Unfortunately this book wasn't for me. I really liked the worldbuilding and the concept and the writing was really good, but I didn't connect with the main character. The story is about his desire for power and the powers of his mixed heritage warring, but I found myself not liking him and not really rooting for him to succeed. I put it down at about the 50% mark; I wish I liked this one more than I did!

eh

3.5 stars

Interesting fantasy premise where magic was free but due to a Pact with the Gods has been constrained and limited power for each region to set magical elements. Our protagonist is Wen Alder or Foolish Cur, born of two different cultures, his fathers with ties to the conquering empire and his mothers with ties to native magic and rebellion.
Alder is consummed with passing the Imperial examinations to bring honour back to his fathers family name, however he has also been inducted into the Nanyen ways of magic which drives him to seek magical power from all the regions of the Empire.
Initally I found Alder a difficult character to like as his driven nature, immaturity and arrogance were at the fore. However as his story progresses through power, betrayal and realignment Alder deepens as a character and visibly learns from his errors which had me rooting for him at the climactic end to this book.
A great read particularly in the latter two thirds for me - definitely worth trying..
My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for access to this ARC all views are my own.

4.5 stars.

“The phenomenal magic system, world-building, characters and prose makes this one of the most original fantasies I’ve read this year.”

Check out my full review at - https://bookafiction.wordpress.com/2021/07/25/the-hand-of-the-sun-king-arc-review/

HIGHLIGHTS
~every culture has its own magic
~don’t let them see your scars
~empires are always bad
~magic has rules for a reason
~break them

I don’t think Hand of the Sun King is a bad book. But gods, reading it bored and frustrated me. And maybe it’s that Sun King and I just aren’t a good fit; maybe that’s all it is. But it feels like this is the exact same story I’ve read a thousand times before, without enough of an original take to be worth the bother.

Alder is the son of a Sienese (fantasy Chinese) merchant and a Nayeni mother; the Nayeni are the newest people to be conquered by the Sienese empire, and Nayen is still not fully tamed, with pockets of resistance fighting back against the Sienese overlords. Alder’s grandmother hates the Sienese and despises her daughter for having married one, and although she takes some time to teach Alder a little bit of the Nayeni culture and magic, she leaves while he’s still a child to rejoin the resistance. But Alder’s experiences with magic drive him to learn more about it, and with his grandmother gone, his only option is to excel in the Imperial Examinations and become a Hand of the Emperor, one of the few who have access to and are taught the Empire’s magic.

And it’s all just… I just didn’t care. Objectively, Hand of the Sun King is perfectly decent; the prose isn’t beautiful, but it’s very readable; Alder isn’t a very likable character to begin with, but the first-person perspective was definitely a good choice and his character growth is great; Greathouse plays with themes of colonialism and empire and race, and I didn’t notice any missteps there.

But it was all just so predictable. I could see each twist coming from a mile away, and it’s a running joke in my friends group that I’m someone who never sees the twist coming. Hand of the Sun King follows the path of a thousand other coming-of-age stories, and although the revelations about the nature of magic in the final pages were kind of interesting, nothing else really was. I definitely didn’t think those revelations were worth the effort of reading the three hundred pages leading up to them. There isn’t even any nuance to the colonialist themes, or the nature of the Sienese empire; the empire is just bad, and it’s bad for everyone, and obviously there’s a magical conspiracy at the heart of it, wow look how much I do not care. Obviously Alder turns on the empire in the end; obviously the catalyst for this is also a love interest; obviously Alder is given a magical mentor at the end who teaches him The Secrets Of Everything. None of it was surprising, and the occasional cinematic moment with magic, or poignant scene involving his heritage, couldn’t make up for that.

Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!

With the current revival of Fantasy books with an Asian or Oriental tone, this novel is rather appropriate. It also helps that it is a great debut novel.

The story deals with one of those traditional tropes - that of the opposing perspectives of good and evil. Wen Alder is a person in a Chinese style Empire from a humble background. His father’s merchant family is one who has been disgraced before, but now is on the rise, mainly due to Alder’s father’s connections to the Emperor and Alder becoming the Emperor of the Hand – a senior assistant to the Emperor.

However, Alder’s mother was one of the oppressed Nayeni – a group whose magical beliefs were suppressed by the invading Sienese Empire years ago. Wen’s grandmother had powers, magical abilities that she believes are also in Alder, and at the beginning of the novel trains Wen in secret to develop them. This is something that if found out by the Emperor or any of his officials would lead to Wen’s execution.

He is given a secret, alternate name, that of Foolish Cur, and has secret marks cut into his right hand by his Grandmother, in order to stop unfortunate magical accidents happening in the future. This happens to Alder early in the novel as he is testing his latent abilities and he is aware that it must not happen again.

So: with lots of set up, the first part of this story is a rite-of-passage/coming-of-age story told by the protagonist. Alder becomes elevated to a new position working for the Emperor and makes friends with the son of one of his important advisors known as Voices.

In the second part of the book Alder, with new responsibilities, is sent to war against the Nayeni at Iron Town with disastrous results. He is then sent to far-away An-Zabat where he meets new people, falls in love and learns about himself. This has consequences which the last part of the book brings to a conclusion.

The novel deals with the indecisions of life as Wen is growing into adulthood. Not only is he trying to deal with changing circumstances, but as the story develops, we find Wen wrestling with that age-old dilemma of having to choose between two life-options. One of them will lead to Wen being a hero, the other to being the villain. But which path is right? Or is there a third option?

Throughout all of this, the setting is different enough to keep the readers attention. Greathouse holds a BA in history and philosophy with a minor in Asian studies as well as a Master's in Teaching from Whitworth University, and he spent four months of intensive study in Chinese language and culture at Minzu University of China in Beijing, which has clearly influenced him and this work.

Without being “all that I know, because I’ve researched it”, Greathouse uses this knowledge and understanding to create not just a difference in cultures but differences in philosophy as well. The plot is enhanced by the use of allegory, parables and folk-stories throughout to create a depth to the story that is not typical to many of this type.

What really makes this better than many is the thought and detail given to the background. The magic and its consequences are examined in detail as Alder tries to determine the best way forward. Neither path is particularly obvious in its benefits and the author does well to point out that, in the time-honoured tradition, that for every action there are consequences. Which makes Wen’s choice all the more difficult.

After a slow-ish start, there are some expected plot points along the way but some unexpected twists too which make the story more than you might expect originating from such traditional tropes. I found this to be one of the better written stories of this type, and by the end I really wanted to know where the characters go to. Told in an Asian style setting and with a logical magical aspect, here you have a story that soon picks up pace and engages the reader until the end. The ending shows that there is more to tell in this story, which succeeding books will no doubt tell. I am looking forward to seeing where this one will go to.