The Dragon Republic: The award-winning epic fantasy trilogy that combines… (vuoden 2019 painos)

The Dragon Republic delivers just as much as The Poppy War. This book is good, good, good.

Where The Poppy War introduced Rin’s story and her struggle with the Phoenix, The Dragon Republic spread its wings and let us connect to more characters. While the POV is still just Rin’s, we get more development for Kitay and Nezha, both of whom have very interesting stories to tell. We also get some answers about various members of the Sike. The character development in The Dragon Republic continues to be fantastic, including some twists for characters I didn’t expect!

But this book is not driven by its characters. Rin and the others give The Dragon Republic life, but this story is driven by the plot. The second half of The Poppy War leaves us with the entrails of the Third Poppy War. Alas, that’s not the end of war. Like real life wars, the end is rarely clean and the Third Poppy War is followed those who see fractures in the system and want to lean on that weakness and begin their own conquests. Once again, Kuang does an excellent job writing war. This time, we are at sea for most of the book pursuing naval battles, but there is also some one-on-one battles between Rin and the villains, but it’s not gilded with false hope. One thing I really like about Kuang’s writing is the honesty of it. Things are not so uncomplicated as “good” and “evil”. Sometimes the villains win. Sometimes the heroes get hurt. War is messy.

I will say – I think The Dragon Republic is less gory than The Poppy War. Personally, I think this is because Rin is simply getting used to it. She’s jaded – the blood and tragedy is locked away in the back of her head because that’s how she survives, and so the reader feels less of it as well. It’s still awful but it feels further away. Instead of violence in The Dragon War, we are starting to see the rotten core of some people’s souls and danger of religious prosecution. I look forward to see how this plays out in The Burning God because these theme is so common in history but doesn’t appear often in fantasy worlds… and it should.

I have nothing but good things to say about The Dragon Republic. It’s an incredibly well-written book with a constant ebb and flow and action and development. It does not fall victim to the second book curse. Kuang is not afraid to break her readers’ hearts, particularly at the end. I look forward to reading The Burning God and anything else R.F. Kuang writes! ( )

First published at Booking in Heels.

Given it had been more than two years since I’d read The Poppy War, I expected to really, really struggle. I’d read a recap, of course, but I remembered it being somewhat difficult to follow at the time, much less 26 months down the line! It shocked me that it wasn’t difficult at all. The recap did help, but The Dragon Republic just generally does a very good job of subtly reintroducing you to the plot and characters.

I was hooked within a few chapters and I read 250 pages of this 658 dense adult fantasy book in one sitting. The book starts right in the middle of the action, as Rin’s elite force is taking on whole villages at a time. It’s gripping, and engrossing, and argh.

My only criticism is Rin herself. She’s frustratingly stubborn. I suspect the author was aiming for ‘strong female character,’ but instead she comes across as petulant and aggressive. You know the type – refuses to accept help, insists she can deal with it on her own, etc. There is some character development, but not as much as for the other characters.

All the other characters were fascinating – Kitay is my favourite, closest followed by Nezha. And Venka. They have all changed so much since Sinegard and it’s borne out by the choices they make. Nezha in particular reveals some interesting aspects of his past that I just didn’t see coming.

The Poppy War was (often gleefully) referred to as brutal with hundreds of trigger warnings, but honestly I didn’t actually find it too bad. The Dragon Republic is probably less gory than the first book, although something happened towards the end which was a particularly brave choice! I love how this series is willing to make the tough choices – whereas obviously I wouldn’t say it’s a realistic book (the presence of magical fire powers sort of prevents that), but it’s true that there’s not always a happy ending.

I cried, I actually cried. I never cry at books. And yet The Dragon Republic makes you so invested in their characters and the outcome that it actually hurts when something bad happens. Which it did. I just cared about everything that happened far more than I did with the first book.

I think this book is just better than The Poppy War. There’s no jarring change of tone in the middle, and I found the characters to be more relatable. They’re flawed, and that just makes them more interesting.

In short, I loved The Dragon Republic and went right on to read The Burning God afterwards. Even if you were just sort of so-so about The Poppy War, I would very much recommend venturing on and picking up this book. ( )

I wish I liked this more than I do. There are parts I genuinely did like, mostly in the second half. And the setting, the world-building, the system of magic and so on are all really interesting. But overall, I found this an almighty slog. Note that in the rest of this review there'll probably be spoilers for the first book, The Poppy War, so watch out if that concerns you.

The tone of this book is basically the same as the latter 60% of the previous one. It's unrelentingly grim and heavy on military strategy and prolonged descriptions of battles. Now I realise I'm the dummy reading a series that isn't exactly shy about being labelled a "military fantasy"… but I still have to say it, OK. I really wanted more magic and world-building and more of those tense interactions with maybe-enemies-maybe-allies. The battle scenes, and even worse the preparation before the battle scenes, did not hold my attention well.

I'm also not enamoured with the character of Fang Runin. I was excited at the end of the first book because I thought R.F. Kuang had set her up brilliantly as a villain-protagonist, having had her murder the entire population of Mugen and all, and I couldn't wait to see how deeply Rin would embrace the darkness. For some reason in this book Rin is back to being played straight as a hero. No one gives a second thought to the morality of killing the entire civilian population of a country, but leaving most of their military alive because they were all invading your own country at the time and thus outside the reach of your massive fireball, duuuuuh. You could maybe try calling her an "antihero" because she's mean to everyone and battles with substance addiction, but her actual moral compass is never questioned (unless you count when Vaisra et al. got pissy with her for killing the rapist but their concerns were strategic, not ethical) and I really really think it should be.

So at this point, do I plan to read the last book? And the answer is, well, maybe… probably… eventually. I am intrigued if not hopeful about Rin's sudden realisation that ~*~there is power in the masses~*~… considering she seems to have no clue that there have also got to be workers and peasants in her country's north and not only in her home province… and certainly hasn't twigged that there were also workers and peasants in Mugen that she decided to genocide lmao. I don't know, look, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and the narrative will rebalance, with more emphasis on the evil Rin has wrought and not only on her good intentions. I know the series is from her perspective and all, but geeeeeez, everyone working against her is totes just jealous/scared of her awesome power and none of them are motivated by her callousness or destruction, huh? Let's hope that changes. If truth be told, I really want to see more of Su Daji in the final book – now there's a woman whose evil actions haven't been handwaved away because she meant well. I'd also like to see more of the "hinterlanders", the Ketreyids, and the system of magic at play in the series – the parts of this book dealing with those things were by far my favourite. Also, more tense interactions with maybe-enemies-maybe-allies can't hurt. But mostly I'd really like to not be let down by the third book the way I was by this one, and so I can't say I've made my mind up to read it. We'll see! ( )

In this sequel to The Poppy War, everything is horrible and getting worse, and yet I'm living for the character development and friendship and levelled up badassery. It was dark, intense, exciting and impossible to put down. ( )

Few sequels can demand as much love as this one can.

I mean, Poppy War was all kinds of fantastic, leading us up a fairly well-worn path only to rip the rug out from under us and get BRUTAL. But this one takes that brutality and cranks it up a notch or two, showing us that all consequences can meet their match with idealism, honor, and hope.

Not that there is much idealism, honor, or hope for Rin. But she can follow it. Lend her fiery arm to the cause. Even lose big, maybe even lose bigger, and still keep killing in the name.

I'm just going to come right out and say it. I love this book. I think I like it a lot more than the one before it. It's more heartbreaking, higher stakes, more desperate, and the full war and the hope of something great rises to one hell of a fever pitch.

So what if you have to kill a few gods. So what if the populace starves. So what if allies betray or are betrayed. The end is all that matters.


But that end? .... speechless. Brilliant.

And now I'm completely hooked for the next. Burn bright, Rin! Burn sooooo bright! ( )