R.F. Kuang's The Dragon Republic Book Review
The second book of The Poppy War series follows Rin as she falls into the middle of yet another war. The Third Poppy War has ended and Rin is the savior who destroyed an entire nation simply by just tilling it. The cost of this though is quite large, Rin cannot return to her normal life so her and the Cike (a squadron made up of other shamans) hunt the Empress to avenge all their losses, since she is to blame for the war they barely escaped. They failed in their attempt to assassinate her and they find themselves on the run again clinging to the only viable escape option. This however is stopped by Rin’s old classmate Nezha. He comes with a proposal from his father, The Dragon Warlord, to join forces with him to start a civil war and usher the Nikan empire into a new democratic age.
After the Nikan empire and by extension the Empress are weakened by the Third Poppy War, Nezha’s father sees this as an opportunity to declare war on the Empress, divide the nation, gather enough supporters, and launch a civil war. The Dragon Warlord claims that he has a dream for Nikan so bright and grand, he wishes for the nation to be a true functioning democracy where every individual gets to have a say in who their leaders will be. Whether or not this dream will ever become a reality is to be found, but Rin finds this offer enticing enough to join. Mostly because she and the Dragon Warlord share a joint enemy, the Empress, and the Dragon Warlord promised her head on a platter for Rin, only if Rin uses her connection to the gods in his favor.
One of the things that stuck out to me in this book is Rin’s need to follow somebody who she perceives is more powerful than her. In The Poppy War she was chasing Altan around and following his every command and now in The Dragon Republic, she has traded him for the Dragon Warlord. She is giving up opium and fighting her addiction under his command, she is running blindly into battle for a future she cannot truthfully say will come to fruition, and she is giving up command of the Cike. I couldn’t help but wonder if Altan would have followed her footsteps and made the same decisions she did.
A new layer that R.F. Kuang introduced are the Hesperians. These people are based on European colonizers (she affectionately called them blue-eyed devils) and they are set up to be Nikan’s saving grace to end this civil war through an alliance with the Dragon Warlord. They are characterized as technologically advanced, economically superior, and compared to the Nikan’s they believe in a monotheistic God, “The Maker” instead of the polytheistic society that Nikan is based on. Throughout the book the Hesperians were holding back their aid to the Dragon Warlord forcing him to prove that he deserves their help. They watched him come dangerously close to losing this war while they sat back and did nothing except use up all of their resources. Their behavior is condescending and their interactions with the rest of Nikans is laced with superiority. The Hesperians take a special interest in Rin and where she gets her powers from. To keep them interested, the Dragon Warlord sold her to the Hisperians for one hour a week in return for military aid. This echoed the treatment Rin and Altan got in The Poppy War where they were lab rats to a different doctor.
The Dragon Republic reads like Rin is on a journey to find herself. We ended the first book with Rin suffering a devastating loss and finding herself as the leader of the Cike. Now in this book she goes on a journey of revenge, but gets side tracked to play a key role in this civil war that was not her making. Rin never had the chance to pause and think of what she truly wants, she goes from one war straight into another and in both she’s being used as a tool, a weapon. On one hand it’s true that Rin was built to be a soldier and she is really good at killing and destruction. But on the other hand, Rin has this pattern of fighting other peoples battles and blindly following another who is making the hard decisions for her. She is a conduit to one of the most powerful gods yet a middle aged man and an unstable man in his 20s are able to get her to destroy empires.
All in all, this was a good follow up to The Poppy War from R.F. Kuang. She does what all fantasy writers aspire to do by building and expanding on the world they previously established. The new conflict that Rin finds herself in is a natural progression from a plot standpoint and as always, R.F. Kuang executed this arch well. To me, this was a much better written book than the first in the trilogy. Upon a closer read, you could see how R.F. Kuang’s language is more crisp and her prose flowed beautifully in a different way compared to the first novel. I’m excited to see where this all ends!
