All the Seas of the World
International bestseller
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4.6 • 5 Ratings
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
'Kay is a genius' Brandon Sanderson
Returning to the near-Renaissance world of A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky, international bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay deploys his signature 'quarter turn to the fantastic' to tell a story of vengeance, power, and love.
On a dark night along a lonely stretch of coast, a small ship, the Silver Wake, sends two people ashore to a stony strand. Their purpose is assassination. They have been hired to do this by two of the most dangerous men alive. The consequences will affect so many lives both great and small, and possibly alter the balance of power in the world.
One of those arriving on that night strand is a woman abducted by corsairs from her home as a child, escaping that fate, that destiny, years after, now trying to chart her own course - and bent upon revenge. Another figure, on the boat, bringing it to meet the secretive landing party at the city where they are going, is a merchant who still remembers being exiled as a child with his family from their home, for their faith.
Returning triumphantly to the brilliantly evoked near-Renaissance world of his most recent novels, international bestseller Guy Gavriel Kay deploys his signature 'quarter turn to the fantastic' to offer readers a wide-ranging, vividly memorable set of characters in a story of vengeance, power, and love, built around profoundly contemporary themes of exile, loss, and memory.
In a narrative of page-turning drama, All the Seas of the World also offers moving reflections on choices, fate, and the random events that can shape our lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
World Fantasy Award winner Kay sets another outstanding fantasy in the Renaissance-like universe previously visited in Children of Earth and Sky and A Brightness Long Ago, offering a mosaic of captivating story lines within a mesmerizing narrative frame. The sections are linked by the omniscient narrator's observation that "there are many different ways for a home to be lost, and for the world to become defined by that loss" and musings on the inherent subjectivity of storytelling. The first tale, for example, seemingly begins where it does because of this storyteller's random observation of "a ship in the night, sailing without lights." Aboard this vessel is Nadia bint Dhiyan, who, with no home to return to, is bent on carrying out an assassination—though her plan does not unfold as she intends. Other threads, which feature a captive diplomat and the head of a ruling council overseeing a spy network needed to maintain his city-state's trade, similarly explore family, memory, and belonging. Kay constructs a rich world that easily draws readers in. Historical fantasy fans will be wowed.
