I Can’t Wait for… The Veiled Throne by Ken Liu

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about and have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released, but not necessarily. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, which was originally hosted at Breaking the Spine.

My pick for this week is the long-awaited next installment in the Dandelion Dynasty, one of my favorite epic fantasies of the decade, a series that places Ken Liu on the same shelf (for me) as Guy Gavriel Kay …

Title: The Veiled Throne

Author: Ken Liu

Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press

Publication Date: June 29 2021

Genres: Epic Fantasy

Shelves: Female-fronted

With the invasion of Dara complete, and the Wall of Storms breached, the world has opened to new possibilities for the gods and peoples of both empires as the sweeping saga of the award-winning Dandelion Dynasty continues in this third book of the “magnificent fantasy epic” (NPR).

Princess Théra, once known as Empress Üna of Dara, entrusted the throne to her younger brother in order to journey to Ukyu-Gondé to war with the Lyucu. She has crossed the fabled Wall of Storms with a fleet of advanced warships and ten thousand people. Beset by adversity, Théra and her most trusted companions attempt to overcome every challenge by doing the most interesting thing. But is not letting the past dictate the present always possible or even desirable?

In Dara, the Lyucu leadership as well as the surviving Dandelion Court bristle with rivalries as currents of power surge and ebb and perspectives spin and shift. Here, parents and children, teachers and students, Empress and Pékyu, all nurture the seeds of plans that will take years to bloom. Will tradition yield to new justifications for power?

Everywhere, the spirit of innovation dances like dandelion seeds on the wind, and the commoners, the forgotten, the ignored begin to engineer new solutions for a new age.

Ken Liu returns to the series that draws from a tradition of the great epics of our history from the Aeneid to the Romance on the Three Kingdoms and builds a new tale unsurpassed in its scope and ambition.