He Who Drowned the World (The Radiant Emperor, 2)
Parker-Chan completes her award-winning historical fantasy epic begun in She Who Became the Sun, returning to its fascinating blend of medieval Chinese history, wuxia martial fantasy, and gender-bending character study.
The narrative reimagines the 15th-century founding of the Ming Dynasty by conflating its first emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, with an earlier legend of a female emperor. In the first volume, the central character, Zhu Chongba, is an orphaned peasant girl who leads the (historical) Red Turban rebellion against the dominant Mongol Empire and claims the Radiant Throne of the Han Chinese.
Zhu’s interior development takes a back seat in the first two-thirds of the second novel, and therefore familiarity with the first book is important. Zhu’s rivals in her quest to defeat the Great Khan take center stage: the vengeful Ouyang and the scheming spy Baoxiang are both, like Zhu, driven by a compulsion to sacrifice everything and anyone to get what they want.
All three, not coincidentally, are considered insignificant in the masculine world of rulers and warlords: Ouyang is a eunuch, Baoxiang a pansexual seducer, and Zhu a woman in male disguise. All three take advantage of their culture’s tendency to underestimate them to create unlikely alliances and challenge a monolithic empire.
Although there is plenty of military action, the focus on the psychology of the tormented, self-hating, and self-harming Ouyang and Baoxiang robs the epic of the wit and wonder of the first volume. The multiple points of view are handled thoughtfully and give the reader an impression of a vast and complex culture. The patient reader will ultimately find Zhu’s character development in the final third of the novel, and the greater role played by her beloved wife, Ma Yingzi, satisfying and worth the wait.
