Deze serie combineert meesterlijk historische elementen met een vleugje fantasy en vervoert lezers naar werelden geïnspireerd door het oude China. Volg de verstrengelde lotsbestemmingen van personages die navigeren door politieke intriges, oorlogen en persoonlijk verraad. Elk deel biedt rijk gedetailleerde settings en complexe individuen die epische gebeurtenissen onder ogen zien die hun rijken vormen. Het is een diepgaande verkenning van eer, loyaliteit en de onvoorspelbare stromingen van het lot.
In a setting that evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of 8th-century China, Shen Tai has been sent a mysterious and dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses in recognition of his service to the Emperor of Kitai. Wisely, the gift comes with the stipulation that the horses must be claimed in person--otherwise, he would probably be dead already.
In his novel Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay told a vivid and powerful story inspired by China's Tang Dynasty. Now, he revisits that invented setting four centuries later, a world inspired this time by the glittering, decadent Song Dynasty. Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life-in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later-and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles towards the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai from the north. Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor-and alienates women at the court. But when her father's life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has. In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.