He Who Drowned the World

by Shelley Parker-Chan

Audiobook

English language

Published August 2023 by Macmillan Audio.

(3 reviews)

How much would you give to win the world?

Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor. But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband—and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who has already sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan. Unbeknownst to the southerners, a new contender is even closer to the throne. The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees. For Baoxiang also desires revenge: to become the most degenerate Great Khan in history—and in so doing, make a mockery of every value his Mongol warrior family loved more than him. All the contenders are determined to do whatever it takes to win. But when desire is the size of the world, the price could be too much for even the most ruthless heart to bear…

Read by Natalie Naudus

4 editions

Flauschbuch reviewed He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

Kind of disappointing

3 stars

As opposed to what's kind of teasered at the end of "She Who Became the Sun" there's very little of Ma in the sequel. Instead, we spend a lot of time in the heads of Ouyang and Biaoxiang with their relentless hatred of themselves and almost everyone else. There's also a lot of misogyny and homophobia being reproduced in the book as a consequence. As I had expected/feared, Zhu's descent into immoral and very objectionable decisions for the sake of power continues at a quick pace so the clever tricks she comes up with lose the appeal they still had in the first book when I was still rooting for her. At the end, I wasn't even sure what the general message of the book is supposed to be.

I'd almost recommend just sticking with the first book and forget about this one.

Jaelyn reviewed He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

Review of 'He Who Drowned the World' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

It’s certainly a worthy sequel to this blend of real history and transmasc Mulan and the fraught relationship between Zhu and Ouyang takes centre stage for me. Zhu as always brings intelligence and brash confidence to every confrontation while in the background the court politics of the Great Khan begin to overtake events.

nemo

rated it

Mar 27