Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay

Guy Gavriel Kay writes marvellously. That can be pretty much taken as a given. He's one of the few authors where I think I've actually read all his extant novels. So then it becomes less a question of "is this a good book?" than "how does this stack up against his other books." He's created his own style in such a way that I have few good comparisons other than to his other work. No one else writes quite like this - almost historical fiction, but not. Taking religious and magical beliefs seriously and as written when going into a certain time period and location of the world. I love that he does it.

Which means that when it comes to Children of Earth and Sky, I'm asking myself how it stacks up. It is in the same general part of the world as the Sarantine Mosaic, or not that far off, and the fall of Sarantium happened within living memory. Those are not his favourite books of mine. While they have moments as crystalline and perfect as any he's written, on the whole, I haven't found them as compelling as, say, the couple he's written in his not-China over the past few years.

However, while I'm not sure this ranks up there with my very, very favourite of Kay's works, it's really very good, and I was always thoroughly engaged while reading it. I am a fan of the way he's been playing with authorship and history, different ways of recounting and remembering events in many of his recent books, and he's at it again here, but it's subtle in a way that I really appreciated. There are a few times we see the same event through different eyes, and the accounts are different, the words one person remembers speaking not quite the same as the words another person remembers hearing. It's not overdone, but brings an interesting sense of Brechtian alienation to the narrative, calling to attention the subjective nature of the novel and the narrator as the story unfolds.

Where are we in this version of not-quite-our-world?  Well, we're partially in not-Venice and not-what-will-become-Croatia, and this world's analogue of real, historical pirates from Croatia who started out attacking Muslim ships in the Adriatic, but also weren't above going after Christian ships as well, particularly from those cities that traded freely without worrying about religious affiliation. We also visit the home of the not-Ottoman Empire in the time after the conquest of Sarantium, when an artist from not-Venice is sent to paint a picture of the Emperor in the not-Venetian style.

(I honestly don't know whether or not to dump all the book names on you, or keep referring to them as not-whatevers, because this is so strongly but not entirely rooted in the history and geography of the time period.)

As is fairly common in a Kay book, we are in and among a large group of characters - a Seressinian painter on the way to the Ottoman Empire. A young woman posing as a doctor's wife who is actually a spy for Seressa. A merchant son from not-Croatia (I just don't remember the name of the top of my head.) Another young woman, the first ever to sail with the Senjan raiders. Others, who interweave with them. The young woman from Senjan has the ghost of her grandfather in her head, and that is not metaphorical or illness.

These people all come together first on the ship of the merchant son, when it is attacked by Senjani raiders. Things go very wrong, very quickly, and then action is arrested, twice, by unexpected developments. When it is over, all four travel with others to the merchant son's city, to find out what happens when their worlds are upended.

Oh goodness, how much more of the plot do I want to go into? These paths diverge and converge, there are machinations galore, there are moments of affection and moments of duty and moments where one makes the other impossible. There are really great bits, and as a whole, this is a very strong book. Perhaps not quite reaching the lofty heights of Under Heaven, which is still my favourite of Kay's recent works. But it was well worth reading this new chapter in his not-Our World.