Lord of Emperors - (Sarantine Mosaic) by Guy Gavriel Kay (Paperback)

About the Book

Beckoned by the Emperor Valerius, renowned mosaicist Crispin arrives in the fabled city of Sarantium, where he seeks to fulfill his artistic destiny high upon the dome that will become the emperor's magnificent sanctuary. But Crispin is not protected from intrigue. Rumors of war and conspiracy swirl about the city, and Valerius looks west to Crispin's homeland to reunite an Empire.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

Praise for Lord of Emperors

"Complex and richly textured...Kay's characterization is matchless. The two books that comprise the Mosaic contain, in my mind, some of the finest writing to arise in the last decade in any genre."--Vancouver Sun

"Guy Gavriel Kay has transformed his own array of literary elements into something quite remarkable...Closer to Tolstoy than Tolkien, in the Sarantine Mosaic, Kay plumbs his reworkings of history and finds the deeper truths at its heart."--Locus

"A masterful performance...His most ambitious work yet...Powerfully written and compulsively readable."--Maclean's

"Gripping...A grandly realized and wonderful story."--Denver Post

"The epitome of what a fantasy novel can be."--SF Site

"Lord of Emperors is wonderful. I never expect less from Guy Gavriel Kay."--Robert Jordan

More Praise for the Novels of Guy Gavriel Kay

"[Read] anything by Guy Gavriel Kay...His strengths are strong characters and fantastic set pieces."--The New Yorker

"History and fantasy rarely come together as gracefully or readably as they do in the novels of Guy Gavriel Kay."--The Washington Post Book World

"Kay shows why he's the heir to Tolkien's tradition."--Booklist

"Kay is a genius. I've read him all my life and am always inspired by his work."--#1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson

"A storyteller on the grandest scale."--Time Magazine, Canada

About the Author

Guy Gavriel Kay is the international bestselling author of numerous fantasy novels including The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, Tigana, The Last Light of the Sun, Under Heaven, River of Stars, and Children of Earth and Sky. He has been awarded the International Goliardos Prize for his work in the literature of the fantastic, and won the World Fantasy Award for Ysabel in 2008. In 2014 he was named to the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor. His works have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.