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Sarantium Guy Gavriel Kay HarperPrism, 438 pages  Sailing to
Sarantium Guy Gavriel Kay  Guy Gavriel Kay Website ISFDB
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Interview  Past Feature Reviews A review by James Seidman
Sailing to Sarantium is the first book of Guy Gavriel Kay's new
two-part series, The Sarantine Mosaic. It has the unusual
distinction of having been voted #5 on the SF Site's "Best SF
and Fantasy Books of 1998" despite not yet having been released
in the United States.  This stunning book is set in a fantasy
world based on the historical Byzantine Empire. It is actually
amazing how many varied aspects of the Byzantine Empire are
represented in his fictional Sarantine Empire. Some are obvious,
such as a fallen empire to the west and competing factions
supporting charioteers. Some are very obscure, such as a violent
religious dispute that mirrors Christianity's Arian heresy.
Unlike the historical empire, the Sarantine Empire