Whether reading a book or watching a movie or tv show, I often think “this could be queerer.” It feels like He Who Drowned the World, the sequel to Shelley Parker-Chan’s already delightfully queer 2021 debut She Who Became the Sun, took that thought as a dare, looked me dead in the eye, and with a sharp-toothed grin said “YESSSS!”
Hardly any time has passed for Zhu, but for readers, it’s been about two years since the first book. I’ve read several hundred books since She Who Became the Sun, so the chances of me remembering every detail were slim. Thankfully, Parker-Chan does a brief recap at the beginning to catch readers back up to speed. After that, things spiral quickly into several storylines: Zhu Yuanzhang, aka the Radiant King and our main protagonist; General Ouyang, the orphaned son and eunuch warrior; Wang Baoxiang, the new Prince of Henan; and Madam Zhang, the wife who wants more than her role permits.
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He Who Drowned the World
Ouyang wants to kill the Great Khan, but needs a keen strategist to get him into the walls of Dadu (what the Mongols call Khanbaliq and is today part of Beijing). Zhu doesn’t so much care how the Great Khan dies as long as he’s removed from the throne so she can claim it for herself, but she also lacks a military force strong enough to break through the Mongols. The two former enemies form a tense alliance that becomes something deeper, something more fearsome, something greater than either of them anticipated. Meanwhile, Wang Baoxiang inserts himself in the court of the Great Khan as a vice minister running the empire’s finances. Haunted by ghosts and guilt, he pushes himself and others to extremes. He also wants the Great Khan’s throne, not to heal the empire from violence and excess but to make it as ruined and miserable as he feels. Down on the coast, Madam Zhang pushes her lovers around like pawns on a chess board as she plots her way to becoming Empress. With her unbeatable army, Zhu, Ouyang, and Wang Baoxiang have their work cut out for them.
Parker-Chan hinted at how similar Zhu and Ouyang were in the first book but they really dig into it here. They are a pair or perhaps two sides of the same coin. Two people who live outside the gender boxes their society has deemed appropriate. I saw so much of myself as a genderqueer trans person in Ouyang and Zhu, both the me that had a body and a gender assignment that didn’t fit how I felt about myself and the me that finally realized I could do whatever the hell I wanted to with my gender identity, everyone be damned. There’s real power in realizing you’re wearing a costume and stepping out of it. Like Zhu, trans and nonbinary people get to reshape reality to our whim. We get to create our own destinies and demand that the world see us as we truly are. But also like Ouyang, that road to self-discovery and freedom can be long and terrible. Some of us never make it to the light at the end of the tunnel. Some of us are forever trapped in a swamp of pain and dysphoria. Some of us self-sabotage our own chances of success.
Wang Baoxiang, too, does not fit his gender role, but where Zhu and Ouyang have no choice in their bodies or presentations, he wallows in breaking the rules. He hates the labels others have forced on him and that he cannot ever meet their expectations. So he’s learned to take pleasure in forcing others to confront their disgust. He makes them acknowledge it and finds power in attacking from the shadows. He schemes his way into a position of power, manipulates another desperate young man who is what Wang Baoxiang has always been accused of but is better at presenting masculinity, and forges alliances with those who are just as willing as he is to do the worst to get what he wants. His complement here is Madam Zhang. She is also reaching for something everyone else thinks is beyond her. Instead of breaking free of the roles assigned to them, they both tightened the manacles to the point of agony. Wang Baoxiang made himself into the most stereotypical example of an effeminate man he could be, while Madam Zhang became the perfect wife and courtesan, so much so that she could no longer remember what it was like to be herself.
Story-wise, if you thought the first book was intense—I’m sure you’re thinking of that scene—then get ready for book number two. He Who Drowned the World is brutal and unrelenting, but it’s also sexy and spicy, to borrow a term from Romancelandia. The bodies pile up in increasingly gory ways, and characters you adore experience cruelties you don’t expect. This is not a series for the lighthearted, but trust Parker-Chan to guide you through it.
This isn’t just a queer retelling of the founding of the Ming Dynasty. It’s also an exploration of the, well, queerer parts of queerness. Don’t come to this duology looking for rep where queer characters do good things or learn positive lessons from their mistakes to become better people. There are no queer stereotypes or tropes here. The relationships are fraught and messy and complicated in the best and worst ways. Characters fuck up, accidentally and intentionally, and good morals are not anyone’s main concerns. And I’m all the more grateful for it. Give me queerness as sharp as a knife and hard as steel. Give me queerness that does not apologize, that sneers at attempts to mollify or temper. Give me queerness that flings open the doors to all possibilities.
Reading Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun was an incredible experience. It got its hooks in me, so much so that it quickly became one of my most recommended novels of the year. I gave it to everyone, friends, family, colleagues, library patrons. If I had the financial wherewithal, I would’ve purchased dozens of copies to hand out to random people on the street. It’s a rare thing when a sequel is even better than its predecessor, but He Who Drowned the World has soared over that high watermark.
He Who Drowned the World is published by Tor Books.
Read an excerpt.
Alex Brown is a Hugo-nominated and Ignyte award-winning critic who writes about speculative fiction, librarianship, and Black history. Find them on twitter (@QueenOfRats), bluesky (@bookjockeyalex), instagram (@bookjockeyalex), and their blog (bookjockeyalex.com).
