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[book post] The Poet Empress by Shen Tao
This was a really solid page-turner. I think marketing did this book a little dirty—the cover art gave me romantasy vibes, and the marketing copy called it "dark epic fantasy," but I don't think it's quite either of those things? It's a full-speed-ahead court intrigue throwdown that happens to be in a fantasy setting. A very cool fantasy setting, to be clear, and I could imagine some fun building-out-of-the-world if there's ever any more books in this universe, but as-is, most of the action here is about secrets and close spaces rather than magic or battles or romance.
Our protagonist, Wei, has a pretty straightforward background and motivation ("I would like members of my family to stop starving to death due to being peasants in a famine," so, yeah, obviously she jumps on the chance to become one of the heir's concubines when a call is sent out to every end of the empire), but it's rendered movingly & well—and efficiently; this is one of those books with short chapters that move fast.
Once in the court, due to Reasons, the heir, Terren, picks Wei not only to be one of his concubines but his empress-in-waiting. Which would be great, except turns out Terren is a terrible, cruel guy, and it becomes apparent very quickly he will be giving her family no help whatsoever. Also the emperor is very sick :) so this terrible cruel guy is due to become the new emperor very soon :) and thus will make the whole world Incredibly Bad :) and also he has a magical ward that makes him unkillable :) EXCEPT. Of course. There's this one moment during the coronation when he'll be vulnerable—and if Wei can pull off this special spell, she'll be able to kill him, BUT, the spell requires that the caster genuinely love the person they're targeting.
Wei's like, okay, there's no way I can love this guy. But maybe if I ask around at court, I can hear stories about what he was like back then, and... sort of get sideways to loving him...?
So the main motion of the plot is an interspersing of "staying alive at court" scenes (going from "random peasant" to "empress-in-waiting" has obviously put a HUGE target on her back) with various flashbacks where we see Terren at various younger ages, through others' eyes, and the result is surprisingly propulsive (in an "aw man, I wanted to see what happened next in that flashback... but ooh now we get what came of that business at court!", and vice versa, kinda way), and also avoids a lot of the things that could've really annoyed me about this setup. (I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say, yeah, Terren has taken some significant knocks in his past, but the book stops short of making him a total woobie or doing a tedious "he was working For The Good all along!" kinda thing.)
I found myself getting antsy toward the end, thinking, "HOW are they going to wrap this up," because there were a lot of stupid options for an ending that would've left me very annoyed, and I couldn't quite see how you'd thread the needle into something satisfying—but it does stick the landing, well enough that I finished quite satisfied, in the way that seeing the performance of a really solid slight-of-hand magic trick is satisfying; I walked around kicking the air a little bit after to work out some ENERGY haha.
I think it's possible some plot threads might not hang entirely together if you're reading it at a slower pace, but, I sure can't remember them; I was zooming along. It reminded me a bit of The Apothecary Diaries?—but I've only half-watched a couple episodes over my spouse's shoulder, so uh, take that comparison with a grain of salt, but it had a similar kind of "motor" to it. (I think that comparison also better sets expectations for where it lands, emotionally—I noticed some readers on Goodreads were gutted by this one, or emphasize how "dark" it is, and while I wouldn't call it cheery I wouldn't really call it a grimdark bloodbath either. It just... is what it is! Intrigue and grim determination in the face of setbacks! Unsatisfying description, I know, alas; it's what I've got in me at the moment.)
disclaimer: I know the author well enough that I should probably have a disclaimer :P but I did in fact like the book so there it is!
Our protagonist, Wei, has a pretty straightforward background and motivation ("I would like members of my family to stop starving to death due to being peasants in a famine," so, yeah, obviously she jumps on the chance to become one of the heir's concubines when a call is sent out to every end of the empire), but it's rendered movingly & well—and efficiently; this is one of those books with short chapters that move fast.
Once in the court, due to Reasons, the heir, Terren, picks Wei not only to be one of his concubines but his empress-in-waiting. Which would be great, except turns out Terren is a terrible, cruel guy, and it becomes apparent very quickly he will be giving her family no help whatsoever. Also the emperor is very sick :) so this terrible cruel guy is due to become the new emperor very soon :) and thus will make the whole world Incredibly Bad :) and also he has a magical ward that makes him unkillable :) EXCEPT. Of course. There's this one moment during the coronation when he'll be vulnerable—and if Wei can pull off this special spell, she'll be able to kill him, BUT, the spell requires that the caster genuinely love the person they're targeting.
Wei's like, okay, there's no way I can love this guy. But maybe if I ask around at court, I can hear stories about what he was like back then, and... sort of get sideways to loving him...?
So the main motion of the plot is an interspersing of "staying alive at court" scenes (going from "random peasant" to "empress-in-waiting" has obviously put a HUGE target on her back) with various flashbacks where we see Terren at various younger ages, through others' eyes, and the result is surprisingly propulsive (in an "aw man, I wanted to see what happened next in that flashback... but ooh now we get what came of that business at court!", and vice versa, kinda way), and also avoids a lot of the things that could've really annoyed me about this setup. (I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say, yeah, Terren has taken some significant knocks in his past, but the book stops short of making him a total woobie or doing a tedious "he was working For The Good all along!" kinda thing.)
I found myself getting antsy toward the end, thinking, "HOW are they going to wrap this up," because there were a lot of stupid options for an ending that would've left me very annoyed, and I couldn't quite see how you'd thread the needle into something satisfying—but it does stick the landing, well enough that I finished quite satisfied, in the way that seeing the performance of a really solid slight-of-hand magic trick is satisfying; I walked around kicking the air a little bit after to work out some ENERGY haha.
I think it's possible some plot threads might not hang entirely together if you're reading it at a slower pace, but, I sure can't remember them; I was zooming along. It reminded me a bit of The Apothecary Diaries?—but I've only half-watched a couple episodes over my spouse's shoulder, so uh, take that comparison with a grain of salt, but it had a similar kind of "motor" to it. (I think that comparison also better sets expectations for where it lands, emotionally—I noticed some readers on Goodreads were gutted by this one, or emphasize how "dark" it is, and while I wouldn't call it cheery I wouldn't really call it a grimdark bloodbath either. It just... is what it is! Intrigue and grim determination in the face of setbacks! Unsatisfying description, I know, alas; it's what I've got in me at the moment.)
disclaimer: I know the author well enough that I should probably have a disclaimer :P but I did in fact like the book so there it is!