All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay

(Hodder & Stoughton, 2022)

Reviewed by Anne F. Wilson

This is one of Kay’s alternate history novels. The author is replicating the Mediterranean civilizations after the fall of Byzantium. I’m not actually sure why the title refers to all the seas of the world as we are stuck firmly in the Mediterranean (or Middle Sea).

Some cultures and cities are easily recognisable, Asharias is Istanbul (Constantinople as was), Esperana is Spain, Seressa is Venice. Major events in the recent past include the sack of Asharias and the expulsion of the Kindath (broadly equivalent to Jews) and the Asharites (≈Moors) from Esperana.

I think my main problem with this book, unfortunately, is that it is a sequel to ‘A Brightness Long Ago’ which I haven’t read. This is nowhere stated on the edition that I read, but many of the events and some of the characters started off in the previous book. I feel it’s unfair to judge ‘All the Seas’ as a stand-alone, but regrettably that’s what I am having to do.

Our heroes are a shipowner, Rafel Ben Natan, who is a Kindath, and his business partner Lenia, a Jaddite (≈Christian) who used to be a slave, but who escaped and has worked her way up to a position of trust and responsibility. Rafel and Lenia have been engaged to carry out a political assassination in Abeneven, a city on the north coast of the Majriti (Mahgreb). As might be expected, this does not go to plan, and our heroes have to flee in their ship.

I found the narrative slow to get going. It starts with a meditation about exile (which is one of the themes of the book, Rafel being an exile from Esperana and Nadia, as an ex-slave, from herself). This is followed by some comments on storytelling, which distanced me still further. Then there’s the fact that all the names and places have been changed. I kept asking where and when are we in the real world? Are there real-life equivalents to these characters?

Kay describes a web of transactions around the Middle Sea. Trade, piracy, pilgrimage, expulsions, war. Ships built and bought, and the financial web that underpins them: sales, loans, insurance, capital.

There are a lot of viewpoint characters, and a lot of cities to keep track of and remember because there’s not enough detail in the novel to give a flavour of each without associating each city with its real-world equivalent. It seems unkind to criticise the narrative by comparing it to books by Dorothy Dunnett or Hilary Mantel, and yet compared to their evocation of places in real world cities, control over their source material and in-depth characterisation, this does fall short.

What’s good about it? I liked Rafel and Lenia, they seemed human and believable. Over a wide canvas Kay uses broad brushstrokes, maybe lacking a certain immediacy. When the story flows, it is pleasant to go with it, directing our attention where the author is guiding it, letting it wander over a tapestry woven in harmonious colours.

There is a lot of material, however, that I felt slowed the story down and didn’t really add to my reading experience. Kay extends an episode to describe its consequences. He follows an insignificant character to the end of his life. An exiled scholar from Sarantium commits suicide. I found it hard to get interested in these diversions. And when another narrative begins in the first person I was floundering for a couple of paragraphs before picking up the references as to who it must be.

Having said all this, it was an enjoyable read. Kay is a master storyteller, even though he does keep drawing attention to this fact. I did have an emotional response to some parts of the story. And Lenia finds herself not through forgiveness, though that is probably a Jaddite thing, but through revenge, which makes for a more interesting narrative.

Review from BSFA Review 19 - Download your copy here.