Sailing to Sarantium (The Sarantine Mosaic, #1)

by Guy Gavriel Kay

Guy Gavriel Kay, the international bestselling and multiple award-winning author of The Fionavar Tapestry, brings his unique storytelling imagination to an alternate Byzantine world…
 
Sarantium is the golden city: holy to the faithful, exalted by the poets, jewel of the world and heart of an empire.
 
Caius Crispus, known as Crispin, is a master mosaicist, creating beautiful art with colored stones and glass. Still grieving the loss of his family, he lives only for his craft—until an imperial summons draws him east to the fabled city. Bearing with him a Queen’s secret mission and seductive promise, and a talisman from an alchemist, Crispin crosses a land of pagan ritual and mortal danger, confronting legends and dark magic.
 
Once in Sarantium, with its taverns and gilded sanctuaries, chariot races and palaces, intrigues and violence, Crispin must find his own source of power in order to survive. He finds it, unexpectedly, high on the scaffolding of his own greatest creation.

• ISBN10: 045146351X
• ISBN13: 9780451463517
• Publish Date: 7 September 2010 (first published 1 October 1998)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Books Australia
• Imprint: Signet
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 448
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780451463517

Reviews

[ross91]

Wow this was boring!
I finished it only because the writing was beautiful and I wanted to know if things would go somewhere but... basically nothing really happens in this book and it made me sad, 'cause I expected a lot more.
All the characters are very unlikable and I couldn't care less about any of them (except maybe Alixana, who I randomly liked but wasn't there for the majority of this book).
All women are whores and/or throws themself at the main protagonist, who is a very unlikable and irascible man... why he's so popular with the female population is truly unknown.
Lastly, it seems GGK is very interested in horse races: we get a looong (stress on LOOOOOONG) chapter almost entirely about a chariot race, recounted in minute detail.
The same happened in A Brightness Long Ago (a truly beautiful book) where the author took his time describing what is basically a reenactment of the "Palio di Siena".
But while in this second book the moment was vital to the story and I felt all the pressure of the moment and the urgency of what was at stake, in this one the race seamed very disjointed from the actual plot and I was confused (and bored) by it.
Sadly, 2* and I don't think I'll ever read the second book