5/23/2023 0 Comments Joan he![]() ![]() In her itinerancy, Zephyr is flanked and goaded by Lotus and Cloud, the most trusted members of Ren’s army. Clearly, those peasants have never met me.’ ![]() An antihero of sorts, her aplomb is obvious from the novel’s opening lines: ‘Some say the heavens dictate the rise and fall of empires. Owing to her vocation, nature and tragic past, Zephyr is an island of a protagonist: ‘All my life, I’ve been a home for knowledge,’ she thinks, ‘but no place has been a home for me.’ Going down in history for her misadventures is, she gradually realises, possibly a form of compensation. Striving to manipulate fate as it brews is 18-year-old Zephyr, sole strategist to Ren, who you will likely find enthralling even if (like me) you don’t typically read fantasy. He has swapped the original leading warlords for equally durable warlord-esses: Ren, level-headed and magnetic, who boldly secedes from the Xin empire with the aim of liberating its sovereign prime ministress Miasma, a cut-throat and fond-of-carousing conservative and Cicada, noblewoman of the wetlands, steely and fiendish despite her youth. ![]() ![]() It’s been some time since a work of YA fiction has riveted me as much as Joan He’s Strike The Zither, a feminist reimagining of the 14 th century epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms, brimming with intricate politics and delicate bargains. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |