Wily, charming Kuni Garu, a bandit, and stern, fearless Mata Zyndu, the son of a deposed duke, seem like polar opposites. Yet, in the uprising against the emperor, the two quickly become the best of friends after a series of adventures fighting against vast conscripted armies, silk-draped airships, and shapeshifting gods. Once the emperor has been overthrown, however, they each find themselves the leader of separate factions—two sides with very different ideas about how the world should be run and the meaning of justice.

I kinda had a moment a few weeks ago. Where I realized I was never actually going to read all the backlist titles on my shelves unless I actually, you know, read them? Seems intuitive & obvious, but for the most part, my reading does tend to be newer releases. So I’ve got all these series/trilogies just hanging out on my “definitely maybe soonish” shelves, and gahhhh…I just have to make the time.

So that’s what this is. THE GRACE OF KINGS is a book I’ve had for years, and I think it was a combination of the recent cover reveal for the third book in this series, plus the feelings I described above that got me to set aside new books and pick up this 600 page beast.

I’m having a hard time getting my thoughts in order for this review, and I think it’s because I have a lot mixed emotions about this book. And there are a few reasons why. I think there’s at least some chance that I built this one up in my mind to be something other than what it was, which is a really solid fantasy novel.

The other thing that had me considering not finishing THE GRACE OF KINGS is, there are really no significant roles for anyone other than men for, legitimately like 500 pages. It almost started to feel like a running joke to me, because it was like…oh, new character? A man. This group of new characters? Men. Those characters over there? MENFOLK. It was relentless & the temptation/anxiety around possibly DNFing it left me feeling exhausted.

So I did some things I’d ordinarily never do in the middle of a book. Mainly reach out to a friend who is a huge fan of the series to ask whether this was a problem I could anticipate being fixed, either in the last half of THE GRACE OF KINGS, or in book two, THE WALL OF STORMS. And she assured me that it was absolutely something that was rectified in the sequel. I even peeked at a couple reviews for THE GRACE OF KINGS while I was reading it, something else I never do. Just to see if other reviewers had the same issue, and some certainly do.

So. I decided to keep going. And in the end, I’m glad I did. THE GRACE OF KINGS is fantastically well written & the scope of this story is maybe bigger than anything I’ve read. The amount of world building in the first book of The Dandelion Dynasty is nearly overwhelming, and has me wondering whether this was mostly a 600-page prologue. I mean of course we get acquainted with some characters that I know will factor into the story going forward, but this is a book that lays a lot of groundwork for the story to unfold in future books. THE GRACE OF KINGS is heavy on history & politics, but it’s not without some pretty great character moments. And there’s a handful of moments in here that are BONKERS and kind of amazing…Ken Liu has some really fun & clever surprises up his sleeves!

You’re also asked to keep track of a lot of characters, which I’m ok with, generally. If I’m reading a fantasy novel with a ton of characters, I assume that I’ll eventually key in on who I need to key in on to follow the story. And that was generally my experience with THE GRACE OF KINGS, but yeah. Wow. There is a lot of characters.

I’d also advise anyone reading this book to not get super attached to anyone because Ken Liu is out for blood, and the body count in this novel is high.

Ok, but back to the wild imbalance between men & women in this book. Because holy shit…we meet a character named Gin Mazoti at just shy of the 500 page mark, and she’s a fucking BADASS. Basically a street rat who fights her way to the top, and becomes a cunning military commander in a world that’s never seen a woman in such a position. Gahhh! I fucking loved Gin Mazoti. It’s a function of the story that she’s introduced so late, but I certainly wished she was around for more of this one.

Anyway, I’ve gone on & on and feel like I haven’t really said much about the book? But it’ll have to do. I’m absolutely planning to carry on with this series, but I definitely had a…complicated relationship with THE GRACE OF KINGS.