Lord of Emperors

This is a lovely book to curl up with on a long weekend...the plot is wonderfully intricate, the people full fleshed and believable. My only regret is that it is too short. Of course, that leads you to the next book in the series but oh! what delight. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants an elegant, hugely delightful read.

I find with each book Kay writes, he becomes even more brilliant. While the Sarantine Mosaic Duology may not be for everyone, it is for those who enjoy beautifully developed characterization and cleverly woven storylines. Sailing to Sarantium is a wonderful beginning to the tale; I would suggest buying it and Lord of Emperors together, so the anticipation of the second book will not eat away at you while you wait for it ship.

This book (and the other in the duology, Sailing to Sarantium) is, in my opinion, Kay's best work. I have just finished reading this for the second time, and I think the second time might have been better than the first one. The characters are expertly developped, as if by a painter painting a portrait (many small ones actually), or even by a mosaicist practicing his craft. Kay really should get into epic fantasy works. In two books, he manages to introduce more multi-dimensional characters than Robert Jordan has been able to do in 9 books, or Terry Goodkind in 6. He has, also, managed to craft a world that is entirely believable and probably took a long time to create, even if it is a reflection of our own. The most important factor in this book is that, like most of Kay's other writings, this evokes feelings and may even bring tears at times. The ending is extremely well done in my opinion (if a little rushed), yet it leaves us wanting for more. Kay is too good a writer; finishing the book brought me an intense dissatisfaction, and I was almost inclined to throw it across the room. I can't wait for his next novel. If you've read this book, you probably can't, either.

Many reviewers have complained that this work is disjointed. What they don't see is that Kay intended it so - he has taken an artistic discipline, and mirrored it in his writing. The Byzantines made the art of mosaic more central to their cultural and spiritual life than any civilisation before or since. Kay has used mosaic as a writer's conceit. The lives of his various characters are presented to us in fragments, like pieces of tile; allowed to scintillate on their own while being assembled into a greater whole. Up close, each piece is unique and tells us its own particular story. But as we recede from near to far, the form and pattern of an empire emerges.The use of this kind of metaphor is not new. Kay has used it earlier in his Fionavar trilogy. There, the metaphor was a tapestry and the lives of each character a thread. But in that earlier work, he could not resist the temptation to push his metaphor in our face. Here he has learned restraint. In fact, he submerges the metaphor so successfully into the texture of his work, that its presence passes most of us by. This is as it should be. It is meant to be felt, not noticed.There is something else admirable about this work - its quiet voice. In Kay's earlier works, his characters undergo the profoundest changes through singularly defining experiences. I often found such changes abrupt and contrived. Here, it is different. Here, Kay takes his time. The main character lays aside his survivor's guilt and rediscovers his joy for life in increments. His life change is entirely believable because we are witness to its evolution.This is a wonderful duology for people who find pleasure in the nuances of human complexity. It is oblique, subtle, restrained, multi-layered and evocative. But it does not conform to the trappings of fantasy. There's little magic and even less mayhem. The only battle scenes involve two urban riots - hardly the fiery stuff of typical sword and sorcery. It's a shame, really, that this work has been co-opted into the fantasy genre. Hard core genre readers will find it tepid while detractors of the genre will avoid it through association. For my part, I hope that Kay continues to evolve. His latest work puts him within the first rank of Canadian writers.

I almost don't know what to write here. It has been said, many times, that the mark of a truly exemplary performance is not in the strength of the applause, but rather in the length of time it takes the audience to reclaim themselves from the mastery of the performance, to remember that it is a thing which demands applause. Never - and it is no presumption to say I am well-read - has the power of an author's skill moved me in the way this piece has just done. I am beyond tears, beyond any method of doing this work justice. It is a superb and lasting achievement, and its author has devined well the nature of art and its particular mortality. This work, like the works rendered by the people of its pages, is humbling, overwhelming, magnificent. I have now sailed to Sarantium, and its is true that this thing changes you, in deep, inexplicable ways. There is nothing else to say.