Someone wrote in [community profile] yuletide 2022-09-29 09:20 pm (UTC)

The Poppy War

Title: The Poppy War book series by R.F. Kuang

Media: Book series

Approx length: ~1800 pages (about 600 pages per book) or ~65 hours (about 21 hours per audiobook)

Where to find it:
Bookstores and libraries everywhere.

What is it, in summary?: A fantasy novel set in a semi-historical, semi-alternate universe of mid-20th century China. The story is largely about Rin, an orphan with an unknown origin who passes the entrance exams and enters the military academy Singegard, setting her on a path of political intrigue and war.

What do you love about it?: I love the characters and the audiobook narration. I like the mix of history and fantasy, trying to determine who each character is based on. And I like the way religion and shamanism is handled in the book, it makes for something fun and different without relying on an explicitly "hard magic" system. I also adore the bittersweet ending and the focus on nature of trauma.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Anything related to Rin and Kitay's [redacted for third book spoilers].

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Not that I'm aware.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence):
The poppy war series is a very grim fantasy which has a lot of descriptions of drug use, bullying, self harm, violence, torture, and sexual assault. This is not a complete list.

There is also a lot of fantastical racism, but since all of the countries are obvious stand-ins for China, Japan, imperialist western nations (mainly Britain but not exclusively), and a few more vague steppe (and/or maybe just northern Chinese) peoples, it may be difficult to read the racism/prejudice that is discussed and repeated.

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