The Poppy War

I wasn't just feeling grief, I also felt a lot of guilt and shame and anger at myself because the reason why I was in Taiwan brushing up on my Chinese and the reason why I had gone back to studying Mandarin Chinese in college was because I wanted to reconnect with my extended family and learn their stories.

And really the whole reason why I got into writing the first place, the inspiration for my debut novel, The Poppy War, was to understand what my family had been through.

And I had all these grand hopes for this project where I would sit down and interview him and just really document the whole story of his life.

But I kept putting off those conversations.

It is.

And that is exactly what R.F. Kuang does in The Poppy War trilogy.

Released from 2018 to 2020.

The Poppy War is a towering achievement, but it is not for the faint of heart.

Definitely check the content warnings on this one.

Yes, please do.

It is a militaristic, grimdark fantasy that is heavily explicitly based on 20th century Chinese history, particularly the second Sino-Japanese War and the horrific atrocities of that era, like the Rape of Nanjing.

It is a masterclass in using fantasy to process historical trauma, and she handles it with such weight.

I'm your host, Ellie Mano, age 17, and for the 320th official episode of Hook of a Book, I'm gonna be reviewing the newest release from one of my favorite authors of all time, Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang.

R.F. Kuang is the author of The Poppy War, which is genuinely one of my favorite trilogies I've ever read in my entire life, and she's written a lot of different stories in different genres.

Some of her other acclaimed work includes Yellowface, Babel, and Catabasis, which was her latest release, and Taipei Story is her first realistic fiction book besides Yellowface, but Yellowface was kinda more satirical.

And I thought Taipei Story was a really interesting branch-out from her normal genres, and I thought it was incredible.

Yeah.

Also, finished The Poppy War at the beginning of the month.

[laughs]

We finished that trilogy.

In these books.

Cried at the end of Victorious a lot.

Cried at the end of The Poppy War a lot.

Yeah.

Uh, it depends on where you wanna go.

I would argue that there's adventure in all of her books, but, like, I think that if you were gonna start anywhere, I would say start with The Poppy War because it's her only series.

It's a trilogy.

Hmm.

also, and it doesn't have the spooky vibes.

I considered The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang because I was like, I

certainly...

Like a military high fantasy, I'd be dead.

I'd be on the front lines and dead in a second.

There's not a chapter of the Poppy War that I'd survive.

Like I could maybe stake it out at one of the top layers of hell.

You put me in the Poppy War and I'm killing myself.

Now, if The Atlas 6 explores the lethal ambition of scholars, our next adaptation explores the absolute devastation of soldiers.

We are talking about RF Kuang's phenomenal debut novel, The Poppy War, which Starz is aiming to release in 2027.

This represents perhaps the most severe tonal and thematic challenge on the entire slate we are discussing today.

Let us be absolutely clear.

It completely drops the safety of the academy setting and becomes an absolutely brutal, unsparing, horrific war story.

We must unpack the heavy historical context that Kuang is drawing from here.

The atrocities depicted in the second half of The Poppy War are directly modeled on the second Sino-Japanese War, and very specifically on the real-world horrors of the Nanjing massacre.

That's devastating history.

I've read this book before.

This book is the same plot line as The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang.

And it is also the same plot line of Iron Widow by Zhirang J. Zhao.

I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.

So I don't love that.

Though it does give me reason to bring up my favorite conspiracy theory.

entirely invented by me is that yellow face by rf kuang is actually about rebecca yaros and fourth wing and the idea that rebecca yaros stole the poppy war storyline from rf kuang

oh what's the publication dates of these books does that align with this