Sarantium Mosaic - review

[watervole]

Sailing to Sarantium
 
I had this book sitting on my shelves for nearly a decade before I got around to reading it.  As soon as I finished it, I ordered the sequel and will be buying other books by this writer as well.

An alternative history of the Byzantine Empire, with light fantasy elements, with the central character being a mosaicist.  Crispin's position as a skilled craftsman brings him into contact with people from all walks of life, and thus he becomes the central character with a circle of friends/clients from the Emperor to chariot racers.  

Kay's skill is to show us how major historical events impact at all levels.  One person may fear assassination, but another may not care who is in charge as long as the crop can be harvested.

Lord of Emperors

Even though I have some misgivings about the ending, I still rate this book ten out of ten.

It's the characters.  Kay gives us a wide range of  characters, some of whom have ordered assassinations, started wars, hurt someone who was injured, betrayed husbands or lovers, etc.  Yet, for all of them, there is an underlying humanity.  We understand why they did what the did, even when we don't approve of it, and cannot hate them (with just one exception, whom even Crispin hates).

I love the relationship between the Emperor and the Empress.  They have a deep love and total trust in one another.  It's so rare to find closely married couples in fiction.

I love the description of the chariot race - Kay brings it to life on the page.

The politics and the food all come to life.

I've visited Hagia Sophia.  In my mind's eye, it now has Crispin's mosaic on the dome.

 

The only thing that I fail to find totally convincing is the number of women who fall for Crispin, though at least (because he is still mourning for his late wife), he doesn't sleep with them all.

 

The woman he ends up with caught me by surprise. I can partly see why (understanding of each other's loss), but I'm not totally convinced.  However, this is a book I will definitely want to read again, so I shall see how it strikes me the second time around.

Comments

[aerinha]

One of my favorite authors! If pressed I would say my favorites of his are The Lions of Al-Rassan and A Song for Arbonne - but I've liked everything I've read.

[watervole]

I've just ordered Lions of Al Rassan

[suenicorn]

Me too! Especially The Lions of Al Rassan. These are all set in the same universe, by the way.

[msilverstar]

Someone once said that GGK never met a minor character he didn't love, and that rings true to me. He has pretty much admitted it. I like that part best about his work.

The Lions of Al Rassan is fabulously good.

The one about the dad and teenage boy in France, not so much. Nor the China ones, they suffer from the Let Me Tell You All My Research syndrome.

[suenicorn]

Judith, great to hear you are discovering Guy Gavriel Kay. A lovely writer! Did you know he co-edited The Silmarillion with. Hridtolher Tolkien?

Enjoy your new discovery. I’ve had this myself, where something sits on my shelves for years and suddenly I discover it and I’m a fan.

[watervole]

It often happens with free books from conventions. When I finally get round to them, some survive for a chapter and get given away, and some sell a lot of extra books by the same writer.

[suenicorn]

I have had some utter rubbish from library conference goody bags and some amazing stuff. Once I got a copy of a new Will Kostakis novel, The First Third, which has become my favourite of his books, more recently I received Vikki Wakefield’s new YA Australian Gothic novel, Diary Of A Mad Girl, which was brilliant and is very likely to make it on to a couple of shortlists. The other books in the bag didn’t excite me much, but you never know,
I may pick those up as you did the GGK novel, hopefully sooner.;).

SF cons here rarely if ever give you free books, they’d have to be connected with publishers for that, I guess. The average goody bag contains some advertising flyers, the con book, a sweet or two and a guide to the eating places nearby.

[watervole]

I think it's mostly a case of someone doing the legwork to ask the publishers.

As my grandfather used to put it "Them as don't ask, don't want"

[suenicorn]

That’s Christopher Tolkien! Not sure how that gibberish emerged from my typing finger...

[watervole]

I was wondering if it was some strange Elvish nickname I'd missed out on!

[suenicorn]

You know, I just might keep it as a name to use in my next fantasy adventure... Hridtolher has a certain ring to it.

[watervole]

Works for me!

[damerell]

I think even Procopius had to acknowledge Justinian and Theodora's devotion. I liked Lord of Emperors but [insert same gripe as with the previous one].

[watervole]

I was amused to discover that both Justinian and Theodore were canonised.

[igenlode]

Yes, I tend to have this problem with Guy Gavriel Kay's endings... the novels are good, but the way he finishes them often leaves an unsatisfactory taste in my mouth.

[watervole]

On the strength of the two I've read, he seems to want to end on an unexpected kick, whereas the story was fine as it was and needed no kick.

[igenlode]

I think "The Lions of Al-Rassan" was the last one I read (not as any major decision -- the new books didn't show up so obviously at the library any more, and I didn't go to the trouble of investigating to see if he had written any more, since I wasn't such a fan of the historicals).

My chief memory of that one, I'm afraid, was my outrage at the very forced manner in which he reveals the ending -- you can get away with concealing important facts for a paragraph or so, but doing so for page after page isn't clever; it's just not credible. I've forgotten almost everything else about the actual story, but the annoyance of that part stuck with me :-(

[watervole]

I've just bought that one, so it will be interested to see if I find the end annoying.

I've found some of the fact concealing annoying in the previous books. He leads you to make wrong assumptions - and it's totally deliberate - though I've forgiven him so far because of the detailed background and well-developed characters.