盖伊新书《天空与大地的孩子们》封面与故事简介

                
                
　　加拿大广播公司（CBC）公布了盖伊·加夫里尔·凯的新书《天空与大地的孩子们》（Children of Earth and Sky）的封面。
　　这一次，盖伊把故事的背景放到了文艺复兴时期的欧洲，从故事简介中，我们大概可以看出一些关键元素的历史原型：富裕的城邦威尼斯，东方的哈里发，奥斯曼帝国的禁卫军，地中海上的贸易……至于最后的大决战，只能瞎猜了，会不会是马耳他岛战役？
　　从介绍文字给我的感觉来看，在写过两回中国历史之后，盖伊这一次似乎又回过头来，继续讲一个“正统的”盖伊式的故事了。这样的故事，一定会有盖伊小说永远不变的主题——对历史与文明的赞叹，和对朝代兴替、文明衰落的感怀，和固定出场的任务类型——艺术家/诗人/歌者，和聪慧而内心强大的女性；而它们与《天下》《星河》最大的不同之处，就是一定会讲述历史上真实发生的，那些激烈的文化冲撞。《天下》《星河》讲了很多，但很难说其中讲述了文化冲撞。在真实的历史中，从开封陷落以后，也的确还要再过七百年，才会不得不面对一场延续至今的“三千年未有之大变局”。
　　有意思的是，通过作者盖伊这样一个局外人的视角，通过他虚构的故事，我们真的反倒可以更加真切地看清楚，我们是谁，我们的文化是什么。
　　总之，好！期！待！呀！
　　以下是故事简介的内容：
　　The bestselling author of the groundbreaking novels Under Heaven and River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay is back with a new novel, Children of Earth and Sky, set in a world inspired by the conflicts and dramas of Renaissance Europe. Against this tumultuous backdrop the lives of men and women unfold on the borderlands—where empires and faiths collide.
　　From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist traveling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request—and possibly to do more—and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman, posing as a doctor’s wife, but sent by Seressa as a spy.
　　The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he’s been born to live. And farther east a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif—to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.
　　As these lives entwine, their fates—and those of many others—will hang in the balance, when the khalif sends out his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world…