The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty, #1)

by Ken Liu

Now that I have seen the larger world, I wish to change it, as does Mata. But while he wishes to restore the world to a state that never was, I wish to bring it to a state that has not yet been seen.

Epic fantasy is sometimes described – by those who don’t read much of it – as “conservative” in outlook. These big tomes, so goes the stereotype, yearn for the “return of the king,” for the “chosen one” to ascend to the throne so that all that is wrong with the world can be put in the rightful place, and the chaotic, diseased body politic can be restored to the golden status quo ante. People who think like this clearly have not read much epic fantasy. Certainly not masters of the genre like Kate Elliott or Rebecca Roanhorse. In any event, by claiming that epic fantasy, which often draws from history, is inherently pro-monarchy, this criticism also plays into a false narrative that views modernity as uniquely the invention of the West. In reality, all the theories and technologies enabling modern governments, such as checks-and-balances, government with the consent of the governed, constitutionalism, limits on absolute sovereign power, councils and elections …, have predecessors in antiquity all over the world. The need to balance competing political factions, to ascertain and aggregate the preferences of the public, to check the power of special interests, to constrain ever-expanding bureaucracies and root out corruption, to provide legitimacy to laws, to carry out the will of the majority while protecting the core interests of minorities, to ensure that everyone feels like they have a voice in decisions affecting the fate of all, to construct a foundational national narrative that heals and empowers … these needs were as true in pre-modern England and Venice as they were in Song-Dynasty China, in Joseon Korea, in Haudenosaunee, or pre-statehood Botswana. And so peoples from around the world throughout history have devised institutions and organizational technologies to satisfy these needs, to step ever closer to a perfect form of government—which, by the way, we have not ever achieved anywhere on this earth. That some of us now believe, without irony, that responsive, constitutional, legitimate governments are inventions of the “West” simply shows the absurdity of a world still mired in the false stories left by centuries of colonialism. The Dandelion Dynasty is about re-purposing historical antecedents for a new modernity, to rescue history from the colonial gaze. I find much inspiration in the wisdom of the ancients, much grace to confront the challenges of the modern world. Kuni and those who follow him want no return to some imaginary golden age, to rule under the absolute despotism of philosopher kings. Limited by the social and institutional technologies available to them, the people of Dara will have to engage in experimentation at a massive scale to bring their world to a state no one had ever seen, a state we’d recognize as modernity. That is the true epic journey of the series. The people of Dara do not believe that their nation is perfect, but they do believe that it can be perfected.