Customer Reviews

Lord of Emperors: The Conclusion of the Sarantine Mosaic

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In another Kay fantasy, The Lions of al-Rassan, a character sombrely observes, "Even the sun goes down, my lady." All things come to an end, and this is true for emperors as it is for mosaicists. At times, this book ventures into the poetic, and the reader is drawn into what is, when push comes to shove, a love story. There are parts that I find a little dodgy - I find it hard to imagine the red-headed mosaicist cutting a swathe through all of Sarantine society and capturing so many hearts along the way, and Kay's meditations on how people receive great events runs a little awkward - but the good more than outweighs the bad. A deeply fascinating fantasy read.

This manages to surpass even its wonderful predecessor, Sailing to Sarantium. I spent the last 200-odd pages in suspense [and tears], and keep recalling scenes at random since I finished this. I am truly thankful I picked up Sailing to Sarantium this month, because if I'd had to wait for Lord of Emperors to be published......it wouldn't have been pretty. I was completely caught up and swept along to the point of committing a sin I have avoided for years....reading under the covers! Even though it meant being exhausted the next day [and in trouble with my mother] I really couldn't have done anything else, I was so immersed.
I cried for Valerius and Alixana, for Scortius and Thenais, for Styliane, and even Lecanus. Even for the demise of Crispin's mosiac! I loved his last mosaic of the court as well!
A few minor quibbles: I was a little thrown by the last couple of pages - it seemed a bit random that she sought Crispin out and that they should just start planning their life ahead. I would have liked a little more lead-up and evidence of an attachment! I would also have liked to have had Lecanus' bird explained - was it one of Zoticus'? If so, how did Lecanus get it and why did it have a different voice? If not, who made it? I would have also liked to know how Shirin and Scortius ended up, as it was left as a bit of a loose end.
Anyway, this was simply brilliant, intricate and enthralling, and if you haven't read Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors then you should, and if you have read Sailing to Sarantium, there is no need to recommend it as you will be desperate to read it [or should be, as surely as the world is round]!

First all let me say that I am biased and prejudiced here in this review, in that Mr. Kay is one of my top 5 most favorite authors of all time. That being said, this book was wonderful and the other reviewers comments about a poor ending and their disappointment that this book wasn't up to Kay's standards, I have to say HooHah. If you love fantasy and history, and being highly entertained read this book. A simple artisan from an obscure place in the Roman realm or the equilavent of, is sent a message from the Emporeror of Byzantium requesting his assistance in creating a mosaic on a dome of a palace building. Kay has the ability to take a simple everyday kind of guy like most of us, and transport them into magical adventures where wonderful things occur and common courage conquers uncommon fears. I loved this book, it's prequel, and found it to be entertaining and educational. Kay follows history fairly closely while presenting an alternate form of it. If you're reading to critique, skip this one. If you're reading for fun and entertainment and wish to escape the mundane of everyday, read it and enjoy. You'll be disappointed though at the end, as was I. It's one of those books you never want to end.

Guy Gavriel Kay must surely be the victim of his own success. Read on its own, The Sarantine Mosaic is both compelling and well written. Unfortunately, read within his ouvre, it doesn't quite make an impact. It seems trite to say that his earlier works were better, but they were. Having read several of this previous works (and I highly recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan, and Fionavar), he seems to be pretty much treading old ground in terms of his style and themes. And it shows. There is a certain lack of sparkle with The Sarantine Mosaic, almost as if he is just pulling the same old tricks. And, yes, at times he is. True, he does it with great flair, and it still works (mostly), but the spirit seems to be gone.

The Sarantine Mosaic has two main themes. One is how history-shaping tragedies occur alongside little ones. And the little ones are, for the participants in them, no less tragic for those participants. For this, we are introduced to a large cast of characters, some introduced only in the second book. And by the end of the novel, they have all undergone some loss almost simultaneously with the main loss occurring on the central political stage. This was one of the more successfully worked themes in The Sarantine Mosaic. Unfortunately, I found it rather piecemeal as a host of different strands - both character and plot - never quite met up, or did so in a manner that was somewhat forced. By way of example, one of the least successful of these was the allusion to the mass sea change the Islam wrought in what is now the Middle East. Gavriel describes briefly the initial occurrence of this event: Mohammed's first sojourn into the desert which was to result in his transformation. But nothing more is made of this. Perhaps Gavriel is trying to say that history is a mosaic of events and coincidences, but I don't necessarily want my novels to be a mosaic of events and coincidences in order to illustrate this point.

The second main theme is hinted at from the title of the first book, which is derived from Keat's poem, Sailing to Byzantium. The poem dealt with immortality, and how art is the means by which immortality is achieved. Gavriel reiterates this theme in his novel, and I personally felt that this was perhaps dealt with less successfully than the first. Several of the main characters are each trying for some form of immortality or some legacy. There is the emperor, the cook, the charioteer, the historian, and the artist. Each succeed or fail in some way, or both. This would have been an intriguing theme, but Kay never quite makes it enough of a focus for it to ring true. There is some form of resolution for the main character as regards this point, but (without saying anything to spoil the conclusion of the novel) the resolution was highly ambiguous. It was also suggested that it is through the artist that the main characters achieve historical immortality enshrined in his art. But given what has befallen the artist prior to the conclusion, this denouement felt hollow (notwithstanding that Kay is referring to an actual work of art still existing today).

With all of that, it must sound like I greatly disliked his book. I don't. I still think that compared to a host of fantasy writers out there, Kay and this book still achieves a great deal more than many of them even try to manage. As I said, I feel that Kay is largely a victim of his own success, and considering how well he writes, I'd much rather read Kay even when he's not at his best, than a lot of other writers when they are.

My Personal Rating Scale:
5 stars: Engaging, well-written, highly entertaining or informative, thought provoking, pushes the envelope in one or more ways, a classic.
4 stars: Engaging, well-written, highly entertaining or informative. Book that delivers well in terms of its specific genre or type, but does not do more than that.
3 stars: Competent. Does what it sets out to do competently, either on its own terms on within the genre, but is nothing special. May be clichéd but is still entertaining.
2 stars: Fails to deliver in various respects. Significantly clichéd. Writing is poor or pedestrian. Failed to hold my attention.
1 star: Abysmal. Fails in all respects.

I read "Lord of Emperors" in two days. I thoroughly enjoyed "Sailing to Sarantium" and gave it five stars without hesitation; I think its sequel surpassed it in many ways. The novel is not only concerned with many of the old friends from the first one (Caius Crispus the mosaicist, Scortius the charioteer, the imperial couple Valerius and Alixana) but also introduces us to new characters (the physican Rustem and his family) and gives us more information about lives that had previously only been glimpsed (Kyros the cook's apprentice, Pardos the mosaicist, Shirin the dancer, the family of the senator Plautus Bonosus). As in all of his books, Kay is able to paint a richly detailed picture of each of his characters, even those that don't figure importantly into the story.

The plot, as in the first book, is full of scandal, secrets, politics, and emotions running wild. I never found the plot twists to be predictable, yet they never seemed arbitrary or unreal (a trap that too many authors fall into when they try not to be predictable). And for action fans - the chariot racing is simply stunning!

This duology takes place in the same world as Kay's earlier novel "Lions of Al-Rassan". Although it is chronologically earlier, I would recommend reading the books in the order that they were published. There are several points (particularly near the end) that foreshadow the way the world is to become, that will only be appreciated by those who have already read "Lions" (also a fantastic book and highly recommended).

Events in this novel do not always turn out the way that the reader's sense of justice would want them to, which is what makes Kay's writing so real. All of the main characters have "sailed to Sarantium" - they've embarked on life-altering adventures and come through irrevocably changed. Read "Sailing to Sarantium", and then read "Lord of Emperors". Kay provides a new interpretation of our own world's history that is worth reading.

The sequel of Sailing to Sarantium is a book worth to be read. It shows to the reader how intrigue was ruling in the halls of the Byzantine Emperor. But on the other hand i was a bit let down by the end of the book.

I was not enthused by "Sailing To Sarantuim," despite its consummate writing feeling that the plot was weak and somewhat unfocused during the central portion of the book, enervated by a tedium of travel and in sum the weakest work Kay had produced since the "Fionavar Trilogy." After reading "Lord of Emperors" I feel that I will need to return and read, as an earlier reviewer has suggested, both books back to back---I may need to make a reassessment.

Regardless, "Lord of Emperors" is without doubt the finest work that Kay---already with few peers in fantasy---has ever produced, and easily the best book of the genre that I have read so far this year, or, for that matter, ever. His powers of description, characterization and compassion have never been more discerning or vivid, rendered with all the beauty and feeling of the mosaics Crispin tries to create in order to understand, capture and express the world around him. Underneath his effort is an attempt to reach for something more, to reveal what is barely glimpsed and remains ineluctably just beyond mortal reach. In doing so, Kay has stretched his writing skills beyond the normal and traditional boundaries of fantasy, attaining themes more universal in scope, and far from the fields of sword and sorcery. Those bemoaning the loss of "Fionavar" are blind to the richness and subtlety of the tapestry the author has chosen to weave, or, perhaps, discomforted that the author's writing no longer offers an easy escape, his characters and their desires and failings too close an echo to our own, providing a "half-world" through which we can see ourselves mirrored. Not comfortably the romantic idealizations of typical fantasy.

The main protagonist is not prince who would be king, or a romanticized assassin, or even a knight in tarnished armor, but a simple (if complexly textured) artisan who accidentally finds himself thrown into a whirl of society and politics in many ways well beyond his means, certainly to control or calculatingly effect. Confronted with weapons, his most valiant act is to tackle his assailant when his back is to him, leaving the dispatch of his attacker to others. Crispin's courage is of an entirely different order: to confront his losses and sorrows, and his ultimate inability to evade his own mortality and limitations while continuing to embrace life and go on living. This theme is reflected throughout the novel, in the "gift" given Kasia, the ephemeral birds of Zoticus, or the grand aspirations of Valerius. Even, by the end, the nature of Jad, the divine itself, is revealed as temporal and transitory. And, as has been evident in other recent works by Kay, conclusions are open to interpretation, rarely to be clearly decided. No wonder more traditional fans of fantasy are left feeling unsatiated.

As in the abandoned chapel in Varena, Kay has populated his novel with a cast of characters beautifully and individually rendered, their dreams and sorrows both petty and grand, their actions and thoughts revealed through an abiding and largely nonjudgmental humanity. Rarely does the author state, allowing his tale to unfold upon its own enveloping stage, leaving the reader to arrive at their own conclusions, presenting his players with all the foibles and momentary strengths one could hope to find walking through any crowded assembly or corridor. One reads this work as much for the author's depiction of humanity as for the twists and turns of the narrative. And, in terms of plot, there are as many twists and turns as its historical antecedent has come to identify, told in a way that makes many other prominent authors, whose works are known for their intrigue, bald in comparison of approach. Finally, I defy anyone to name a fantasy that has been more skillfully or sensitively written, or better brought to life.

In case you haven't gathered, I think this work represents something special, both in terms of its style of writing and the scope of its themes and characterization. With little comparable, even by Kay himself, this novel can be easily chosen as one of the best that fantasy has to offer, and cannot be more highly recommended. I will readily read both books of the "Sarantine Mosaic" soon, and see if together I have not misjudged the predecessor.

I am a diehard Fioavar fan, but this one was just a lottle stodgy, a little overblown, for me. I was bothered, too, by the pseudo French Arbonne stuff, and now the quasi-Byzantium left me feeling cold.

I know that other Kay philes praise everything he writes, no matter how blowsy, but I'm sorry. This is not as good as earlier efforts.

Yet again, Kay draws me inexorably into his worlds. I found both "Sailing to Sarantium" and "Lord of Emporers" rich, full of fascinating characters and intricate detail. He makes you care deeply about the world he creates, as well as the characters within. Only authors as good as Kay can make the world in which they live as interesting and detailed as the characters that inhabit it.

I tend to read my hardbacks carefully, in small increments (and Kay is one of very few authors I spend the money on to buy the hardback editions). Usually, I have my favorite radio station playing in the background. This book was so rich and descriptive that I still, several months later, link certain passages to the songs I was listening to when I read them--they automatically come to mind when that song is played on the radio.

I highly recommend both books--since once you read "Sarantium", you won't be able to stop there!

Guy Kay started his career in the 1970s by helping Christopher Tolkien assemble some of J.R.R. Tolkien's unfinished manuscripts into The Silmarillion. Since then, Kay wrote an excellent trilogy combining Arthurian legend with standard good-evil fantasy (the Fionavar Tapestry); wrote a fantasy-themed take on Italy's fractious medieval history (Tigana); and wrote historical fantasies based on French history (Song for Arbonne)and the Spanish overthrow of the Moors (Lions of Al-Rassan).

The Sarantine Mosaic is essentially an examination of Byzantium under Justinian and Theodora, with the court intrigue, background wonders and fully realized characters that drive every Kay story.

The Sarantine Mosaic is basically solid in its own right, and better than most of the fantasy/altered history novels available. Kay is a master of lyrical prose and emotional writing -- his characters are easy to identify with because they are ultimately affected by the same normal human emotions as each other: the noble-born, self-made nobility, heroes, villains and common people alike.

But the Sarantine Mosaic lacks an overall purpose in the narrative. The plot is just not as well-developed as in Kay's other works: Lions of Al-Rassan (drive the Asharites from Esperana); Song for Arbonne (save the country from its cruel invaders); Tigana (unite the pseudo-Italian city-state fiefdoms against their conquerors and restore a people to their homeland) and Fionavar Tapestry (the basic save-the-world from Evil concept). Instead Sailing to Sarantium is primarily "Travels With Crispin" (the lead character) and Lord of Emperors is "Mild Intrigue in Sarantium."

This is very decent fare, much better than most fantasy and alternate history stories because Kay is such a smooth writer. Nonetheless, Kay has written better.