Fantasy Book Critic: All The Seas Of The World by Guy Gavriel Kay (reviewed by V)

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Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review of Ysabel
Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review of Under Heaven

OFFICIAL AUTHOR INFO: Guy Gavriel Kay is a Canadian fantasy writer with fifteen published books. Born in the Saskatchewan province of Canada, Guy went on to get a law degree before being chosen by Christopher Tolkien to assist him with editing his father’s unpublished work. He then debuted with a proper epic fantasy and since then has gone on to write stories in settings that resemble Earth during various historical periods and different geographical locales. He also has been nominated several times for the World Fantasy Award & the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.

OFFICIAL BOOK BLURB: On a dark night, along a lonely stretch of coast, a small merchant ship sends two people ashore: their purpose is assassination. They have been hired by two of the most dangerous men alive to alter the balance of power in the world. The consequences of that act will affect the destinies of empires as well as lives both great and small.

One of those arriving on that stony strand is a young woman who had been abducted by corsairs as a child and sold into years of servitude far from her home. Having escaped, she is trying to chart her own course—and is bent upon revenge. The man who will bring the others out from the city on his ship—if they survive their mission—still remembers being exiled as a boy with his family, for their faith; it is a moment that never leaves him. In what follows, through a story both intimate and epic, unforgettable characters are immersed in the fierce and deadly struggles that define their time.

All the Seas of the World is a stand-alone page-turning drama that also offers moving reflections on memory, fate, and the random events that can shape our lives—in the past, and today.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: This is a book that's left me with plenty to think about. It's a standalone that should come with homework, everything I expect from a Guy Gavriel Kay novel (in a good way), and one of those rare books that I had to slow my reading down on purpose to not devour it in one sitting.

Primarily, it is marketed as a standalone novel set in a world that Kay has written other stories in. While that is technically true, I don't think new readers will get the full experience of this story without having read A Brightness Long Ago (ABLA) and Children of Earth and Sky (COEAS) first. All The Seas Of The World (ATSOTW) has some content that is spoilers for ABLA, but you don't necessarily need to have read it to enjoy ATSOTW. I read a lot of other reviews where readers knocked off a few stars because they knew they were missing some of the world building and context behind the relationships between some of the supporting characters. I feel bad that they didn't get to experience this book the way I did because this story felt like an expansion on two other books I desperately wished I could read again for the first time.

Kay is one of those authors that always gives me exactly what I expect while simultaneously over delivering on quality storytelling. Without going into spoilers, this is a story about two corsairs who pull off a daring heist in the beginning of the story that changes the geopolitical landscape of their world. Through chance encounters with the right people and split second decisions that don't always make sense (the characters are very self-aware about this), the main characters start to travel in the same circles as very rich and powerful people while gaining wealth and status for themselves. The action and the thematic elements are perfectly interwoven together to make a breathtaking story while simultaneously making me obsess over the thematic undertones when I put the book down and tried to go to sleep. Kay's prose is powerful without being flowery or heavy handed. It catches your attention and keeps your interest without any fuss.

Some of the main themes include how gender can impact a person's experience, how being useful to powerful people is the best/only way to gain power yourself, and how sometimes having a lot of options can make you think you aren't making the right choice in life. Kay sets this book in a fictionalized Mediterranean Sea area in about the Renaissance period, so there are restrictions on how involved and in control women can be in commerce and there are differences in how they are perceived when they escape being captured and forced to live and work in a foreign land. There is also religious persecution and references to events and atrocities that occurred during an event similar to the Spanish Inquisition (bet you didn't expect that).

Our main characters make themselves useful to powerful people with similar interests, and I could not help but see parallels to occupations today. You can have nothing but join the military and be taken care of while in service of the government, and if you know a trade or a skill that can command a high pay rate then you can become wealthy. All of these paths serve an employer that is set to benefit greatly from your work, and since they control the purse strings and hiring decisions they control if you get their resources or not. When you have money and options in life, you are less likely to want to do dangerous work that takes you away from family and activities you care about. Sometimes you do those things anyways, like if you have a city to support or if your ideological views match with the mission that is trying to get you to partake in. One of the things this book made me think of is how it's easier to make a decision with fewer options and how there's never enough time to do everything. These themes are something I still think about even though I read the book a while ago.

CONCLUSION: This is a great book, and if you haven't read Guy Gavriel Kay then this could be a jumping in point. However, I would strongly suggest you at least read A Brightness Long Ago first. This book means so much more after reading ABLA and COEAS, but it can stand alone as well.