The Poppy War is the first book in the Poppy War series by R. F. Kuang and starts the story of Rin, a war orphan from an extremely rural and poor province of the Nikara Empire who aces the Keju, an empire wide assessment, and earns a place at Sinegard. Entering the military academy she faces discrimination because of her skin poverty, her gender and even her skin color so Rin ends up determined to become the best student and soldier she can be though she does make a few friends in the process. Something that becomes harder when she discovers, quite by accident, that she might have the potential for a rather lethal but strong power known as shamanism. Reluctant to learn, she still explores it with a rather disturbed teacher who preaches caution but also prescribes poppy seeds to help access her power. Things get complicated when the uneasy peace between the Nikara Empire and the Federation of Mugen becomes increasingly strained and a third Poppy War seems to be looming in the near future.
This book was incredibly interesting to read as it had a good blend of history and mysticism woven together to create a rather fantastical alternate history of twentieth century China. The plot was heavily based on how this power known as shamanism actually works and the potential implications it might have for things such as warfare. It was really fascinating to read about how something like that could work and all of the different forms and methods it might exhibit though the story also proved to be a bit of a cautionary tale about needing to be careful about calling on that type of power. In many ways it also dealt with the barrier between our dimension and any higher dimensions as well and how to access or pass that barrier if need be. By keeping the focus on Rin and her use of that power it really explored how it works from the perspective of a complete novice so it provided plenty of explanation because of that. At the same time it also blended in politics and warfare with the focus on the recent history of the Nikara Empire and the different Poppy Wars that they had seen. It ended up delving pretty heavily into those as well as it discussed the ethics of different types of warfare and the potential implications of different types of strategies during war. Using a student perspective allowed for some interesting discussions about the philosophy behind that as well. In terms of characters we see Rin the most and she gets a lot of character development and growth over the course of the book and we see a really different version of her at the end in comparison to what we saw at the beginning. Outside of her character though we don’t really see a lot of character development. There are a few that seem to be relatively fleshed out but most of them are just there, so to speak. It still was a pretty good book and I greatly enjoyed reading it so I am happy to give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
This book is an interesting blend of fantasy with some historical fiction though only loosely for that last one. If that type of work sounds interesting then you may consider trying this one out as it was pretty good. It does deal with some pretty heavy topics as I have already covered but it also deals with things like empire building, colonialism, and racism as well so readers should probably keep that in mind when reading this. The book is aimed at adult readers and for all of the reasons I have already covered I would agree with that. I hope you will consider trying it and if you do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.