The Wall of Storms

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