Coode Street Roundtable 5: Guy Gavriel Kay’s Children of Earth and Sky

Welcome to the fifth episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel.

Guy Gavriel Kay’s Children of Earth and Sky

This month we discuss Children of Earth and Sky, the latest novel from Guy Gavriel Kay. It’s a rich, powerful historical fantasy described by its publisher as follows:

From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist travelling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request--and possibly to do more--and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman, posing as a doctor's wife, but sent by Seressa as a spy.

The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he's been born to live. And further east, a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif--to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.

As these lives entwine, their fates--and those of many others -- will hang in the balance, when the khalif sends his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world...

If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, Children of Earth and Sky can be ordered from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.com.au
• amazon.co.uk

We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

Next monthThe Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of June with a discussion of Madeline Ashby's Company Town.