Children of Earth and Sky
Guy Gavriel Kay
War and intrigue
Guy Gavriel Kay‘s Children of Earth and Sky is set in his Sarantine Universe. It takes place some 25 years after the fall of Sarantium (GGK‘s counterpart of Constantinople), which, after conquest by the Osmalis (Ottomans) was renamed Asharias (Istanbul). This places it after A Brightness Long Ago in internal chronology, although it was published before Brightness.
Like many of GGK‘s “quarter turn to the fantastic” novels, Children is alternative history with a little light fantasy mixed in. It is a broad story with diverse point-of-view characters, and a geographical range from Batiara (Italy) to Asharias. We have Pero Villani, a young Seressini (Venetian) artist, who is commissioned to go to Asharias to paint a portrait of the Grand Khalif Gurçu the Destroyer (Mehmed the Conqueror) and is caught up in intrigue there. We have Marin Djivo, a merchant of Dubrava (Dubrovnik). We have Danica Gradek, a young woman of Senjan (Senj), a pirate and fighter. And we have her brother Neven, taken as a child and trained as a soldier of the Khalif. There are others, but these are the most prominent in the story. Danica is perhaps the most central. You could argue that all the others are in it because of their relationships to her.
It is difficult to summarize, because there are so many moving parts. Surprisingly, though, it does make a coherent tale. I enjoyed this a lot. I’ll leave it at that.\