Children of Earth and Sky

Full review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:I read Children of Earth and Sky several months ago and adored it. I should have written my review then, but Bill’s eloquent and supremely insightful review proved so intimidating that I allowed this to slip to the back burner, to my shame. But I’m finally writing this review, if only to remind everyone of what an amazing novel this is, and what a delightful Christmas present it would make for any thoughtful reader of history or fantasy.Guy Gav [...]

A leisurely, beautiful almost-sort-of-fantasy set in Kay's alternate historical world. Longtime readers will recognize references here to events and characters featured in quite a few of his other books.The time period here is the (I believe) fifteenth century, and the action moves between recognizable versions of Croatia, Venice and Constantinople.Danica Gradek is a young woman whose surviving family was forced to relocate after being attacked by raiders who kidnapped her beloved young brother. [...]

3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum bibliosanctum/2016/05/15/Any time Guy Gavriel Kay releases a new novel is a cause for celebration. Even with the understanding of how much work and time must go into each and every one of them, the waiting never gets easier! Known for his talent for recreating famous historical periods using fantasy, Kay’s books are all gorgeously written and painstakingly researched works of art, often infused with powerful messages and themes. I’d been looking forward to [...]

I've read Guy Gavriel Kay before and didn't really enjoy his novels, but the cover on this one was so beautiful and the blurb so interesting I decided to give him another chance and pick this one up.I am so glad I did.Children of Earth and Sky has a number of characters, switching viewpoints every few pages. Some of them are:-Danica Gradek, a warrior who lost her family in a raid and wants nothing more than revenge.-Pero Villani, a young artist who is selected to paint a portrait of a man named [...]

Chance and change are the way of the world, and more so for those living on disputed borders, or venturing to sea. The struggle between holding on to a piece of land for shelter and survival and raising our eyes to the stars in search of the meaning of life was never more poignant and bittersweet as in this latest offering from Guy Gavriel Kay, a master of the lyrical prose and of the heroic evocation of lost civilizations. After a couple of novels set in ancient China, Kay returns to his altern [...]

This was going to be 3.5 stars but I liked the ending so it scrapes a 4. I like Guy Gavriel Kay, I do, but I find his books misleading. They are not really fantasy at all, just historical settings, admittedly well written, renamed. I always seem to expect something a little more than I actually get from them. That is not to say, of course, that that means there isn't more to get, just that I don't !I really liked the multiple points of view of the same events.I didn't really feel that invested i [...]

My early review is up at B&N and here's the link! (Shorter review, though: Wonderful. That was what I wanted and hoped for from him for years. You guys. Sit back and love.) barnesandnoble/blog/sc

I'm not sure I can summarize this book -- it features a large cast occupying several different countries/city-states and dealing with story lines which at first seem almost entirely unconnected to one another. All I can say is, it was a great read. I blame this book for the reading slump which has haunted me through most of July. It was such a great mix of action -- the kind that makes it really hard to put a book down at any point -- and fascinating characters, whose emotional struggles also ma [...]

There is a sanctuary in Rhodias where a long-forgotten artist depicted two empresses, facing each other . . . one a whore, one a barbarian . . . a thousand years ago . . . *sobs quietly, blows nose on bookmark*At a certain point in the first twenty pages of every Kay novel, you start to think, There are too many characters, and I don't know any of them, and what is going on? But patience is indeed a virtue with Kay's novels. He is, quite frankly, my favorite living novelist (and a lovely person [...]

Actual rating: 4.5 starsI am admittedly and unabashedly a GGK fan girl. Since I read Under Heaven three years ago for my real life book club, I have been gradually chipping away at his works and have adored every single one of them so far. This too was a big, thick book and I read it in two days. But this one wrapped up so neatly and completely—and I’m a person who loves ambiguous endings or slightly unhappy endings, the non-traditional unhappily ever after. That’s why this book didn’t r [...]

***Review posted on The Eater of Books! blog***Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel KayPublisher: NALPublication Date: May 10, 2016Rating: 4 starsSource: Review copy sent by the publisherSummary (from ):The bestselling author of the groundbreaking novels Under Heaven and River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay is back with a new book, set in a world inspired by the conflicts and dramas of Renaissance Europe. Against this tumultuous backdrop the lives of men and women unfold on the borderlands—wher [...]

ARC provided by Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review.

Copy received courtesy of NetGalleyThis book is set twenty-five years after the fall of Byzantium, that is, Sarantium. The veneer is pretty thin in places: the Ottoman Empire has become the Osmanli Empire, the Venetia Republic is now the Republic of Seressa, Dubrovnik is now Dubrava, and the other major players in Europe have their analogs, but Kay plays around with history in boosting the fascinating and problematical Hapsburger Emperor Rudolph II back a hundred years and turning him into Rodol [...]

This is the first book I have read from Canadian writer Guy Gavriel Kay and reviews about the quality and originality of his work is earned.Children of Earth and Sky, his 2016 novel, is set as so many of his works in a fantastic world but one not far removed from our own. This seems like an alternative history Europe, perhaps Middle Ages eastern Mediterranean. The fantasy is minimalistic and oblique, the real magic here is Kay’s inspired writing and his disciplined imagination.Kay’s skilled [...]

I'm not sure what to say to do justice to this book. Kay is a master of creating worlds just inches from our own, drawing on real history and then twisting it to his own ends. With several protagonists, and a prose style that leaps from one to another, sometimes within a single scene, this could have been overdone. But it isn't. I loved the different voices and characters and was never bored or impatient to get back to one or the other. Kay plays with time and space in a way that bound all of th [...]

Review from The Speculative Herald: speculativeherald/2016Children of Earth and Sky is Kay's latest novel, set in war torn lands. The cast is comprised of a variety of characters, characters that are unlikely companions, crossing paths only by chance. As with Kay's other books, this is set in a fictional land/world, but quite closely matches our own.There are a good number of characters in this, but I think it works extremely well as it helps give perspectives and information from a variety of s [...]

I'm really torn between giving this a 2 or 3 star rating. I'm going with 3 just because I do love all the other GGK books I've read. I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for free in exchange for a review, but I just can't say that I loved it when I didn't.I'm not even sure how to describe what this book is about. I finished reading it and wasn't even sure what the point was. The book gets off to a very slow start introducing 7-8 different people who have their own POVs in the story. The [...]

after reading a few pages this looks fabulous like the best GGK novels (Sarrantium, Lions) - have not really been that enthusiastic about his recent Chinese themed novels for various reasons (I think he is very "orientalistic" among other things in said novels using all the usual stereotypes about the "fabled East" especially in the second one), though they definitely had their high points and I enjoyed them well enough, but books like the two Sarrantium one and Lions of al Rassan are still amaz [...]

Svidjelo mi se. jako. ima tu svega, i Kay kao da je pravio knjigu prisjećanja. No, tko ne voli kaya i njegov način pisanja, vjerojatno mu se neće svidjeti, jer je 100% njegovo. meni ne smeta ni ta '1/4 alternativna povijest', niti prepoznatljivost mjesta i likova- to na kraju krajeva autor nikad nije ni skirvao, to je ono što on piše. knjiga je uzbudljiva, šarena, zanimljiva, izvrsnog ritma i priče. meni dovoljno.

A new Guy Gavriel Kay novel is cause for great celebration and anticipation in our household, as he has authored some of our most beloved novels over the decades (by “our” I mean my wife, my fifteen-year-old son, and myself). A consummate storyteller and stylist (the two don’t always go hand in hand), his long-term consistency is remarkable, and his newest work, Children of Earth and Sky, finds him still at the top of his form.One way to describe a Guy Gavriel Kay novel is that it’s a bi [...]

I have not yet read the The Sarantine Mosaic and I admit that I'm a little biased because Children of Earth and Sky also indirectly recreates the history of my country (Romania, that was under influence of The Ottoman Empire for 500 years), but this is the best novel of all the wonderful books by Kay that I've read. It is a book about the clash of cultures and every shifting borders, and their influence on people that must learn to adapt or to fight the merciless changes that history brings upon [...]

Τα τελευταία δύο βιβλία του Kay (που διαδραματίζονταν σε μια εναλλακτική εκδοχή της μεσαιωνικής Κίνας) με είχαν απογοητεύσει, δεν είχαν το ρυθμό και το βάθος της αριστουργηματικής επικής διλογίας του Σαράντιουμ και των εξαιρετικών Λεόντων του Αλ-Ρασάν, ούτε καν την γλυκόπικ [...]

Eternity is too long for us. It is not a scale for men and women. We live by different, smaller measures, but there are stories we tell.Just so you know, I love the books of Guy Gavriel Kay. It's one of those things that is difficult to explain. His ability to evoke feelings in me is unequaled by any current author. His writing style seems to flow off the page and reach right down in to my soul. There are very few characters I have cared about with the same depth as those that are brought to lif [...]

DNF'ing at 41%. This was SUCH a hard decision! The book is NOT bad! But I had two problems:1) This is a very slow-moving book. Lots of subtlety. It has not suited my mood at all. I've been finding excuses for the last 3 weeks to read other things rather than pick up this book.2) I received this as an ARC from NetGalley (so thank you to them and the publisher!), and the ebook displayed horribly on my Kindle. The formatting was so inconsistent, with dozens of hyphenated words in the middle of para [...]

An absolute joy to read! I'm not enamored of the heavy magic, dragons, wizards, and outlandish fantasy world elements of that genre, but Kay fills the fantasy niche for me, being a past master at marrying thinly-veiled elements of a real historic period with a light hand on the "unexplained". This novel told of a faux Italian Renaissance period and Balkan [called herein by several names] war with the Ottomans [Osmanlis]. Seressa, the "Queen of the Sea", [read Venice], with her emphasis on tradin [...]

Guy Gavriel Kay is someone whose work I have struggled to appreciate to its fullest. Yet here is Kay at his sublime best, writing with poetic elegance and in a unique present tense with omniscient voice that few other authors could carry off with the skill Kay does.The essential premise of this novel focuses on several different characters all travelling to a distant city and beyond. Each of these characters are unique heroes: merchants, painters, pirates, child-slaves-turned-warriors, false-wiv [...]

As can be expected of Kay, he once again delivers a beautiful, thoughtful, and intricately-plotted novel. His characters are rich and layered, his worldbuilding deep, but never overwhelming. There's a care for his creation, a love and respect for his characters, that is rare among authors. Tremendous.

Sometimes you can read a book and it is just exactly what you need at that moment, like draining a cool drink on a hot summer day. In truth, I did not even know that I needed Children of Earth and Sky until I began reading it. This book hit the spot.It's not much of a surprise that I would enjoy a Guy Gavriel Kay novel. I have read all of the others and so I go into it knowing what I am going to get - and that, I know, will be something good. Kay's style of writing is something unique. There is [...]

It's hard not to be biased, Kay is my favorite author and this book is set in my country (well, not fully, some parts are). But that is not the reason I’m giving it a five-star rating. It’s a wonderful story about small people and their role in ‘big world’ and how can they shape it. But it’s also a story about the different types of heroism, about tragedy and love, sometimes more than one of those, written through few great characters.Based on historical things with a dose of supernatu [...]

Guy Gavriel Kay always feels so epic to me. I think it is his way of putting humans into the larger tapestry. This book jumps between characters and even between times - looking at big events from different angles and the effect of small actions. I listened, and Simon Vance is a great narrator for this - I think he gave it just the right feel.