The Poppy War Lib/E

audio cd

Published by Harpercollins, HarperCollins.

ISBN:
978-1-5385-1907-3
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (6 reviews)

A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic, in the tradition of Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings and N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.

When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the …

10 editions

Fantastic, both sobering and entertaining

5 stars

Really well-written, the dialogue flows (in natural modern English with swear words, not a stilted English indicating it's not English), and the epic scope of the story doesn't get in the way of sympathetic characters or diminish the horrors and cruelty of politics and war. In fact, the historical analogies are obvious (read the authors note at the end) but the end tied it all together even more than I expected.

Engaging military fantasy grounded in Chinese history

4 stars

I enjoyed this book very much, both for its approach to fantasy through Chinese (rather than European) culture and for its basis in real-world history. The last third of this book is filled with the graphic horrors of fascists at war, so I wouldn't recommend this for young readers. (Thinking of my niece, who loves to read.) I particularly like the end of the book, because in the end our hero commits an act of fascist evil herself, and we are forced to think about things like the nature of justice, the cost of vengeance, and the dangers of power. Looking forward to jumping into The Dragon Republic!