The Wall of Storms

I read The Grace of Kings earlier this year, and it was an imperfect book that I came to enjoy immensely by the end. The Wall of Storms is the second entry in the series, and it made me realize that while The Grace of Kings was competent as a standalone book what it was really meant to do was load the bases for this grand slam of a story. This is Epic Fantasy at its very best, and this entry in the series personally ranks itself next to The Wise Man's Fear as among my favorite “second books” and more generally as one of my favorite takes on the genre.

The Wall of Storms directly follows The Grace of Kings and brings us up to speed on the last few years of Emperor Kuni's (Ragin) Reign. The title of this story is a reference to both the tumult of a young dynasty as well as a geographic feature of the world of Dara, Kuni Garu puts it best himself, “a young dynasty must pass through a Wall of Storms before the first succession.” This is a story about succession but more than that, this story serves to expand the world and introduce us to new characters that will carry the remainder of the series. I don't want to give away any more plot than that, if you liked GoK chances are you're going to love this book.

More generally I want to say that while I appreciated the prose in GoK, Ken Liu really put some effort into this book to take it to the next level. Often, I find that fantasy novels like to inject in-universe poetry and philosophy to introduce chapters or backfill the world; rarely if ever does the story directly reference those tidbits. What Ken Liu has done is bind the poetry and philosophy of his world directly into the plot, the people of his world really do follow this in-universe philosophy and every piece of poetry is not only beautiful wordplay but chock full of puzzles and foreshadowing. Nothing that bloated the first half of GoK has gone to waste, with the solid foundation GoK provided Wall of Storms has built something magnificent.

I did a little research and found out that the author considers this book and its sequel The Veiled Throne to be two halves of one entry in the series, so I am very excited to see where the story goes from here. Ken Liu has also gone on record to explain that this story is a fantastical retelling of the Han foundation myth (the chu-han contention, for anyone trying to google up), and the series is more generally a de-westernized interpretation of the “narrative of modernity”. This is a new flavor for a lot of fantasy readers, and I personally can't get enough of it. I mentioned this in my GoK review, but I really love the infusion of different tropes and ideas; this series has done a fantastic job of repurposing what was for what will be.

I only had one small critique if you can even call it that: for all the time we spent with Kuni in the first book this second entry largely bypasses his character. While we never get another glimpse from his perspective Kuni still features in this novel, he does not take a prominent role and is not the center of the story. I haven't read the third book so there could very well be amazing flashbacks to his perspective still to come but I was still disappointed with how distant he was from the readers' perspective. If you opt to read this story it will make sense why this is the case, but I largely signed on to read this sequel in the hopes for some quippy badassery from everyone's favorite low-born bandit emperor.

TL;DR: If you liked No. 1, you'll love No.2. On a macro level it seems this is everyone's favorite entry in the series and it's for good reason. Do not sleep on the Dandelion Dynasty.

Great epic fantasy. Better than the first book—in part, I think, because the characters are better. I really like that there are real stakes, no one is a superhero (à la SA), and problems are won through ingenuity (cool tech, tactic, gambits, etc.) more often than through violence or magic. The world-building is just incredible.

Better than the first book, much tighter narrative, much better characters (Zomi, Jia and Gin especially stand out - and yes they're all female characters Ken Liu really made up for the disaster of a first book in this aspect though I still have some issues I suppose at this point it comes down to personal preference) and just generally a more interesting plot. Although I preferred the first half focusing more on characters than the second half focusing on plot, where we sort of lost sight of some characters for a long while (Zomi is the best thing about the book and her name isn't mentioned for...far too long. She does play a huge role in the background but overall she has much less “screentime” in the latter half of the book....I'm possibly spoiled by the fact that she was basically the main character for the first quarter or so)

There is a bulk in the middle telling the story of a character, and in the middle of THAT is another bulk telling the story of another character which really could have been shorter, I did enjoy it but I would have enjoyed it even more if it wasn't such an interruption of the story. In the end it felt like a condensed version, like the events described might have been an entire 800 page novel in itself but we just rushed through it (which most of the first book felt like too thinking back).

I love the worldbuilding especially with regards the gods, in the first book they felt just tacked on and I didn't even bother to remember their names. The gods and their nature is much more deeply explored.

My biggest gripe is the ending, I don't think some decisions the characters have made made sense for them Thera accepts a political marriage after denying it for so long?? AFTER SHE GOT TO BE EMPRESS? Of course there was reasons given which makes some amount of sense but on a meta level god it feels like a cop out I was looking forward to the next book having an empress with a female lover? maybe even two empresses?? But no she runs off to some island with her new husband who literally appeared out of nowhere... How dare you Ken Liu..... Also I don't like how it went on for so long after the climax, most of it could have been part of the next book and explored in more detail. If it stopped after the jewelry bit it would have been perfect honestly

I'm giving this 4 stars but its more of a 4.5 whereas the prequel is more of a 3.5

I will go farther than any dandelion seed; I will lead a revolution.”

Oh boy. It is so hard to talk about great sequels, because I just want to gush about so much.
This book is better than its predecessor in every way. It is a triumph of intelligence. This book made me happy, sad, inspired, anxious (so anxious), thoughtful (so many thoughts), confused, enraged, melancholy and hyped. It is not interested in glorifying war, but is instead a love letter to engineers, poets, philosophers, scholars, teachers, linguists, and other people whose jobs are typically not to save a nation.

The way Liu tells a story is so meticulous but rewarding. There will be sections of this book where a character will go off to learn about cow stomachs or street magicians or how languages evolve or the weight of gas and you're like, “how is this relevant?” but then it IS. The last 150 pages of this book cries out to be on screen, and it is not because of badasses swinging swords, but because of a group of intelligent people with very little in common putting their heads together to spark ingenuity and creativity.

I finally get why the ASOIAF crowd should read this, there is a lot to like here. But there's a lot to appreciate regardless; WoS has political intrigue, rebellion, herbivore-dragon riding Mongolian-esque Vikings, kite assassins, airship battles, giant sentient narwhals, morally grey characters, strong female characters, LGBTQ major characters, Character death...oh lord the deaths.

I admire the focus on different kinds of strength. Not every strong woman is Brienne of Tarth and not every strong man is Achilles. I wonder how much Liu was inspired by men like strategist Zhuge Liang, because I feel his influence all over this book.

I don't rate books against each other, so while I think this book is better than GoK, it will get a slightly lower rating. While nearly everything about this is a triumph in my eyes, there was a giant coincidence in this book that for all my goodwill, I couldn't get over. Plus there was a very oddly placed flashback in the middle of the climax. But overall, one of the best books I've ever read.

9.5/10