This an excellent sequel to ‘She Who Became the Sun’, the queer fantasy retelling of the establishment of the Ming dynasty. As with the earlier book, the writing is strong, the characters have been deeply developed and the historical events well researched.

Zhu Yuanzhang has become the Radiant King but is now intent on becoming emperor. However, there are several other cast members plotting to become the Great Khan. To reach her goal Zhu must convince her old enemy, the eunuch General Ouyang to combine his army with hers to defeat the powerful Madame Zhang in the south and a hidden contender who has also been plotting quietly in the shadows.

There is a lot of brutality, as well as rape in the novel (not surprisingly given the people and era of history) and many dark deeds as Zhu cleverly plots her way to outsmart all who oppose her. I did find this a slower book to read than its predecessor. It’s quite a plot dense novel with many threads woven together to eventually coalesce into the brutal climax. While there was still both humour and fantasy elements in the novel, it lacked some of the romance and lightness of the previous book. Those who enjoyed the history, great writing and flawed characters of the previous book should enjoy it and those who haven’t read that should definitely read it first to get the full background behind this.

It took me forever to read this one especially compared to She Who Became the Sun. I don't know if it was because I read the two too close together or I just personally did not like this one as much.

We return to the genderbent Retelling of the first emporer of the Ming Dynasty. While I wanted to follow Zhu from start to finish to see what crazy antics she gets up to, the story was bogged down by Baoxiang's POV.

There is a time and place for court politics and while there were moments I liked, it was stretched out too long resulting in a personal disconnect from the narrative. Overall, yes, it adds to the story but at what cost. There was a narrative imbalance.

Thank you Tor and Shelley Parker-Chan for giving me the chance to read this ARC in exchange for a fair review.

He Who Drowned The World is intense, beautiful, and tragic in every way. A new bar has been set for me with all future historical fantasy books I read, and I hope Shelley knows that they have permanently altered my brain chemistry through their writing.

The book matches the momentum of the first novel, with gorgeous writing and absolutely guttural scenes. You could literally feel the ghosts from the previous books between the lines, watching the story unfold. Overall, just seeing how ambition can push, drive, and destroy some of the characters made for some of the most heart-wrenching and soul destroying scenes I had ever read, and I loved every second of it.

As a transmasc reader, I’ve been absolutely FLOORED by the rich and multifaceted depictions of gender queerness – especially with broken, disturbed, and messed up characters. Both books explored gender in such moving ways, and each has given me new insight and vocabulary on my own gender identity, and lead to some fantastic introspection for me personally.

The ending left me so empty and broken (as intended), to a point where I have convinced my roommate to also read the series just so I am not alone in my suffering. Reading this duology has been an EXPERIENCE, and turns out nothing feels better than having your heart torn out and stomped on. Thank you, Shelley!

FANTASTIC follow up to She Who Became The Sun. Kept me fully engaged and had as much depth and power as the first book.

An attempt at a review.

It’s been a while since a fantasy book captivated me from start to finish and He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan was a delight (albeit difficult) to read.
As I have mentioned in my She Who Became the Sun review, I loved how Shelley seamlessly wove themes of gender, identity, desire, and fate, and making them integral to the story. These were even made more crucial in the sequel as we see the three main characters fighting for what they desire the most: power, destruction, and revenge.

HWDTW is bleak, tragic, ugly, uncomfortable, but at the same time there’s a tiny bit of hope blooming, and surprisingly, it’s also 40% comedy. The comedy comes in the form of Zhu and Ouyang’s reluctant alliance. While Ouyang may be an edge lord, he’s actually funny, especially when he has scenes with Zhu as they basically go like this:
Zhu: exists
Ouyang: you’re ugly

Obviously, there’s more to their relationship than Ouyang calling Zhu ugly all the time. These two have been set up as foils to each other in SWBTS, and seeing them start as enemies becoming reluctant allies made them one of my favorite character dynamics ever, especially with the book’s focus on their alikeness, which Ouyang kept refusing to accept.

“If they touched, how could it be the ordinary touch of two bodies? It would be a fusion of selves: the transcendence of perfect acceptance, because they understood each other’s feelings and physical existence. Because they were the same.”

The character who stood out to me the most though is the one and only Wang Baoxiang. I don’t have words to describe how much I loved Baoxiang in this. All I can say is that he was very baby girl and he gave the best fanart moments that I’m expecting more fanart of him.

“Watch me become the Great Khan, and bring ruin upon everyone and every value and every belief you lived and died for. Watch me destroy the world.”

Zhu Yuanzhang, Wang Baoxiang, and General Ouyang will go down in my reading history as some of the ugliest characters I have read, the latter two in particular. All three of them were willing to do and give anything for power, destruction, and revenge. These were people I would absolutely hate in real life but my god, their scenes were so captivating, despicable, uncomfortable, and you just can’t help but to root for all three of them.

“But you understand what it’s like to be nothing. You understand what it is to feel, and to hurt. You understand what it’s like to be someone who’s judged worthless because of their sex or the shape of their body or what they do or who they like.”

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Books for sending me a copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

Honestly, I was just here for the vibes by the end. I can barely tell you the names of any characters, what any of them were trying to do, why they were doing it, literally anything about the book. Other than that Zhu was a badass full of female power.

I really wish that I had been able to keep up with this book, and I wonder if reading the physical copy instead of the audiobook would have helped. It was hard for me to stay focused on this story and engaged, wanting to know what would happen next. I was so interested in it to start with, but alas, there was nothing that kept my mind engaged.

If you like epic fantasy, you might want to give this a try though!

This was a great sequel and I'm so glad I got to read it!! I loved the characters and the plot, def recommend.

I knew coming off the back of She Who Became the Sun the sequel would not disappoint and I am extremely glad that it exceeded my expectations. The richly entwined plot and the extreme depth of the characters made for such an engrossing conclusion to this series. There were many times I found myself wondering why I knew about something that was happening just to remember that a different character had been weaving this web from far far away. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants a fresh take on fantasy that contains queer voices and an enjoyable plot that makes you think.

I couldn't imagine how this book could be more stunning than the first, but Shelley Parker-Chan completely destroyed all my expectations and set the bar higher than ever before. The characters are so vivid and deeply developed, while the plot feels both easy and effortless but also breakneck and violent.

This is not a good book. Not in the literal sense but in a figurative way. If you thought the 1st book was graphic, then I can tell you that this one was darker to me.

I suppose I can't be too surprised by that because this is a series that features the Mongols, and most people are no stranger to the brutality that came with Mongol culture. I think with that in mind, this book does a great job of exploring the theme of "fallout". The characters in this book really consider what happens when they do or don't make a choice and how it affects everyone after. Seeing that conflict with the characters was cool because it offers a perspective on "villany" and that's not something every book does.

Read this series.

this novel chewed me up and spit me out in too many ways. i was emotional, i was in rage, i was excited and rooting for my babies. every character has their own desire, own want. every time they asked themselves if it was worth it, it usually was in every case. i know this book is going to send me into a slump because how can i find anything greater? i will never get over this novel. i wish i had more time to exist in this world, but all good things come to an end. thank you netgalley for this arc.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book before its publication date. I know that this review is coming after the book has been released, but I found myself thinking about this one over and over again.

This is the sequel to She Who Became the Sun, and it did not disappoint. There are so many twists and turns and moments to think about, that it isn't easy to write a review. On one hand we have Zhu who is relentlessly pursuing her desire to become Emperor of China. The road to power is not without challenges though, as Zhu finds herself needing help from people she never thought would help her. Then there is Ouyang, who had made huge sacrifices in his journey to avenge his past. Nothing ends up being what it seems, and although the ending is mostly what is expected for the people involved, I can't say that it is satisfying. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this book, but it is for sure not an easy read.

Actual Rating 3.5

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan is the sequel and series conclusion to She Who Became the Sun, one of my favorite books of all time. Both HWDTW and SWBTS tells the story of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China and told in the most beautiful prose.

Parker-Chan has the most elegant Asian-inspired writing style that never fails to bring me to my knees. In this book we continue to follow Zhu, Ouyang, and Ma while even more full-bodied characters are introduced in the novel. This book is about the struggle and battle for power between all the characters with each of them trying to outplay and outmaneuver each other. This sequel is even more magic-heavy than the SWBTS and delves much deeper into the psyche of these extremely flawed characters.

My biggest gripe with HWDTW, was this novel felt so must less balanced than SWBTS. I loved SWBTS so much because SPC was able to create a perfect balance between militaristic strategies, romance, darkness and gore, and the slow maddening descent into immorality topped with a sprinkling of fantasy and horror.

However, in SWBTS, while I found so much to love about this book, I also did not feel like it had the balance that I was looking for and hoping to read again. In this book, I feel like balance was tipped far more into the trauma for trauma's sake rather than trauma that adds to the drama. There is a lot, and I repeat a lot of graphic rape scenes illustrated from the point of the victim. And the rape happens to multiple different characters and between different genders, and it happens over and over again. As it never was from the aggressor's perspective, the reader ends up living in the shame and the trauma and manipulation in these characters heads repeatedly, throughout the novel. Sex was used both as a tool and as a weapon so repeatedly that a lot of the times it felt unnecessary to expound on each scene it happens in.

While I do understand SPC using this as a tool to illustrate the horrors of war, especially since in history, it did happen a lot, as well as using these graphic rape scenes to drive character and plot, I do feel like the *amount* of it was unnecessary to get those points across. There were also certain times that the internal dialogue of the characters during the rape scenes contradicted each other and it became truly confusing what SPC really wanted to achieve. In this case, I feel like less is more would have been a lot more impactful in truly portraying the horrors these experienced.

Nonetheless, SPC will continue to be an auto-buy author because the world they have build and the characters they have chosen to portray are intensely complex and I do enjoy reading their writing so much.

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group, Tor Books, and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I confess that I skimmed some of this book. The reason follows:

I loved She Who Became the Sun and was eager to read the sequel. However, after reading about a third of the book I was just about ready to quit. I hadn't realized how much Ma, Zhu's wife, had chapters and a point of view that mitigated the self-loathing, sociopathy and evil that so many other of the characters in this story personify. Ma does not have a POV chapter in this book, really. Instead, we see Zhu's blindness to the danger that she is putting the people who love her into, Ouyang's almost suicidal self-hatred after murdering his foster-brother and love, Baoxhing's determination to use the loathing that others feel for him as a weapon and his descent into loucheness, Lady Zhang's total dissociation from her body and even her emotions as she uses her sexuality to achieve her goals. It was a LOT. I did not enjoy it.

But I wanted to at least find out what happened. So I skimmed the book so as not to get too drawn into all of these horrific people's heads and it's really a damn good story. The author seems to be making the point that gender performance is not who people are. In fact, they seem to be saying that gender performance can be for all kinds of reasons other than self-expression and that people can be trapped into an appearance of gender that they do not want. I think that Zhu is the only character in this book to see gender as almost irrelevant to who she is. Ouyang feels forced into a feminine appearance and hates it. Baoxhing is seen as feminine and queer even though he is not and he decides to weaponize that misunderstanding. Lady Zhang sees her femininity as something to use as well but she doesn't seem to care about her body at all.

This ends up being a tragedy for most of the characters, which won't surprise too many readers. Even those who triumph almost never actually get any pleasure from it. Everyone gives too much away for their goals.

So going into the third book, if there ever is one, I will remember that none of these characters are worth really rooting for and I shouldn't let myself empathize too much with any of them. This author has really leveled up in this book, though. They make GRRM look like Little Miss Sunshine and they have an amazing ability to tell a story.

Took all the promise of book 1 and wrung it dry of every last drop of pain and betrayal. To see characters so deeply driven by need, ambition, desire and do whatever it takes to accomplish their goals is breath taking - and a little frightening.
The characters were so deeply real in not shying away from what they wanted, and yet: even in the midst of death, blood, and betrayal, they made choices that went against their desires as their humanity stole in at the edges despite themselves.
An absolute masterpiece.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Books for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

<b>The evil queers strike again</b>

I was really looking forward to reading the second and last installment in the <u>The Radiant Emperor duology</u> and it didn’t disappoint! I think I even liked it more than the first one.

In this second part of the series <b>the characters are fully developed</b> and are <b>trying to achieve their goals by whatever means necessary</b>. And even if they are incredibly cruel and ruthless, I still want them to succeed, which I guess is one of the author’s many abilities, to make us sympathize with characters that are somewhat evil.

This novel is <b>full of action scenes and political scheming</b>, but it is also quite <b>introspective</b> and it explores the characters’ feelings in depth. It is one of those rare books where the plot and the characters go hand in hand to drive an <b>exquisite and fascinating story.</b>

I love how we get to see more of <b>Ouyang</b> and his feelings of guilt and grief. He is probably my favourite character in the series and one of my favourite literary characters of all time. Which is surprising considering he is a misogynistic and vengeful war general! But he is so well-written and so nuanced I can’t help but fall in love with every aspect of the character.

On the other hand, we have our protagonist and hero <b>Zhu Yuanzhang</b>. Although I consider her/him to be more of an antihero or villain even; which is one of the things I love about this duology. If you ever wanted to read a really <b>good villain origin story</b>, this is it. A novel where characters will do anything to get what they want but where you’ll still love them and support them all the way.

Besides the incredible characters and the great plot, we also have the <b>well-executed gender issues and themes</b>. I had never before read a book that bends gender roles and prejudices as well as this one does.

An incredible and, might I add, devastating read that will live in my mind rent free for a very long time. I’m still not over the many things that happen in this novel, but mostly, I’m not over this duology ending! I hope the author blesses us with a new series soon.

“He Who Drowned the World” is the best possible ending for a fantastic queer duology that will leave people speechless for many years to come. <u>An instant classic and a series that will surely set a precedent for many up and coming authors.</u>

<b>5/5
Rep: queer all the way</b>

He Who Drowned the World started off super rocky for me, I felt like the pacing was all over the place and the switches between characters was very jarring.

I'm not sure if I got used to it or it got better but after the 30% mark I couldn't put it down. It became a very high stakes, exciting game of politics and revenge.

Shelley Parker-Chan does NOT hold back with her characters and anything could happen. Absolutely ruthless! A great ending to this duology and I really enjoyed Zhu's arc. She went through a lot of growth and tragedy and it all comes together.

I did not make time to read this as I realized that I had promoted book 1 to students, but hadn't read it. With all of the books I read, I couldn't justify reading both of these at the expense of others. I have heard very good things about these books so I am rating it 4 stars.

How do you review a book that emotionally devastated you? Give it five stars. Parker-Chan is a master at their craft and it's obvious how much blood/sweat/tears and care they've put into the second book of this duology. The continued exploration of gender and sexuality, as well as the societal expectations and implications of such identities. There's political intrigue and violence, but we focus so much more on deepening our understanding of the characters (HUGE plus, in my opinion) and being a witness to the pain, suffering, and longing that they endure.

I couldn't have asked for a better ending and Parker-Chan has quickly become an auto-buy author for me. I will read anything they produce, and I eagerly await their next project (whatever that may be and whenever it comes to light).

She who drowned the world by Shelley Parker Chan, is one of the best endings to a duology I've ever read in my life.

We continue with the same dark and compelling historical fantasy that we had in the first book. The first book was amazingly written, and definitely have your attention. The second book took it even further. I absolutely hate up the second book to the duology.

We continue to follow the same cast of characters that we followed in the first book. The character development is so rich and the world building so flawless. The representation throughout this book felt so organic and well executed.

This is going on my shelf is one of my top reads of the year