If you love fantasy that is enriched with a deep foundation of history and that asks the biggest questions about how human beings treat each other, then definitely read Rebecca Kuang’s The Poppy War. Kuang takes us “off world” into a fantasy realm of imaginative power and richness, but readers will also understand that the novel’s world is China, the Mugen Empire foe is Japan, and the genocide of an entire city echoes the historical 1937 Rape of Nanking. Kuang’s novel is simultaneously fantasy and history—but it’s the ideas and core messages of that history that are interwoven in the story, not the events in their historical minutiae. While there are referents to events and atrocities in World War II, they are portrayed through a new prism of magical fantasy. The warriors arm themselves with swords and quivers of arrows and powers given by gods, not guns, but as the novel progresses the twentieth century seeps in. This could be jarring, but Kuang’s handling of this brewing across centuries works seamlessly, partly because she writes about cultures that kept themselves cut off from the rest of the world so it feels “historical” and partly because she writes so well. The dread “anachronism” never crossed my mind. She held me inside her story, the pages turning without interruption.
The central character is Rin, a teenage girl, orphaned in the Second Poppy War. Through determination and a powerful brain, she passes the national exam to get into the military academy. She’s trying to escape an arranged marriage with a disgusting opium dealer. She thinks that getting into the school will be an excellent end goal. But, of course, it’s only the very beginning. Suffice to say that this book involves a complicated character arc for this young woman. You won’t be able to predict it. This is a world always preparing for war and the Empress is quite happy to weaponize her human assets. Even her divine assets. I wouldn’t have predicted that Chinese philosophy could be welded into exciting plot conflicts and rich characters challenging each other, but Kuang has achieved that, also. She makes her characters ask of themselves monstrously hard questions—how do we “make up for” things like genocide, for example. But these big themes only increase the tension and excitement of the novel. Kuang will take you out of this known world, but leave you understanding it better once you’ve turned the last page. And the entertainment is unflagging throughout.
Buy at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)