Lord of Emperors
- 449
- Pages
- about 8 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Lord of Emperors” completes Guy Gavriel Kay’s ambitious portrait of an imagined Byzantium, begun in “Sailing to Sarantium”. The mosaicist Crispin works on the emperor’s great dome as intrigue, war rumours and a planned invasion of his homeland close in. Some readers count it among their finest reads, praising its blend of history and invention; others find it uneven once it strays from Crispin, or dislike its romance, its portrayal of women or its ending.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Guy Gavriel Kay, multiple award-winning author of The Fionavar Tapestry and Sailing to Sarantium, completes his magnificent tale of an alternate Byzantine world… In the golden city of Sarantium, a renowned mosaicist seeks to fill his artistic ambitions and his destiny high upon a dome intended to be the emperor’s enduring sanctuary and legacy. The beauty and solitude of Crispin's work cannot protect him from the dangerous intrigues of court and city, swirling with rumors of war and conspiracy, while otherworldly fires mysteriously flicker and disappear in the streets at night. The emperor is plotting a conquest of Crispin’s homeland to regain an empire. And with his fate entwined with that of his royal benefactor, Crispin’s loyalties come with a very high price. And another voyager has come to the imperial city: Rustem of Kerakek, a physician from an eastern desert kingdom, determined to find his own fate amid the shifting, treacherous currents of passion and violence that define Sarantium.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.6 across 60 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 29% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 8.1 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 8.6 | 60 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is Lord of Emperors?
It has 449 pages — shorter than 63% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 8.1, the closest to this book.
