Regular readers will know I'm a huge fan of Guy Gavriel Kay. His lyrical prose, and careful blending of a slightly alternative historical reality with just a soupcon of the different, the magical, well, it's a joy. Every book manages to make me think about life in a different way, and each book manages to make me feel, deeply, as I fly through its pages. All The Seas of the World is no exception. It's a book with a story that'll keep you turning pages late at night to find out what happens next, but it's also more than that. It's an opportunity to think about the role of small decisions and coincidences, and the way they shape lives. It's an opportunity to think about the ripples our steps cause in the lives of others. And it's an opportunity to explore agency, the way we act on the world. This is a story which, amongst other things, wants to explore the nature of lives and stories, the way the tales we tell ourselves and others are intertwined into a complex web of different expectations and understandings, and common ground between.
Anyway. That's all to say this is a book which manages to balance several plates; not just ponderously ruminating on the human condition, but doing so as flashes of lightning across the sky of a narrative that, well, it does a lot, from assassinations and coups to business ventures and sieges.
In terms of world: this is set in the same world as many of Kay's other alternate-history tales; in this case it feels a lot like some of the early renaissance republics of Italy, with the serial numbers filed off. There's that sense of a mercantile class shifting around the boundaries of aristocracy. The feeling that the centres of power in the world are shifting. The sense that identity is becoming more mutable, perhaps. Or perhaps not. One of the things the book does is dive into the idea of home, and of self, and whether people are the culture they were born into , or the one they were exposed to, or if they shape themselves under or outside of those pressures. It also looks at the costs of breaking with established homes, of walking away from situations as they get out of control, and the costs that come with staying to struggle under the weight of those situations as well. Many of the characters here are trying to decide who they are, in one way or another, and in trying to define and decide that, they shape not only themselves, but a broader conversation.
In any case, the world is a lush, rich, baroque one. Kay's vivid prose fills it with life and energy, and a wry humanity, voices filled with affection, violence, horror, joy, passion, love, and, from time to time, outright stupidity. The world lives and breathes and fights and builds and burns and shines on the page. From the soaring stone buildings of an ersatz Republic, to the sun-drenched cracked flagstones of border forts on the boundary of states in a cold war turning hot, there's an energy and a life that makes the backgrop feel like a living world, one that feels real.
The same applies to the characters, honestly. I don't want to dive inot them in detail, in part to avoid spoilers. But it's always nice to see Kay approach larger issues tangentially, through the eyes of characters who live alongside great events and people we remember from history. This is a story about people who aren't central to the "great individual" theory, but whose choices matter, whose lives matter, whose humanity matters. There's a central duo here, and it's always great to see a well-drawn female protagonist, and some solid minority representation on the page. The pair are smart, and by turns smart, funny, serious and deadly. Really, they're everything that people are, especially people pushed to find their limits and their boundaries in the face of unexpected threats and opportunities.
The story itself is a complex set of interwoven threads, tying characters together half a world apart, or right next to each other. There's murder, mystery, and more than a little mayhem. There's a dash of romance mixed in there, and some lovely platonic interaction by people who give a damn. Chases and battles of wits and unfortunate coincidences and serendipity and blood on the floor and gold in the hand and passion and laughter and tears and, well, life.
This is a damn good story, and if you're an existing fan, it's a damn good Kay story. Go get it.
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