He Who Drowned the World
Books | Fiction / Fantasy / Historical
4.1
Shelley Parker-Chan
USA TODAY bestseller, #1 international bestseller, and Indie Next PickBest of 2023 Pick for Autostraddle and BookPage; a Recommended Reading List Pick for Locus; Locus Award Finalist; Dragon Award FinalistThe sequel and series conclusion to She Who Became the Sun, the accomplished, poetic debut of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China. Mulan meets The Song of Achilles.How much would you give to win the world?Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor.But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband—and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who has already sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan.Unbeknownst to the southerners, a new contender is even closer to the throne. The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees. For Baoxiang also desires revenge: to become the most degenerate Great Khan in history—and in so doing, make a mockery of every value his Mongol warrior family loved more than him.All the contenders are determined to do whatever it takes to win. But when desire is the size of the world, the price could be too much for even the most ruthless heart to bear...At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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Author
Shelley Parker-Chan
Pages
400
Publisher
Tor Publishing Group
Published Date
2023-08-22
ISBN
1250621836 9781250621832
Community ReviewsSee all
"After finishing the duology, I knew that this was going to be one of my forever recommendations. It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly is the best part about it because honestly, so much is done in this book.
There was a shift in tone or style with this book at the beginning, feeling very different than the first book. It gave me a little bit of whiplash. This book is a lot darker and more serious than the first one. I enjoyed the progress from simple questions and dilemmas to the dark final choices the characters had to make towards the end of the series. But at times, it was really heavy.
There’s a lot of heavy themes, but also a lot of empowerment and important dialogue. The author handled the heavy themes well without demonizing or having surface level reassurances. A character’s pain was given respect.
As for the characters, I’m really glad we got to explore more character motivations and see more relationships among the characters. It really helped me feel true pain when one of them died. I recommend this for fantasy fans who love political schemes and a wide variety of characters."
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Tori
"I can't express how invested I was in these characters and their goals. They were truly fleshed out and felt real, especially as the story goes in dark directions. I felt changed by the end. Absolutely epic."
bookfrog
"BITCH WE GOTTA TITLE AND SUMMARY<br/><br/>Merged review:<br/><br/>BITCH WE GOTTA TITLE AND SUMMARY"
A W
Allykay Willims
"I feel about this book very similarity to how I felt about the first book. The parts that were good, were really good. But I found myself dragging my feet through some of this story. It started to get repetitive. I think the prose was really beautiful sometimes but other times I just wanted the author to get to the point. Repeating the same thing just worded slightly differently loses impact when you do it over and over again."
Darian Hrdlicka
"I am not sure what to say about this book. My emotions are all over the place. I am having a hard time processing everything that happened and an even harder time talking about it without spoilers. <br/><br/>Some people reviewing this book tagged it #tortureporn. I don't NOT agree, but it's so much more than that. I have read books that are torture ****, and they are usually all about pain and violence just for the sake of it. In He Who Drowned The World, however, nothing happens without reason. The characters are so fleshed out and examined to the core of their being that even when they do something unexpected or shocking, you still understand how they got there and their motivation to do it. <br/><br/>Yes, there is a lot of death, pain, suffering, and agony in there. It is a book with people who are brutal and raw, but can also be so human and tender. I am in awe of the writing and the charaterization in this book. It is one that will stay with me for a really long time."
Nahla Aly
"He Who Drowns the World builds well on the first book and even surpassed it. Having already established the world and the key players in the previous book, that leaves more room for diving even deeper into these characters' heads and exploring them. It also makes the intrigue, politicking, betrayals, and drama hit even harder. <br/><br/>It also builds on the theme of gender and its performance, by exploring identity as a whole and the ways in which we choose the roles we play, versus the roles others choose for us based on how they perceive us, because that's what they want to see and how one could break out of that cycle.<br/><br/>This book was heartbreaking and tragic and I loved every second of it."
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