Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 10, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
The Art of Destiny is the second book in Wesley Chu's "War Arts" wuxia/epic fantasy series which began in The Art of Prophecy (Which I reviewed here) . The Art of Prophecy was a lot of fun - you had your classic wuxia goodness (magic-like types of martial arts, battles of martial arts masters, etc.) to go along with some really interesting themes about destiny, conflicts between peoples, collaborating vs resisting, and more. And you also had a whole bunch of really fun characters - old master who's too tired for this shit Taishi, former righthand of the conquering "villain" Sali, and sardonic shadow-jumping assassin Qisami especially. The book was pretty long but was such a blast I never really felt like it dragged and I was pretty excited for where the series would go after book 1.
The Art of Destiny takes place 3 years after book 1 and remains a lot of fun as it follows its four main characters...but it definitely suffers from a little of second book in a trilogy disorder and has a bit of disconnectedness that does make the once again long book feel at times like it's just killing time. Whereas the last book went out of its way to feature a finale that brought all of the four POV characters together, this time the three groupings of main characters barely if ever interact, which is a bit annoying. At the same time again, these characters are a lot of fun as they go through new stages in their lives/this-world, with Taishi desperate to teach Jian before she dies, Jian trying to learn but also live without exposing himself, Qisami the assassin forced to go undercover as a maid, and Sali being forced to examine her own people's history as she searches for a cure for her illness. They're all generally pretty great, with new characters introduced who are pretty entertaining, so I still recommend this series and look forward to the trilogy's conclusion.
Spoilers for Book 1 are inevitable below:
Plot Summary:
Three years ago Ling Taishi, legendary martial arts master, was sent to evaluate Jian, the prophesied chosen one who was supposed to defeat the Enlightened States's most heinous villain: The Eternal Khan of the Katuia nomad people. Of course when the Khan was killed years before Jian was ready, the Enlightened States decided Jian was now expendable and marked him for death, forcing Taishi to go on the run with Jian to avoid the large bounties on their heads. Now after three more years of training, Jian is actually a capable martial artist...but clearly not good enough to match up with the assassins who might be after him. And Taishi knows her time is running out to train him...as even if their hiding-place remains unfound, Taishi herself is dying.
Meanwhile Shadowkill Assassin Qisami finds herself and her crew demoted to the lowest rank for their failure to find Jian and Taishi, with Qisami forced to take menial kills just to get by. But when she and her team are abducted by a dangerous and treacherous noble, Qisami finds herself going undercover among poor commoners she somehow finds herself liking for the sake of a number of squabbling and treacherous dukes that could dispose of her in an instant.
And on the far side of the world, Salminde the Viperstrike, now unwittingly leading the Nezra clan of the Katuia, finds herself getting weaker and weaker as she suffers from the pull of the Khan...a pull she cannot and will not respect when the Katuia leaders would leave her clan for dead. But with the Nezra clan desperate to avoid their former people, Sali knows she needs a cure to avoid first her death and then the death of her loved ones...but the search for the cure will lead her to truths about her people she would never expect, truths that will force her to make a desperate choice that will change the world forever....Like its predecessor, The Art of Destiny largely splits its narrative among four different point of view characters, from whose perspective each chapter is told. This essentially results in there being three separate story arcs for this story, as Taishi and Jian largely wind up in the same places even if their perspectives on the events they witness are very different (Jian being young, earnest, inexperienced, and still a bit naive, Taishi being pretty much the opposite plus a bit sarcastic). In the first book, that largely meant that the narratives would each develop on their own before coming together in the conclusion (which featured Qisami and Sali working together in an attempt on Taishi and Jian's lives, before they failed and Taishi/Jian got away). Here, however, as we're in the second book, these narratives are far more separate - Qisami and Taishi/Jian interact for like 5 seconds but do conclude in the same place, but Sali's story arc takes place entirely far far away from the other three and has no impact on it whatsoever....although it's heavily hinted that it will matter quite a bit in the series' finale.
The result of these now separated plot arcs is a bit of a mixed bag, but they largely work thanks to the fact that most of our main characters are simply a lot of fun to read. Taishi is excellent as the old bitter master desperately training her student before she dies from illness (and as the final test of her discipline involves killing her, that's a very important deadline), especially when she's now put in the situation of working with other martial arts masters who are very amusing in their own ways, like a similar woman who uses mental arts to disorient opponents or a man known as a legendary gambler based on his use of his skills to cheat and his love at gambling or even a drunkard who seemingly drank away his legacy and his right to be officially alive. Qisami is similarly a lot of fun - and I suspect she wasn't intended to be a major part of this series until the author found her too fun not to keep writing - as she tries to go undercover with her squad of shadow wielding assassins on behalf of a treacherous duchess and finds herself surprisingly caring for the innocent people she's working with. Sali meanwhile has to deal not just with her choice to save her people at the cost of their exile, but the fact that the pull of the Khan is killing her and finding a cure will take her both away from her people and force her to realize truths she never knew about her people. Even Jian's narrative, while a bit more paint by numbers and less fun, is still enjoyable to read.
And the book manages to combine really fun martial arts battles - with all sorts of new martial arts styles, combats, and more - into the narrative in the way the best Wuxia works do, which helps the character work and serious themes play out really well. And we are dealing with serious themes here, such as power, differences in class and how lower classes suffer when those in power attack, and how one's own history may hide its own atrocities and oppressions that one doesn't think much of, as Sali finds out. The result definitely makes me look forward to seeing how the final book in the trilogy will play out, and I have no idea how it will go, which is exactly what you'd want.
Again, it doesn't all work as well as it could, mainly due to how separated the narratives are...like honestly, Sali's separate narrative works well because it's clear that it's going to be important to the trilogy's conclusion, but Qisami's narrative, if fun, just feels extraneous. I kept waiting for it to result in her and Taishi/Jian interacting again in a meaningful way, and while that may happen in the future, it just feels here like something that could've been skipped.
But all in all, The Art of Destiny is really good and definitely worth your time. Recommended, and if you haven't started this series yet, I recommend you get on that already.
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