Ruler of the Sky - Softcover

Sargant, Pamela

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0701133228 ISBN 13: 9780701133221

Publisher: Chatto and Windus, 1993

Synopsis

A fictional account of the exploits of Genghis Khan, as seen through the women who loved him, his mother and his child bride, witnesses his founding of an empire stretching from China to the West. 10,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

Pamela Sargent (born March 20, 1948) is an American, feminist, science fiction author, and editor. She has an MA in classical philosophy and has won a Nebula Award. She wrote a series concerning the terraforming of Venus that is sometimes compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, but predates it. She also edited various anthologies to celebrate the contributions of women in the history of science fiction. She is noted for writing alternate history stories. Sargent has attempted work with a wide variety of themes in general, if not always successfully. She also collaborated with George Zebrowski and on numerous Star Trek novels.

From Publishers Weekly:

The ruthless 13th-century warrior Genghis Khan, who built a vast empire in his drive for world conquest, is the subject of this workmanlike historical novel, a panorama of warfare, intrigue, sex and betrayal. In Sargent's ( The Shore of Women ) somewhat romanticized portrayal, the Mongol ruler is a schizoid figure capable of both monstrous savagery and saintly humility and forgiveness. We see Genghis Khan through the eyes of women who loved and manipulated him. His doting mother, Honelun, stirs his lust for vengeance by telling tall tales of his father's poisoning. His chief wife, Bortai, is bitter over his neglect of her. Another wife, Ibakha, rashly attempts to convert the ruler from worship of the sky-god Tengri to Christianity. Still another spouse, Ch'i-kyuo, a ladylike Chinese princess, has lesbian trysts with a Han concubine. Genghis Khan himself enjoys simultaneously bedding two additional wives, Tatar sisters Yisui and Yisugen, and we also read of his homosexual relationship with a friend whom he later orders to be hung. Sargent's flat prose is plodding and ridden with cliches, but it helps anchor the exotic excesses of the violent world she describes.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto and Windus
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0701133228
• ISBN 13: 9780701133221
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 710