R.F. Kuang’s award-winning historical fantasy epic The Poppy Wars has ripped out readers’ hearts and stomped on them from 2018 onward. Mirroring a tumultuous 20th century China, the epic begins with a poor orphan girl named Rin discovering in military school that she can harness the power of a God with the aid of psychoactive substances. During what she understands to be relative peace times, Rin ponders what this means, especially considering how she loses bits of herself each time she uses this power. However, the Nikara Empire is on the eve of a third and possibly more devasting Poppy War.
After publishing the third and final novel in November 2020, The Burning Gods, Kuang said no more Poppy Wars. Then, she released a TikTok admitting that now she (like the readers) couldn’t stop thinking about something in the series. For her, it was the Trifecta.
@therfkuang thinking about Jiang, Riga, and Daji 🤧🤫#thepoppywar #authorsoftiktok #rfkuang #iwannagoback ♬ original sound – Rebecca F. Kuang
As a refresher and some non-spoilerly context, The Trifecta is a trio of shamans who overthrew the Federation of Mugen (during the Second Poppy War) and liberated (what would become) a unified Nikan Empire. The Federation of Mugen is analogous to real-world 1940s Japan. Much of book one in the series uses the history of The Opium Wars and the Second-Sino Japanese War (Pacific Theater of WW2) as the background of what happened before the novel’s events, but that bleeds into Rin’s present.
All of the information about the Trifecta (the Dragon Empire, the Vipress, and the Gatekeeper) is rumors and gossip within the trilogy. The trio exists as bigger-than-life figures of a past war. This situation gives Kuang so much free reign to explore and prevents excessive continuity restraints regarding character traits and personalities.
Okay, so when can we read this?
Four days later, Kuang let us know that her editors greenlight the Trifecta prequel stories moving forward. She states that there “will be a short thing, and then hopefully a longer thing.” The “short thing” could be a novella or just not a tome (thick book.) The Poppy War trilogy runs from 544 to 672 pages. Kuang’s caption reveals that of the Trifecta, the Gatekeeper (Jiang Ziya) remains at the forefront of her mind.
@therfkuang can’t stop thinking about him (him: Jiang Ziya) #thepoppywar #rfkuang #jiangziya #booktok #authorsoftiktok #enterbabel ♬ original sound – Rebecca F. Kuang
If you’re confused as to why editors needed to be involved, Kuang is already on at least one (that we’re aware of) contract. On August 23, her fourth novel and first non-Poppy Wars novel, Babel or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution releases. Kuang’s TikTok also revealed that the “short thing” could come out as early as August, so Harper Voyager and/or Kuang will likely tie this prequel story into promotional events for Babel.
(via TikTok, image: Harper Voyager)
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