There’s still time for at least one more book from 2023 before the end of the year, especially if it’s something that might be nominated for next year’s Hugo Awards. Shelley Parker-Chan’s duology set in alternate-history China will work nicely; I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but the sequel to She Who Became The Sun is even more epic than book 1.
The saga began as simply as possibly, with a village of starving peasants and Zhu Yuanzhang, an overlooked daughter who decides to take her brother’s glorious destiny for herself instead of dying miserably like the rest of her family. Book 2 begins with the race to defeat the Khan and become Emperor in full swing, and fortunately Parker-Chan provides a brief summary and drops in the occasional exposition, because a lot of pieces are in play. There are four, no wait, five people with the Mandate of Heaven (the ability to see ghosts, and to glow with the supernatural light that means they can rise to the throne if they’re strong enough to take it). There’s also the devoted wife of Zhu Yuanzhang, and there’s the scheming former courtesan who’s betraying her husband in order to put his brother on the throne. And don’t forget Ouyang, the eunuch general who’s so set on avenging his family that he would – and does – wear his feet to ribbons trying to run all the way to Dadu to kill the Khan with his bare hands.
In his mind’s eye he saw himself, alone against Dadu’s defenders. Fighting on and on, sliced by swords until he was nothing but a raw, screaming mass that still dragged itself forwards, never stopping, until its bloody fingers touched the throne. He imagined the Great Khan looking in horror at him: the flayed inhuman face of his fate.
The newly heartbroken Ouyang probably has the simplest motivation of all the characters, and his fortune is oddly bound up in Zhu Yuanzhang’s. Ouyang doesn’t know it, but Zhu is a woman, something that’s both forever out of his reach as a eunuch and something he’s compared to by pretty much everyone. If he discovered this he’d despise Zhu more than he already does. And yet Ouyang can’t help but see what Zhu is able to overcome on a daily basis, mostly by sheer force of will: her peasant background, her impossibly small army, and the missing hand that Ouyang chopped off in Book 1 (it’s impossible to overstate just how much everyone in this time period is repulsed by someone who’s been maimed; it’s almost as if losing a limb is something that’s contagious.) They’re both dismissed for what they’re missing, and both of them want the same thing more than anyone in the world has wanted anything; the death of the Great Khan. It’s just that Ouyang feels physical pain at any delay and will actually sabotage himself by shutting out every other concern, while Zhu is so cheerfully confident in her destiny that she sees every disaster or setback as a challenge or a game.
This was the part she loved, fiercely. The leap from which there was no turning back; the buoyant thrill of knowing that all the threads of action would come together – had to come together – into success, even if she didn’t yet know how.
Meanwhile the former courtesan Madam Zhang has forgotten what pain or empathy or compassion feels like, if she ever knew what those things were in the first place. She’s taking the only path to becoming a ruler that she thinks is available to a woman: the power behind the throne. A Machiavellian plotter who’s savvy enough to make her useless husband look like he’s a brilliant leader, she’s also conniving enough to seduce her husband’s brother (who’s actually brilliant, and empathic, and moral. And also married.) and make plans to have him become the ruler instead. It’s a precarious position for anyone, most especially for a woman in a time period where women have zero power and have to endure any kind of abuse, up to and including death. If you’re ever tempted to have sympathy, keep in mind that there’s literally no one who’s safe from her if she’s decided they’re an obstacle or a handy way to make a point. Expect many, many yikes moments from Madame Zhang’s chapters.
And then there’s Wang Baoxiang. Stunningly intelligent, and completely rejected by his entire adopted family for being not enough of a warrior, not enough of a Mongol. Baoxiang conspired with Ouyang to murder his adopted father and brother in Book 1, but that’s only the start of his revenge. His response to not being good enough is to become even more of what everyone accuses him of being: more effeminate, more sneaky, more greedy, cold, and ruthless. Baoxiang plans to become everything his family hated, and then have everyone watch as he betrays and manipulates his way to the throne and spends the rest of his life punishing everyone.
…it was the whole world, and everyone in it, that would suffer the consequences of him doing what it had driven him to do.
With so many different parties fighting for the throne, the plots and alliances are intricate and ever-changing. The trusted ally one day may have a knife to your throat the next, and a deadly rival is just a few terrible decisions away from being your second in command. Betrayals are constant, strategies cover the whole range between “infiltrate the city as nomadic traders” to “throw an army of peasants at it and execute anyone who complains”. Several of the characters don’t even know one of their rivals exists, and surviving for another day can hinge on something as simple as recognizing what language someone is speaking and what accent they’re speaking it with.
All of it is deliciously fascinating; there are no boring sections. At one point I finished a chapter and checked the table of contents so I could see how long before we went back to that character to find out what happens next. And then I did the same thing with the next chapter. The whole book flew by, with every character’s story being equally intriguing, or nail-bitingly stressful.
Okay, I have to admit Baoxiang’s chapters were my favorite. His brain is pure chaos-energy; what he’s willing to do, what he’s willing to have done to him, there’s simply no limit. Zhu will endure any pain to get what she wants, and Ouyang will do anything to make the pain stop, but Baoxiang is hell bent on making the pain worse. There’s no depravity or betrayal that’s a step too far, he’ll keep making himself worse and worse in everyone’s eyes until he can say “Yes, you were right to hate me. How’s that working out now?”
Baoxiang was suddenly overpowered by anger. The dark wave of it snatched him up; it held him like an unbreathing jewel within that sheer obsidian wall that climbed ever higher with its promise of pure devastation.
Parker-Chan still paints glorious pictures of life in 14th century China, the bustle of a market, the expensive silence of a palace, the play of light and shadow moments before an attack on an island fortress. Those images get more and more nightmarish as the story progresses. Players are eliminated one by one, the bodies pile up, and even the chapter headings vanish, leaving the reader unmoored, waiting to see what secret will be revealed and what innocent bystander will die next.
Pretty much everyone character’s story boils down to the choice between two different types of pain: the pain of living a false life in order to be accepted, and the pain of living true to yourself even if everyone rejects you for it. There are many, many people caught up in the wake of the people who carry the Mandate of Heaven: Zhu’s wife Ma Xiuying (clever, clever Ma, who keeps finding new ways to care about her enemies), Zhu’s dearest friend Xu Da, a lonely prince who’s Emperor father wishes he had a better son, and no one is safe. Parker-Chan kept escalating things long after I thought they couldn’t get any worse. (My notes towards the end of the book are mostly “Aw jeez”, “Oh no” and “AAAAAAAA”.) The ending of the saga is about as surprising as every other shocking that happens in the book; everyone is forced to ask themselves if any of what they’ve done is worth it; the answers are unexpected, even if many of them are just variations on the word “no”.