Description

Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time, R.F. Kuang’s acclaimed debut—praised by Booknest as perhaps the finest new fantasy of its year—is a captivating epic that blends military strategy, historical tragedy, and powerful magic. Inspired by China’s turbulent twentieth-century history and bearing literary homage to Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings and N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy, Kuang crafts an unforgettable story of ambition, treachery, and supernatural strength.

When Rin, an impoverished war orphan raised in rural Rooster Province, achieves an astonishing, nearly unprecedented success in the nation’s rigorous Keju examination, she shocks everyone around her—including the skeptical officials who suspect cheating, the criminals she calls guardians who hoped to profit from her arranged marriage, and even herself, now suddenly freed from a bleak life of hardship. Unexpectedly admitted into Sinegard, the Nikara Empire’s prestigious military academy, Rin quickly realizes that admission is only the first step of many daunting challenges.

At Sinegard, Rin struggles against relentless prejudice toward her gender, her poverty, and her dark-skinned southern origins. Harassed and challenged from the start, she soon discovers a dangerous gift dwelling within her: a powerful, almost mythical talent in the ancient art of shamanism. Under the guidance of her enigmatic and seemingly unhinged instructor—and aided by mind-altering substances—Rin begins to uncover truths long forgotten: that gods thought extinct still live, and their immense power can be harnessed. Mastering these mysterious abilities may hold the key to Rin’s survival.

As the Nikara Empire enjoys an uneasy peace, tensions still linger beneath the surface. Across the narrow sea lies the militarily superior Federation of Mugen, which occupied Nikan once before and nearly succeeded again in a second brutal conflict—the Second Poppy War. Though most Nikarans prefer to forget past horrors and enjoy peace, some understand how precariously close the Third Poppy War truly is.

Rin’s powerful shamanic abilities might hold the Empire’s only hope—but embracing these powers brings her closer to the ruthless god who chose her, the Phoenix. Rin realizes that winning this war could demand the ultimate price: the loss of her very humanity. Ultimately, she fears it might already be too late to turn back.