Five alt-world takes on familiar empires

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Kelly Anderson tagged alt-world takes on five familiar empires, including:The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu

I wrote last year about all the things I liked about the first book in Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty series, but they’re more than worth reiterating. Liu’s empire is modeled on Ancient China at its height, a civilization that thinks itself secure in its power,