of his players, and their backstory, and the history of Kitai and its neighbors, it takes a while to get to the conflict of what I would consider to be the main plot. However, I wound up minding this less than I would have expected; although the first half of the book is somewhat all over the place in terms of introducing characters and setting up multiple story lines, Kay packs it with enough of those perfect wonderful shining nuggets of story that he never lost my attention. I did have somewhat of a hard timing keeping some of those characters straight, however. That may have something to do with the fact that I'm not as used to dealing with Chinese names, and it always takes me a while to remember that the first name is the patronym. It may also have to do with the fact that I listened to the audiobook - while Simon Vance does an incredible job, I can keep unfamiliar names straight more easily if I can see them than if I only get to hear them. (Also, there are a lot of secondary and tertiary characters, and listening rather than reading means I don't get the benefit of the Dramatis Personae that Kay's books usually have.)Overall, though, I thought this book was great. It didn't make me break down weeping, like the end of The Lions of Al-Rassan or some of Kay's other works, but it did break my heart a few times. I don't know that this book officially classifies as a tragedy, but it's got a lot of elements that make it lean that way: when things are going so badly wrong, and they could have been salvaged many times by just one or two small changes, but people acting true to their characters meant that they never were. When you're glad a book breaks your heart, because it would have been a lesser book if the author had chosen another path, that's something worth reading. 4 out of 5 stars.Recommendation: This is set in the same Kitai as Under Heaven, but it's not really a sequel; River of Stars is set centuries later, and while it mentions the characters and events of the previous book in passing, it's not at all integral to understanding this book. This book is classified as fantasy, but apart from one encounter with the spirit world, it's basically historical fiction, and I think it would be enjoyed by fans of either genre who like complex, mature novels with beautiful, subtle writing.
    • 4/5
      My goodness, the man can go on, and on. And so can his characters. Every one of them seems to be required to muse eloquently on the themes of the book. It was very clear after a couple of hundred pages that we're reading a plotted treatise on uncertainty, and how a person can decide how to act. It takes over 250 pages for his two main characters to meet. They are interesting characters--he tells us so--but not up to his best. But even average Kay characters are pretty good compared to many.I was glad to see that the drunken poet who was one of my favorite characters in Under Heaven has become revered. Overall, I'm glad I read the book, but I'm not enthusiastic about it.
    • 5/5
      Excellent historical fiction set in ancient China, with only a light hint of fantasy in the form of mythological elements. I love nearly all of GGK’s books. This may not be his best, but it’s definitely up in the top 50% of his works.

      The story is not fast-moving (although it has action-filled moments), rather it builds slowly, like a tapestry carefully growing on a loom… weaving the tales of two people, and those they touch…

      Ren Daiyan grows from an ambitious boy, to an outlaw, to a military man whose decisions may change the fates of empires.

      Lin Shan is an exceptional woman, a poet whose work is a mild scandal due to her gender, but whose words reach the ears of the Emperor himself.

      It’s a time when invading Mongols threaten the Empire; where bureaucracy has ascended over the martial way, and when an oblivious Emperor unwittingly sows misery and destruction in his pursuit of the creation of a beautiful garden. But with all its flaws, this civilization does have beauty and value to it.

      The book is rather philosophical, and is told at a slight remove, as if a poet told a tale from history. But it’s also full of convincing, authentic characters, with plenty of intrigue, and builds to a powerful climax that was simultaneously unexpected but satisfying.

    • 4/5
      G. G. Kay returns to the pseudo-China world that was the setting of Under Heaven. The events of that first book are several centuries in the past as he sets up a fictional retelling of the wars that separated the Northern Song Dynasty from the Southern.It's a good Kay story but not, I think, a great Kay story. Of course, a good Kay story is pretty darn good, standing well above most of the other stuff out there in this genre. Readers new to his work — you need not have read any other book to start here — are likely to enjoy it. One of Kay's strengths has always been his ability to create characterizations so real that you feel you know them, both of individuals and of cultures. This is no exception.You sink slowly into the colorful, corrupt, convoluted life of the Chinese court. Even if you know nothing of the history of that period (I did not), you cannot help but feel stabs of apprehension as small, seemingly inconsequential moments and decisions become the streams that gradually funnel together to form the river of history. And, of course, the characters are so intricately wrought that they stand up right out of the pages. In a sense, even though there are surprises in the story, there are no shocks because every character's actions just feel right...consistent with who we know them to be.River of Stars is more grounded in reality than many of his stories. In fact, if we consider his Fionavar Tapestry, a pure fantasy, to be at one end of a spectrum, this book probably anchors the other end. Except for one, completely superfluous encounter this story is purely fictional history. Whether that's a good thing, a bad thing or completely immaterial is a matter for the individual reader.So, why is this not a great Kay book? Part of it was that no character reached out and made me love him or her. I liked Ren Daiyan and I liked Lin Shan, the two main characters, but it never quite stepped beyond liking. And, most of all, I missed those moments of perfect poignancy that Kay did so well in the endings of The Lions of Al-Rassan or The Darkest Road. We came near to it but never quite reached it, having to imagine that it may — or may not — have occurred sometime after the book ended.So, in the end, while I would unhesitatingly recommend this book, it wouldn't be my first recommendation to someone who said, "Where should I start with G. G. Kay?"
    • 5/5
      River of Stars is one of the literary ‘hits’ of the summer and possible one of the best books of 2013. What Guy Gavriel Kay has created is a well researched beautifully written fantasy that will be read and loved by all who dip insides the pages. This is the first Kay book I have read and will be reading more after River of Stars as what I found was a complex, wide-ranging fantasy that just draws you in and feel as if you are there in the middle of the story.The two central characters of this novel, Ren Daiyon and Lin Shan we watch them grow and how their intertwined stories become one. River of Stars themes, characters and events are based on China’s Northern Song Dynasty one can see the mirror of these characters inspired by real people. Instead of China the state is called Kitai and this is the story of how Ren Daiyen will become a legend amongst the Kitai for his heroic skills as a soldier and commander. How in the end he does the right and honourable thing that will be the end of him, or is it? You will have to read to find out!River of Stars is a book that you can very easily disappear in to and enjoy the fantasy as this beautiful story washes over you. This is a wonderfully vivid and very powerful story that was inspired by the Tang Dynasty. This is a wonderfully fantasy based on fact and history that fires the imagination. The words used by Kay evokes powerful imagery that is stunningly beautiful at the same time. I cannot recommend this book highly enough; it is a big book with a powerful story but well worth taking your time with it.
    • 4/5
      Another Chinese history-tinged fantasy from Kay, set several hundred years after Under Heaven, in a diminished Kitai. This one isn't quite as gripping, somehow, as his best.
    • 2/5
      Epic story, dully told. I have enjoyed so many of Guy Gavriel Kay's works which made the disappointment of this on all the more keen. It read like it was the plot draft -- the draft in which all the action is laid out and sequenced -- and that he forgot to go back and enliven the characters.
    • 5/5
      Because I've read and enjoyed Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven, I became intrigued and very excited when I first found out about River of Stars. Set in the same "universe" and timeline but approximately four centuries after the events of the first book, this isn't truly a sequel and can definitely be read as a standalone. Still, in my humble opinion it wouldn't hurt to read Under Heaven first; like I said, I thought it was a good book, but it also gives more insight into the setting and a deeper understanding of the people's sorrow in River of Stars for their once powerful empire with strong leaders that has gone soft and in decline.It's no secret that Kay is one of my favorite authors when it comes to historical-fantasy. One of the reasons is that his stories which are often analogues of real places set in real historical periods, and in many cases infused with very powerful messages and themes. Set in a world inspired by Song Dynasty China, Rivers of Stars is no exception.I find it difficult to just present a description of the novel, because that simply wouldn't do the book any justice. On the surface: Altai barbarians from the northern steppes invade Kitai, taking advantage of a weak emperor whose decadence and lavish spending has emptied the treasury and run the empire into the ground. A young boy grows up to become an Outlaw of the Marsh, then goes on to become one of the greatest commanders the Kitai army has ever known. An educated young woman ahead of her time changes the world with her songs and poetry.River of Stars is about all that but also so much more; because of the way Kay writes, the book is almost like a work of art. His strength has always been his way with words, and I swear his writing gets more beautiful every time I pick up another one of his books. Reading this was like reading a book of poetry. And while I don't deny that his kind of prose can get a little tedious after a while, that's okay too, because I just put it down when that happens and pick it up again later. I think novels like these are just meant to be savored, anyway; there's really no rushing through Guy Gavriel Kay books.His dialogue writing can be very subtle too, which is actually quite appropriate for this story in which so much unfolds within an imperial court of secrets and intrigue, at a time and in a place where saving face is everything and what you say (or don't say) can get you killed. While Kay can definitely tell a story, his stuff is probably not what you'd turn to if you want a rip-roaring book of fast-paced adventure or nonstop action. For example, though there is certainly no lack of battles in River of Stars, I find many of them are only described after the fact. Rather than the actual fighting, we often see only the results and the aftermath.And I think that is the point of the book, really. One of the themes in River of Stars is how a single person can shape your life and bring you to places you never thought possible, how the decisions or actions (or the destiny) of someone can ripple through history to affect legions or even change the face of an empire. The happenings behind major events are meticulously peeled back, examined from different angles, to show the significance of the repercussions that can be felt for generations.It's another reason why it was hard for me at times to tease out a real clear thread of a plot while reading this. The story is told in so many layers, and not always linearly, filled in with many narratives during the past, present or even future. Everything is woven together to form a whole in a very impressive way, cementing the idea in my mind of Guy Gavriel Kay as a true artist.
    • 5/5
      This author's name kept coming up, and I thought I should try one of his books. I don't know how typical River of Stars is, but I can say that it is extremely impressive. No brief plot summary could remotely do it justice. It's not that the plot is in any sense weak or conventional; it's just that what makes this work truly exceptional is execution. You have to read at least a substantial portion of it to fully grasp what Kay is doing. He is painting a huge canvas, with strokes that are sometimes broad, sometimes narrow, sometimes minutely detailed, but always carefully placed to give us a living picture of his characters, their actions, their thoughts, their world. Kay has an odd habit of switching back and forth between present-tense and past-tense narration that I found distracting, though it wasn't very long before I didn't care because the story had me in its grip. Oddly, it was the past-tense parts that felt most direct and immediate to me. The present-tense parts felt more distant, in a sense, as if I was floating there, watching. Another quirk is the frequent insertion of little parentheticals that illuminate what surrounds them like tiny flashes of light. If he has a weakness it is that he sometimes belabors things beyond what I feel is necessary for his purpose. I always want stories to make sense, and I have a tendency in my own writing to over-explain. Kay, I think, is a writer who wants to explain things even more than I do. This is not a happily-ever-after story. It is described as historical fantasy. There are supernatural elements that force the "fantasy" label, and the story really is fiction, although Kay draws heavily on his historical research – here, into Song Dynasty China. Whereas many writers would use fantasy as a vehicle to spin a yarn with an improbable feel-good conclusion, Kay pulls relatively few punches. This is not a place and time that makes things easy for people and Kay is very clear about that. He is an omniscient narrator who takes us into many characters' heads, sometimes so deeply that we can lose ourselves, but we also hear his voice, more or less, throughout. He is our clear-sighted, expert, and insightful guide.