• The Poppy War
• written by R.F. Kuang
• published by Harper Voyager (2018)

War doesn’t determine who’s right. War determines who remains.

Listen, I get a lot of unsolicited books sent to my door every week. I can’t possibly review them all, let alone read them all. And, to be frank, most of them don’t look that interesting to begin with.

So, needless to say, I don’t often get excited about those “random” books that arrive. But there are sometimes exceptions. And here we are. The Poppy War not only intrigued me with its premise, it had me downright giddy with anticipation.

A reimagining of modern Chinese history set in a fantasy world where people can control godlike powers? Oh yes please.

I lived in China for several years, am conversational in Mandarin, have traveled across the country, got married there (in a traditional Chinese ceremony), have family who still live there, and have been back several times since my kids were born. I say all this to explain that I’m probably a bit more aware of Chinese history and culture than the average American who doesn’t have Chinese heritage.

Having that background certainly helps connect the dots and recognize the real-life parallels that R.F. Kuang weaves into her masterful debut novel. But it’s certainly not a prerequisite.

Technically speaking, The Poppy War is a piece of speculative fiction. Could you call it realistic fiction? Maybe, to an extent, but the story is set in the fictional Nikara Empire, which has been at war (on and off) with the Federation of Mugen for generations. Nikan is a behemoth of a country that lies to the west of the small crescent-shaped archipelago that makes up the Federation.

It doesn’t take a history professor or a scholar of Asian studies to know we’re talking about China and Japan. (The island of Speer, which is roughly the same size and location as Taiwan, plays a significant role in The Poppy War, but its history and the importance of its relationship with Nikan is noticeably different from real-life China-Taiwan relations.)

What makes this story fantastic is that shamans exist and have the ability to act as conduits for various gods. In a very real sense, they possess superpowers in a world that prizes martial arts and swordfighting over gunpowder and more “modern” weapons.

This is but one reason why The Poppy War is so hard to categorize. Is it fantasy? Science fiction? Historical fiction? Does it matter?

The protagonist, 16-year-old Fang Runin (Rin for short), is a poor orphan trapped in an abusive household within a society that ascribes her absolutely no value. She lives in the agrarian south of the country and suffers daily at the hands of a woman who delights in treating her like a slave and addicting others to opium. In short, Rin is living a life from which she has very little hope of escaping.

The Nikara believed in strictly defined social roles, a rigid hierarchy that all were locked into at birth. Everything had its own place under heaven. Princelings became Warlords, cadets became soldiers, and orphan shopgirls from Tikany should be content with remaining orphan shopgirls from Tikany.

Her one hope of escape is if she can sweet talk her way into taking (and passing) the entrance exam (the Keju) for the country’s preeminent military academy – an exam that most students spend years preparing for. Rin has a few months.

Over the course of about 500 pages and roughly three years, Kuang has Rin travel an impossible road. Rin makes her way to Sinegard (that prestigious military academy), faces discrimination at every turn, discovers shamanic powers within her, and finds herself at the center of a fresh war between Nikan and the Federation.

It isn’t just genre that makes The Poppy War tough to classify. Is it YA, or is it “for adults”? An argument could be made for either side. But if we’re being honest, the adult-versus-YA divide is completely arbitrary. I hate it. The distinction often has nothing to do with the content of a book and everything to do with what section it’s found in a bookstore. It’s a fabricated publisher’s designation that means nothing.

So, yes, The Poppy War follows a teenaged protagonist in a brutal (and often brutally violent) coming-of-age story. She stares down a society that wants no part of her and ultimately becomes its only hope. She’s forced to grow up and find her place in the world. These themes are all very stereotypically YA.

But the book also deals with serious issues that have horrific real-life parallels. The war between Nikan and the Federation climaxes in the city of Golyn Niis, which is a fictional stand-in for the Chinese city of Nanjing. The horrors of Nanjing at the hands of the Japanese were all too real, and Kuang describes them in excruciatingly painful detail. Young readers who aren’t prepared for the terrible inhumanity of war can be left scarred.

When you believe your life means nothing except for your usefulness to your Emperor, the lives of your enemies mean even less.

The Poppy War is the first installment in a planned trilogy, which makes this debut book all the more impressive. Kuang (who just graduated from Georgetown University and is now a Marshall Scholar at Cambridge University studying the legacy of warfare in China) adeptly constructs a history and culture that has obvious parallels with Chinese history but differs enough that the book doesn’t read like a historical account.

For example? Nikan’s history begins with the Red Emperor who first united the country as a cohesive whole (China’s Yellow Emperor). Classical Chinese thinkers Mengzi and Zhuangzi and military strategist Sun Tzu all exist in Nikara’s culture. Mahjong, opium, stinky tofu, and these bizarre little statues also exist in both.

It’s little details like that – the inclusion of those weird little peeing statues – that I would have glossed over and missed entirely if I hadn’t spent so much time in the country. Indeed, this description of small-town life brings back so many of my own memories:

Tikany was always bustling with activity – drifters collecting trash to repackage and sell; old men sitting on stoops outside, smoking or playing mahjong; little children wearing jumpers that exposed their butt cheeks, wandering around the streets followed by squatting grandparents ready to catch them when they toppled over.

Another example is Rin’s commentary on the language differences between southerners and northerners (a difference that is 100 percent factual):

She herself found the dialect nearly indecipherable; every word, it seemed, had to be shortened, with a curt r noise added to the end. In Tikany, speech was slow and rolling. The southerners drew out their vowels, rolled their words over their tongues like sweet congee. In Sinegard, it seemed no one had time to finish his words.

Taken together, these descriptions flesh out the world, give it meaning, and make it truly feel “lived in.” This isn’t just another magical, fantasy world with artificially fabricated stakes. Rin’s journey and the war against the Federation feel incredibly urgent and powerful.

At times, The Poppy War feels like a mashup of genre stories – in the best possible way. It has shades of The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones with a splash of the Hellmouth from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All set in a feudal fantasy Asian context with a compelling, original story that will haunt you and linger in your thoughts long after you close the book.

Fang Runin – Rin – is one of the most compelling new characters I’ve had the privilege of meeting. As mentioned, this is the first book of a much longer story, and The Poppy War ends with a line that will have you clamoring for the next book.

And R.F. Kuang is one of the most exciting new authors I’ve had the privilege of reading. And the fact that she’s just made it to legal drinking age means we’re all lucky enough to enjoy a hopefully long and fruitful career. (Anyone who perfectly quotes Hamilton in her acknowledgments is a winner in my book.)

I, for one, am eagerly anticipating the next installment of Rin’s story. It can’t come soon enough.

You’re a war orphan. You’re a southerner. You weren’t supposed to pass the Keju. The Warlords like to claim that the Keju makes Nikan a meritocracy, but the system is designed to keep the poor and illiterate in their place. You’re offending them with your very presence.