Monday, October 17, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Speaking Bones by Ken Liu




Speaking Bones is the fourth and final book in Ken Liu's Epic Fantasy (or perhaps more accurately, Silkpunk, as he calls his melding of a genre based upon the technology language and ideas of East Asia and the Pacific Islands) series known as The Dandelion Dynasty, which began in 2015 with his classic "The Grace of Kings".  The series was originally labeled a trilogy (although The Grace of Kings works entirely as a stand alone), but after a four year gap after book 2 (The Wall of Storms), it was announced that the final book in the trilogy would be divided into two more novels - 2021's The Veiled Throne and 2022's Speaking Bones.  And rest assured, the division did nothing to reduce the page length of these novels, the physical copy I borrowed from the library of Speaking Bones is 900+ pages long, and packed full of story, content, and characters.

Of course page length is far from all this series has to offer, and what books 1-3 did was offer a story of generations of peoples coming into conflict over leadership of at first one nation, Dara, and then two once a faraway land (Ukyu-Gondé) seemingly impossible to access has its people (the Lyucu) invade.  The result has been an absolutely sprawling epic over long years, as characters fight over how to govern, how to wage war, how to advance people technologically, how to try to assist different subpeoples and minorities and poor move forward, and more.  The last book, The Veiled Throne, was incredibly sprawling, and while clearly incomplete, it told a fascinating series of tales of peoples struggling in a difficult status quo - one nation where an oppressed group was hoping to fight back with help from outsiders from Dara, and another nation in essentially a cold war with invaders who had seized a major island and who had waged previously a devastating war - with the Veiled Throne asking quite frequently what is the truth amongst stories that different peoples tell and contradict one another. 

Speaking Bones continues that story, picking up the threads of its predecessor, but being just as sprawling, for generally better rather than worse.  As before, the story jumps between nations and times and characters frequently, with certain characters disappearing for long stretches, but most things do come together in the end, with an epilogue that was exactly what I wanted.  And these characters remain terrific, and Liu does a tremendous job in setting up their inner hearts, their identities, and how they try to push forward in making a better world...and how those conflicting ideals result first in conflict and then eventually come together to a conclusion which tries to answer the questions: how do you handle going forward in a world where two rival peoples have committed horrible acts against each other and need to possibly live together?  Is there any possibility for peace amidst all this, and if there isn't, will war go on forever in cycles of vengeance?  What type of leadership should a nation have going forward, and how can it both move forward while not forgetting the lessons of the past?  These are common questions in a lot of books, and Liu's answers are as interesting as any I've seen anywhere...and perhaps just as importantly, Liu doesn't pretend his answers are clearly right both in story or out.  The result is a story that is a tremendous finish to one of the more tremendous series over the past 10 years, which I highly recommend. 


-------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------

The situations faced by the people of Dara, of Ukyu-Tassa and Uyku-Gonde are on a precipice, where a small change will drastically affect the fate of all these peoples forever.  In Ukyu-Gonde, Princess Thera is on the run with her husband, the true leader of the Agon, after their growing forces were betrayed and set upon by the Lyucu, and they were separated from their children.  Unsure and limited in resources, they find themselves in a race against time to escape their pursuers, regain some assets, and to stop the Lyucu from building the fleet necessary to reinforce the invaders of Dara.  Yet unknown to Thera, her children have survived thanks to the ingenuity of seeming traitors, and have found themselves on Forbidden Grounds by longstanding taboos, where secrets of the past may hold a key to their own futures. 

In Dara and Ukyu-Taasa, the forces of the Lyucu and the Dandelion Throne await with bated breath the potential arrival of new Lyucu reinforcements from beyond the Wall of Storms.  The wait has cemented the powers of dangerous factions on both sides - hardliners on Ukyu-Gonde who insist upon the destruction of native Dara peoples and traditions and those in Dara, led secretly by Phyro in defiance of the Empress-Regent Jia, his stepmother. 

Jia continues to openly preach conciliation...while clearly scheming some sort of scheme towards both the Lyucu people and those in Dara, cementing her power to unleash the vision she has of a land not ruled by the Grace of Kings, but by a machinery and system of government that will survive any one leader armed with weapons and military force.  But Jia's schemes are deadly and dangerous, and involve acts of great horror, ones that other peoples and leaders, like Princess Fara and the Lyucu boy she fell in love with Kinri, who refuse to accept a world in which one people has to be chosen over another, and horrible bloodshed is inevitable......

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The Veiled Throne jumped from part to part to different peoples and factions, with its final segment ostensibly following for a really long segment the adventures of the undercover princess Fara and the secret Lyucu native Kinri as they attempted, with a gang of ingenuous thieves, orators, inventors, and fighters, to save an inn and restaurant from an asshole who was using his illegal smuggling to try to ruin it (and was in the process trying to undermine the Dandelion throne by smuggling aid to the Lyucu).  Speaking Bones is just as sprawling, with it spanning two far away nations and peoples spread apart, although, as the final half of a novel, it is a bit more direct...with exception of one part following Thera's children early in Part 1, the characters the story follows at any given time are generally involved in major events that will carry the story forward, except in occasional flashbacks where new technologies are discovered and invented.  It gives this novel a bit more propulsion than the last, for better or for worse, even as it remains sprawling with how much it touches.

Really the only weakness of the book is these segments where the narrative is interrupted by past flashbacks to reveal what is happening in the main narrative as cliffhangers emerge: the book repeatedly interrupts battles and other major events (like chapters titled "The Battle of Crescent Island Part 1") with cliffhangers revealing new technology and ideas that will change things, only to flashback to revealing what that tech is and how it was discovered...and well, these segments are fun and interesting but just kind of don't justify their existence in interrupting the narrative....like the series has always been filled with fascinating explorations of technology and well, none of this is new to this book, but in the final acts, they just are now less interesting than the themes and characters. 

Which mind you, are incredibly incredibly strong, and make this book an incredible conclusion to the series.   As noted above, the series' characters all finally get to put their agendas and plans into play, which leads to tremendous new changes to the status quo that force them all to adapt....and adapt in ways specifically that lead to devastating results none of them could portend.  So you have Phyro's secret plans for military success, armed with new technological/silkmotic developments and the genius of the Blossom Gang from the last book, bearing fruit.  You have Thera realizing who she has to become if she is to truly lead the Agon people into a new age, and using those newfound revelations to lead a desperate plan to save the Lyucu people...and when things go both right and horribly wrong, adapting in ways that aren't simply trying to conquer and rebel over and over again.  And those who don't have agendas, but did end the last book shaken, like Kinri and Fara, find answers of their own as they wander Dara and search for something to do that won't lead to them going against the peoples that they, especially Kinri, love.  Or a religious leader of the in Ukyu-Gondé who, in forbidden ground, finds that the stories he knows of the past don't match what actually occurred, changes his ways and helps his charges adapt to the new information.  

And then there's Jia's plotting, which goes to lengths previously foreshadowed but still surprise and horrify in their extent as they play out.  We've already seen in prior books how Jia is determined to change the system of governance in Dara, to create a system that won't merely depend upon a charismatic leader's military prowess and capabilities, and will become something that will stand the test of time and function no matter who is technically in charge.  But Jia is willing to go to any lengths to create such a system, no matter how many people it hurts and kills along the way, and how dishonorable, awful and betraying those acts are...even to the people she loves.  And so the story uses her, and it uses Thera in Ukyu-Gonde, as well as poor Kinri in his hysteric wandering, to sort of ask questions of how a people can move forward as leaders die and vengeance is obtained, with oppressed people rising up to conquer their oppressors, who become oppressed and harmed in turn.  Is the only answer to slaughter everyone on the other side and hope that it never comes back to haunt? 

The characters come to another solution, one to break cycles of vengeance and oppression, one which doesn't forget the past while also doesn't find the people trapped by the events of the past, with them looking towards the future.  I won't spoil it here, but notably, Liu doesn't pretend this answer is necessarily a perfect one, or even that it will in the end work and avoid tragedy.  But the key is simple: it relies not on a perfect conviction or doubtless path, but on having doubt, on recognizing that one's path forwards CAN be wrong, and that you don't know all the answers.  Perfect conviction leads, Liu argues through his characters, to paths that are unbending and unwavering no matter how dangerous and how horrifying they become, and prevents one from adapting in ways that are actually fit for the situation.  It's a really interesting thesis that I'm describing quite poorly, but in the end it works really well.

And with the book ending on a sentimental note that really fits and will make most readers incredibly happy, well...I just loved this series and the novel, and wish I'd have had time to reread all four of them back to back to back to back (I didn't reread any prior to this) to get full enjoyment.  I highly recommend them all to you.  

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