Guy Gavriel Kay

Sailing to Sarantium

Jenna T.

I've never read anything by Guy Gavriel Kay before and now I'm mad at myself for taking this long to get around to it! The story itself starts a little slowly, and the jumping around may jar those who are used to a single point-of-view character or an otherwise limited set of POV characters to follow. Within the prologue itself, scene by scene (and occasionally even within the scenes!), the POV changes almost constantly, following around a huge cast of characters as a plot unfolds to select a successor to the emperor, who has just died without naming his heir. It's confusing and there are a lot of threads to keep track of right out of the starting gate, but when everything comes together, it's amazing.
The world is one of the big ups for me; lovers of history will have an easy time picking out the references to real-world places and events. Sarantium itself is very obviously based on the Byzantine Empire, with the city representing Constantinople, Valerius II representing Justinian, Jaddism(?) representing Christianity... Rhodias represents Rome, with a High Patriarch in the East and another in the West, representing Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism. I can't exactly call myself a history buff, so I got very excited when I was able to spot a real-world parallel, but it will probably feel a bit pedestrian or obvious to anyone else.
These references to real-world history served to make the world feel that much more real, but also to make it feel that much more otherworldly, because when things did not quite align, the differences felt at once very alien and very fitting to the world of Sarantium itself. Things like the existence of the half-world, and the presence of two moons in the sky instead of just one, combined with the entry point, or bridge, of the actual history made Sarantium feel otherworldly and familiar at the same time.
The characters themselves are really the centerpiece of this story, however. Even with such an enormous world and cast, each character felt both unique and real, just like the world itself. Each person in and around Sarantium had a voice, a personality, wants, fears—no matter how large or small their role in the overall story was. They were all masterfully handled. The characters whose success I wanted to see had underhanded or cruel methods, characters I hated sometimes did good things, and sometimes two characters I liked would get into conflict with one another and I would find it impossible to decide whose side to be on.
I also loved how the story centered on this one small person and his deeds—a mosaicist caught up in a web much bigger than himself, trying to do the right thing and wanting to find some way to redeem the life he had given up on through his art. Against a backdrop of so much political machination and scheming and grand-scale designs, watching Crispin do his thing was a delight.
A beautiful story in a large world full of rich characters.

Sailing to Sarantium

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