The Poppy War
In a volatile world, if a girl, sick to the heart of the wrongs done to her, can channel her hurt into flames, will she give in to a dangerous deity who offers to make her pain disappear or rein in her anguish but burn herself?
As an orphan in the impoverished town of Tikany, Fang Runin or Rin doesn’t have many choices other than to work like a slave for her foster parents, the Fangs, and handle the running of the Fangs’ opium business. When the family decides to marry her off to a much older customs official in return for protection for their drug trade, Rin decides to take matters into her own hands. Her only hope, she decides, is Sinegard – the capital city of the Nikara Empire and the home of the pearl of military institutions. But the way leading to it isn’t easy, nor is what comes after. Sinegard may seem like salvation to Rin, but within those gilded walls are secrets which could be her doom or the key to saving a crumbling Nikan.
Nikan is a fictional monarchy that closely resembles China in the 20th century, reeling under Japanese attack. Opium-addled citizens fuel the economy by pouring their money into the booming industry, only helped along by the ineffective bans on opium, mirroring the actual crisis that heralded the end of monarchy in China. Even the exam Rin has to pass to get into any of the Nikara military schools – the Keju - is an allegory to the famed Gaokao test given by hundreds of thousands of Chinese high-schoolers every year to qualify for undergraduate studies. This first book in the trilogy is largely about Rin’s journey through a high school-like environment, navigating through cutthroat competition while forging lifelong friendships and discovering her true heritage. Also, I mean ‘cutthroat’ in a literal sense.
At the beginning of the book, Rin knew herself only as the Fangs’ foster daughter, working to earn her keep. Later on, she experiences the peculiar dislike reserved for those from the southern farming provinces, discriminated against especially by the pale-skinned Sinegardian elites. During Rin’s time at Sinegard, everybody picks apart whatever Rin knew about herself and slowly we see her build up a new persona, wary but toughened to take on whatever new hell opens before her. Opium, exams and school woes are matters that are pretty grounded in reality, but now enter the gods – ancient malevolent entities that possess a chosen few – who will to change the world as they see fit. Now it’s left to an overwhelmed Rin whether to resist or give in to the inexorable clamour for chaos.
The Poppy War distils East Asian culture, religion and polity and presents it through the experiences of troubled youth from across the social spectrum of the early 20th century, which is no small feat. That period of history is rich in crucial events like the Opium Wars and relentless conflict between dissolving monarchies and rising democracies. With some scrutiny, you can identify the nations referred to in the guise of the Nikara Empire's fictional neighbours and realise that the author addresses many sensitive geopolitical issues from both the past and the present. As much as this book belongs to a grim fantasy genre, it also indulges in thinly-veiled criticism of authoritarian governments and encourages you to learn more about East Asian history.
Through her young and troubled characters, Kuang weaves a tale of justice and suffering that pulls you in with its keening wail - an anguished cry of the oppressed. There were times when I felt horrified at the sheer destruction and couldn't help wondering, where does fiction stop and gory history begin? Powerful but gut-wrenching, I believe this book is one of the best in its genre.
I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible. Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.
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