Review: The Burning God

The Burning God by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This...can't be it. 

This can't be the end of R.F. Kuang's debut series. 

How can she possibly keep it only as this one trilogy after that ending? 

So. Two and a half years or so after she debuted with The Poppy War, a year and a quarter after The Dragon Republic, Kuang now brings us to the end with The Burning God, except there is simply no way this is where it all ends. After 600-plus pages in this book - and, not unlike fellow fantasy conclusion A Sky Beyond the Storm, this book did have a way of wandering along its considerable length especially when compared to its predecessors, only to throw it all against the wall in the last ten percent or so to really validate every single ticket on board the hype train - this is it? Seriously? 

I mean, I suppose that might've been Kuang's point, since the series takes its cues from real-world history with a fantasy twist. Book 1 was World War II, Book 2 was the beginnings of the Cold War and the Cultural Revolution, so Book 3 now gives us a real fast-forward to a Nikara being subsumed day by day in the Hesperian way of life, blatantly colonialist and imperialist and racist as hell - and, to my guess, Kuang's subtle critique of China adopting the ways of the West. Something along those lines, anyway. I'm not a student of history nearly as much as she is. And even if Rin, our increasingly Azula-like anti-heroine, is also increasingly Mao-like in her zeal and devotion to bringing Nikara back to its former glory...well, no spoilers, obviously. But yeah, that ending, so frustrating in its openness and yet final in its pronouncements. As if to comment on the fact that history hasn't been completely written yet. 

I really, really hope Kuang returns to this story world again - hell, maybe that's what her upcoming new project has been about all along? But of course, this trilogy is over, and now has to hear - with all due somberness - its long-due ave atque vale.

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