Speaking Bones

The Dandelion Dynasty, Book 4

By: Ken Liu

Narrated by: Michael Kramer

The battle continues in this silkpunk fantasy as science and destiny collide against the will of the gods in this final installment in the epic Dandelion Dynasty series from the “genius” (Elizabeth Bear, Hugo Award­–winning author of the Eternal Sky series) Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award–winning author Ken Liu.

The concluding book of The Dandelion Dynasty begins immediately after the events of The Veiled Throne, in the middle of two wars on two lands among three people separated by an ocean yet held together by the invisible strands of love.

Harried by Lyucu pursuers, Princess Théra and Pékyu Takval try to reestablish an ancestral dream even as their hearts grow in doubt. The people of Dara continue to struggle against the genocidal Lyucu as both nations vacillate between starkly contrasting visions for their futures. Even the gods cannot see through the Wall of Storms, for only mortal hearts can decide mortal fates.

Award-winning author Ken Liu fulfills the covenants first laid out a decade ago in a series delving deep into the connection between national myths and national constitutions in this “magnificent fantasy epic” (NPR).

©2021 Ken Liu. All rights reserved. (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

ties it all together fantastically

plot was well thought out and I'd like a little more at the end of Sarah's reign but it all tied together fantastically

An Epic Fantasy SF Novel of Ideas

Whew! The fourth and final volume in Ken Liu’s epic fantasy sf (“silkpunk”) series, Speaking Bones (2022), is massive—41 hours as an audiobook (well-read by Michael Kramer). It houses a large and varied cast of compelling point of view characters with conflicting motivations, contrasting situations, and interesting development arcs, from teachers, heroes, rulers, and gods to children, soldiers, traitors, and priests. They include several strong and intelligent women, and they come from multiple different settings on different continents and islands with different environments and geographical features and cultures and histories and gods and languages and so on. It is a fully realized secondary world.

Into that world, Liu writes several extended, suspenseful, big scale, high stakes battle scenes featuring new technologies/weapons, dragon-analogues, deception, and momentum changes. Into that world he incorporates many ideas about nature, religion, language, translation, calligraphy, logograms, tradition, classics, cooking, engineering, martial arts, music, poetry, philosophy (with moralist, fluxist, incentivist, mendist schools, and the like); violence and the use of force vs. pacifism and assimilation; the best and worst ways to wield political power (the grace of kings); the interlocking nature of all life; xenophobia and cross cultural communication; the degrees to which enemies become like each other; the destructiveness of revenge; religious and supernatural versus scientific and natural worldviews; and much more.

It often reads like an SF book of ideas at least as much as an epic fantasy. And adhering to the idea that “the universe is knowable,” Liu gives many detailed physical accounts of HOW things work (airships, ornithopters, wind-up mechanisms, logograms, fire-breathing “dragons,” giant bone constructs, “writing mirrors,” and more). There is more technology and science than magic and fantasy here.

The first of the four novels begins with a setting and situation inspired by Chinese history and wuxia and then the second one opens everything up to other cultures and situations from the other side of the world. This fourth book in the series begins with the abdicated Daran Empress Thera and her Agon Prince husband Takval and their small band of multicultural exiles on the run from the tyrannical Lyucu (more than nomadic barbarians) in the Lyucu and Agon’s continent of origin Ukyu-Gonde. As she is adapting herself to life in her adopted home, Thera desperately wants to unite the Agon to find a way to stop a second Lyucu fleet from being launched to complete the invasion of Dara, but she and her followers seem too few. Unknown to Thera and Takval, their young sons are far away, struggling to survive in the verboten City of Ghosts with a bunch of kids and a scholar and a shaman.

Meanwhile, in Dara on the other side of the almost always impassable Wall of Storms, Thera’s brother Phyro is preparing to lead a war to free two of their several home islands from the oppression of the Lyucu invaders while his aunt-mother and regent, Empress Jia, is working on her own secret, ruthless scheme involving smugglers and drugs and propaganda, while the Lyucu occupation leader Tanvanaki struggles to maintain control of the occupied islands, as her Lyucu officers have fractured into hardliners who want to eradicate the culture of the enslaved the local Darans and accommodationists who want to assimilate with the locals. The old wheelchair-bound Daran inventor Rati is developing programmable wind-up machines to help Phyro’s cause, while Savo, a half-Lyucu, half-Daran young man is trying to find a way to live in the world without taking sides against either of his parent’s people. That summary only scratches the surface.

Liu’s writing through all of the above is clean and clear. He writes plenty of culturally and situationally apt similes, like when an old man’s hair looks “like a dandelion’s puffball blowing in the wind.” And when Liu gets excited by something like food preparation (he is really into food as it reveals culture and satisfies the body and soul), he rises to the occasion:

“The kitchen was preparing something he hadn't tasted before, and his mouth watered at the delicious aromas. There was a fruity scent—maybe a rose-pip-and-monkeyberry coulis—as well as something richer—perhaps roasted pine nuts sprinkled with sea salt and Faca lantern peppers stuffed with stone ear mushrooms and cacanut flakes. His stomach growled in anticipation. The summer breeze carried other scents that painted vivid pictures in his mind: flat bread pockets filled with taro paste, lotus roots, and dried berry chunks; lightly toasted seasonal wild vegetables; hearty soup made from eight types of gourds and four herbs…”

I like Liu’s major themes:

—Where doubt ends evil begins.
—We have a duty to reduce suffering for all life forms.
—Cultural interaction and hybridization are preferrable to war.
—To make life interesting and to adapt to new conditions is more rewarding and constructive than following tradition and rejecting change.
—Like the string of a kite, history should tether us to the ground while helping us fly.
—The divine may be experienced through the mundane.
—There’s nothing more mysterious and complicated than the human heart.

He also thoughtfully explores real world problems like the difficulty of former victims and oppressors coexisting without continuing cycles of reprisal and revenge.

I think the four-novel series could be a bit shorter (each book is longer than the previous one, and I felt a sense of relief when I finally finished), but I am glad to have read the whole thing. My favorite sequence in the four novels is the wonderful multi-chapter epic cooking competition between rival restaurants in the third book, but this fourth one also has many remarkable and or moving and or devastating moments.

The ending of the novel is satisfying. I keep hating and pitying Empress Jia: is she a villainous heroine or a heroic villain? The (same sex) relationship between separated Thera and Zomi is sweet and potent. The sequence where Thera has to make Takval’s spirit portrait is fascinating and heart breaking. The speaking bones of the title are a wonderful conception.

Fans of intelligent, vividly imagined epic fantasy that is maybe really science fiction would probably like these books.

the focus on engineered solutions and how creative the characters were.

I really enjoyed how plausible the poor decisions made by characters were. How you can be like no that's so stupid but still understand how someone would make that same decision.

My Favorite Series In Decades

Although I finished Speaking Bones nearly two weeks ago, I have found it very difficult to come up with the right words to construct a review here. Both because I don't want to spoil those who have not listened to this audiobook (or series), but also because I genuinely have no idea how to categorize or describe the experience I've had with the Dandelion Dynasty over the last six months.

So I will keep it short and sweet. I loved this audiobook, and I loved this series.

Although there was heartache and loss (far more than I expected, to be honest), the ending was cathartic and exactly what the series required.

Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay the story is to repeat what I wrote in my review of the previous audiobook in the series: I never wanted to stop listening.

Despite how dark things sometimes got, I never wanted to leave. Not just because I needed to know how things would be resolved, but because I love this world and these characters, and became so entranced by Ken Liu's addictive writing style.

Dandelion Dynasty is a masterpiece - thematically, stylistically, and substantively. It has impacted me in a way that only a few other works - probably only Lord of the Rings, ASOIAF, and Wheel of Time - have before.

I would recommend it to anyone and everyone, and I plan to listen to again it for many years to come.

It was a pleasure to bring this story to life

You have already come this far. Do the most interesting thing, and give this tale a listen.

Rich Fantasy

It's unusual for me to read a multi-POV fantasy that makes me love (nearly) all the characters. Liu does an incredible job bringing you in to the heart of his characters so that even if you dislike (or loathe) what they're doing, even if you dislike them, you love them. I can tell this is a series I will return to in future because I will be continuing to revisit these characters and places in my mind for years.
I would recommend this to any lover of expansive, well populated fantasy novels. Although a novice to the genre might find it overwhelming, fans (like myself) will find a great story to sink our teeth into that will leave us wanting a bit more in the best, sweetest way.

great ending to the series

Ken really stuck the landing on this series. I knew it was going to be a classic when the head orphan ninja lady made me cry.

really good after book 3

this book really picked up after book 3. I was pretty hooked the whole time and fell in love with the series again. The ending chefs kiss

Epic series

Combining all of the genre's and real old world history was awesomely awsome. Thank you for such a glimpse into the Dandelion Dynasty.

4.5/5 One of the best series I've read, but complicated to recommend.

I'll try to summarize. if you love a slow pace, excellent prose, well developed world, with not one, but a world full of excellent charecters and charecter development and some of the finest example of long form writing done recently, and an interest in a story rooted in a different culture, or fantasy/steam punk that touches on relevant topics and issues thar can be applied to todays world, check this series out and do it now.

If you don't like any of the above, or are a very adherent reader to a quicker pace with a lot of action, mindless steamy sex interwoven in, or don't have the patience for large reading times, sadly you would be best served to avoid this series.

But I know for me personally, this series going to stick with me long after I've distanced myself from it, it was an experience that shouldn't be missed.