However, there are two deaths in this book that just did not have the weight and impact I expected them to have. I would have loved to see this bond built up over an entire book and it would have made the ending even more emotional.

The Song of Achilles meets Mulan in He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan - a dazzling queer historical fantasy of war and destiny set in an epic alternate China, and sequel to Sunday Times bestselling She Who Became the Sun. Zhu, who not only saw it but also considered herself generally immune to the urges of physical desire, was interested to feel a mild tug in response.And with the exception of her capital, Yingtian, none of the dozen cities she held in the south could match even the poorest of the Zhang family’s canal-linked economic centers. Is a thing real because it is perceived to be so or does another person's perception not matter at all to the truth of one's being? Madam Zhang is so disconnected from the pain of her body that she becomes unfeeling, she controls her body as you would a clockwork toy and winds herself up again for her next performance.

I would recommend this duology to someone who is used to Western fantasy and wants to change scenery, likes when books start very slow-paced and character-driven and get more and more complex the more you read and appreciates having some very dramatic scenes. He Who Drowned the World is a heart-wrenching study of grief, power, and pain that will keep readers on the edge of their seats from the first page. There was a scene where they were asked to choose between someone dear to them and winning, but in the end the choice was made for them-almost in a copy and paste version of another scene in book one.You are following characters that have little to no morals, yet somehow you care about them, feel along with them and wish for their dreams to become real.

I cried, I laughed, I wanted these characters to pay for all the awful things they’d done, I desperately yearned for them all to have happily ever afters, and I was always always so impressed and touched by the themes of self-acceptance and fate and how they were woven into the story. The conclusion of the Radiant Emperor duology makes use of every last word and stamps this series onto the map as a new must-read of the fantasy canon. this book gave us tragic furious vengeful villainous hopeful compassionate queer people, how could i not love it (and hate it).Two winged helmets in the Nanren style, two sets of lamellar armor with the dark leather taking in the sun and the metal lion’s-head bosses on their shoulders sending it flashing back like mirror signals. Stunning, powerful and complex, there are no heroes in this tale, and people knowingly do terrible things. I can just imagine the sets, the landscape, the cities etc, visually I want this book to be made into an anime like Ooku or Blue Eyed Samurai.

Shelley Parker-Chan has not only created an exceptional piece of literature through their immersive and explosive storytelling, but has transported us through time into a world where we are as desperate and as ravenous as the characters themselves. Zhu’s POV was weaker in this read as it was more focused on her building up followers and running between different points or on intense bouts of action.Even though her path to meet her goal was bloody, she was determined to make a world where no one is shunned or ostracized for who they are. and i'm glad i didn't because there is a delicate thread of hope for a better future running throughout the novel that slowly gets stronger towards the end. Even more so, it’s not clear why other characters decided to tether themselves to this character, since they hadn’t exactly had power of their own up until the start of the book. Baoxiang's pain spills out of him and drowns the world in its darkness, it is a poisoning pain with a bitter touch. This was mostly the case in Baoxiang’s sections, and much of his internal dialogue about the sexual interactions contradicted each other to the point where I was confused as to his actual wants/desires.