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Overview
View our feature on Guy Gavriel Kay’s Under Heaven.
In his latest innovative novel, the award-winning author evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of 8th-century China in a story of honor and power.
Inspired by the glory and power of Tang dynasty China, Guy Gavriel Kay has created a masterpiece.
It begins simply. Shen Tai, son of an illustrious general serving the Emperor of Kitai, has spent two years honoring the memory of his late father by burying the bones of the dead from both armies at the site of one of his father's last great battles. In recognition of his labors and his filial piety, an unlikely source has sent him a dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses.
You give a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You give him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor.
Wisely, the gift comes with the stipulation that Tai must claim the horses in person. Otherwise he would probably be dead already...
Synopsis
In his latest innovative novel, the award-winning author evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of 8th-century China in a story of honor and power.
Inspired by the glory and power of Tang dynasty China, Guy Gavriel Kay has created a masterpiece.
It begins simply. Shen Tai, son of an illustrious general serving the Emperor of Kitai, has spent two years honoring the memory of his late father by burying the bones of the dead from both armies at the site of one of his father's last great battles. In recognition of his labors and his filial piety, an unlikely source has sent him a dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses.
You give a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You give him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor.
Wisely, the gift comes with the stipulation that Tai must claim the horses in person. Otherwise he would probably be dead already...
The Barnes & Noble Review
To the short but piquant catalogue of perfumed, heady fantasies by Westerners set in an Oriental milieu -- those from Ernest Bramah, Barry Hughart, Liz Williams and E. Hoffman Price are prominent -- must now be added Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay.
Kay has set his novel in the empire of Kitai -- an accurate, albeit transmogrified stand-in for our historical China. The author has been publicly adamant about the superiority of imaginary venues over their realworld templates, using “the prism of fantasy to treat the matter of history,” and his hybrid mode generally repays the reader. Tangibility and verisimilitude abound, with a leavening of the supernatural and occult.
The hero of Under Heaven is one Shen Tai, a figure loosely modeled on the poet Li Po. Son of an important dead general, Shen Tai prefers verse and philosophy, although he is skilled enough for self-defense in the martial arts known as Kanlin. Having secluded himself from court politics for two years in the mountains, Shen Tai rejoins the world to find his beloved Spring Rain in the arms of another, a price on his head, and a gift of 250 rare horses attached to his name, more like a curse than a boon. (Recall Twain’s “The £1,000,000 Bank-Note.”) Accompanied by female bodyguard Wei Song, Shen Tai sets out for the capital of Xinan to reclaim his legacy.
This stately, elegaic, evocative tale, which alternates its sections among the prominent personages in Shen Tai’s life, is suffused mainly with a melancholy gravitas. Courtly politesse and Machiavellian politics abound. By the closing chapters, Shen Tai’s story has receded into legend, leaving the characters of this tragedy somewhat ghostly. What’s missing is the historical Li Po’s bawdy, carefree insouciance and adherence to art above all. Amidst the somber forests, battlefields and bloody palaces, the plotting and counter-plotting, some drunken, nose-thumbing irreverance might have played well, and bolstered Shen Tai’s stated adherence to a balanced spiritual path.
--Paul Di Filippo
Editorials
Locus
"A shimmering novel...a beautiful, compulsive read."Miami Herald
"Kay is peerless in plucking elements from history and using them to weave a wholly fantastical tale that feels like a translation of some freshly unearthed scroll from a time we have yet to discover…Lovers of historical fiction should also give Under Heaven a try."The Huffington Post
"A magnificent epic, flawlessly crafted, that draws the reader in like a whirlwind and doesn't let go."Salon.com
"Completely transporting." --(SALON.com's Laura Miller, on NPR's Weekend Edition)Michael Dirda
Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven isn't quite historical fiction, nor is it quite fantasy. It's set in a slightly reimagined Tang dynasty China, sometimes seems reminiscent of films like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and depicts the unimaginable consequences of a single generous gift. Most important of all, it is the novel you'll want for your summer vacation…Kay has chosen a spare, slightly courtly style, but nonetheless moves his plot along at a rapid clip. At the same time, he continually thickens his novel with appealing minor characters, thus adding to the story's overall richness as well as suggesting that much else is going on just outside our narrative field of vision.—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Historical fantasist Kay (Ysabel) delivers an exquisitely detailed vision of Kitan, a land much like Tang Dynasty China. Shen Tai's father died leading troops in battle, so he spends his mourning year burying the bones of soldiers on both sides, laying their ghosts to rest. He attracts the attention of Cheng-wan, a princess of his people sent to wed one of the enemy. As her gifts make Shen Tai wealthy, an assassin kills his best friend. Shen Tai hires a bodyguard, Wei Song, to keep him alive while he figures out what to do with his riches and who wants him dead. Kay writes deftly of women who are sexually suborned by their societies, neither minimizing their constraints nor denying their agency, and the complex intrigues of poets, prostitutes, ministers, and soldiers evolve into a fascinating, sometimes bloody, and entirely believable tale. (May)Library Journal
To honor the death of his father, an Imperial general, Shen Tai spends two years burying the dead at a battle site on the empire's border. When he receives a gift of 250 coveted Sardian horses from former enemies, he travels homeward to seek an audience with the emperor, knowing that the gift has not only conferred great power upon him but terrible danger as well. Just as he re-created an alternate Renaissance Italy in Tigana, the author of "The Fionavar Tapestry" series evokes the subtle politics and careful social intercourse of eighth-century Tang dynasty China. VERDICT Meticulously researched yet seamlessly envisioned, the characters and culture present a timeless tale of filial piety and personal integrity. Highly recommended for all collections and particularly for fans of the author's distinctive approach to fantasy.The Barnes & Noble Review
To the short but piquant catalogue of perfumed, heady fantasies by Westerners set in an Oriental milieu -- those from Ernest Bramah, Barry Hughart, Liz Williams and E. Hoffman Price are prominent -- must now be added Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay.
Kay has set his novel in the empire of Kitai -- an accurate, albeit transmogrified stand-in for our historical China. The author has been publicly adamant about the superiority of imaginary venues over their realworld templates, using “the prism of fantasy to treat the matter of history,” and his hybrid mode generally repays the reader. Tangibility and verisimilitude abound, with a leavening of the supernatural and occult.
The hero of Under Heaven is one Shen Tai, a figure loosely modeled on the poet Li Po. Son of an important dead general, Shen Tai prefers verse and philosophy, although he is skilled enough for self-defense in the martial arts known as Kanlin. Having secluded himself from court politics for two years in the mountains, Shen Tai rejoins the world to find his beloved Spring Rain in the arms of another, a price on his head, and a gift of 250 rare horses attached to his name, more like a curse than a boon. (Recall Twain’s “The £1,000,000 Bank-Note.”) Accompanied by female bodyguard Wei Song, Shen Tai sets out for the capital of Xinan to reclaim his legacy.
This stately, elegaic, evocative tale, which alternates its sections among the prominent personages in Shen Tai’s life, is suffused mainly with a melancholy gravitas. Courtly politesse and Machiavellian politics abound. By the closing chapters, Shen Tai’s story has receded into legend, leaving the characters of this tragedy somewhat ghostly. What’s missing is the historical Li Po’s bawdy, carefree insouciance and adherence to art above all. Amidst the somber forests, battlefields and bloody palaces, the plotting and counter-plotting, some drunken, nose-thumbing irreverance might have played well, and bolstered Shen Tai’s stated adherence to a balanced spiritual path.
--Paul Di Filippo