Just Arrived: “Children of Earth and Sky” by Guy Gavriel Kay
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts, mainly because it’s been a while since I’ve had a new book arrive in my post office box with a satisfying ker-thud.
As regular visitors here will know, I am a dedicated reader of longstanding when it comes to the writing of Guy Gavriel Kay so as soon as I saw that my NZ publisher, Hachette NZ, were also releasing this book, I was quick to ask if I could have an advance reading copy (it’s not out here until May.)
The cover, as you can see, is just gorgeous, and there is also a very nice letter inside from the author, which — of interest to NZ readers in particular — mentions his time here when he was completing The Wandering Fire (the Fionavar Tapestry, Book Two) Needless to say, even though I didn’t know this before, I guessed,because of the Maori names used for the giants in the Fionavar series. 😉
Needless to say, I am looking forward to reading this book and I am hoping there may be an interview at the end of it, as time, the author, and the deities of interview allow: we shall see. 🙂
Meanwhile, here is what the backcover copy has to reveal:
” Guy Gavriel Kay’s new novel, Children of Earth and Sky, set in a world inspired by the conflicts and dramas of Renaissance Europe. Against this tumultuous backdrop the lives of men and women unfold on the borderlands—where empires and faiths collide.
From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist traveling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request—and possibly to do more—and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman, posing as a doctor’s wife, but sent by Seressa as a spy.
The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he’s been born to live. And farther east a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif—to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.
As these lives entwine, their fates—and those of many others—will hang in the balance, when the khalif sends out his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world… “
Sounds interesting, neh, especially for lovers of Alternate History and historically influenced Fantasy.