Sailing to Sarantium
core novel 1998 The Lions of Al-Rassan / The Sarantine Mosaic
Record
| First published | 1998 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.20 (17,579 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 448 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780684851693 |
Synopsis
Sailing to Sarantium, the first volume of the Sarantine Mosaic, is set in an alternate world modeled on the Byzantine Empire. Following the death of the old emperor, political intrigue surrounds the succession in the imperial city of Sarantium, and Caius Crispus, a mosaicist from the western kingdom of Batiara mourning the deaths of his wife and daughters to plague, is unexpectedly summoned to travel there and take up work on a grand artistic commission for the new emperor, Valerius II. Journeying east, Crispin unknowingly carries a secret marriage proposal from Batiara's exiled young queen, Gisel, and upon arriving in Sarantium finds himself drawn into the dangerous currents of court politics, religious controversy over sacred imagery, and multiple attempts on his life, even as he tries to focus on the mosaic that has brought him there.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Lions of Al-Rassan / The Sarantine Mosaic
- Series: The Sarantine Mosaic core; position 1 of 2 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Awards (verified)
- World Fantasy Award (Best Novel), 1999: nominated
Notes
- From the series record (The Sarantine Mosaic): A Byzantium (Sarantium) analogue set generations after The Lions of Al-Rassan, in the same invented world. Sailing to Sarantium was a 1999 World Fantasy Award Best Novel nominee (FictionDB, corroborating the award body's own shortlist; winner was The Antelope Wife).
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Sarantine Mosaic: position 1 of 2: next Lord of Emperors (2000)
Sources
← The Lions of Al-Rassan / The Sarantine Mosaic dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.