KEMist's Nerd-Blog

A new novel series about Kyoshi has been announced! The first book in the “epic YA saga”, The Rise of Kyoshi, is hitting shelves in July 2019!!

This is a big surprise and a very welcome one at that! The author is F.C. Yee with Mike DiMartino consulting. The series will be two books long, and cover, as the title suggests, the rise of the Earth Kingdom Avatar we all know and love, with this synopsis to go on so far:

“The first of two novels based on Kyoshi, The Rise of Kyoshi maps her journey from a girl of humble origins to the merciless pursuer of justice who is still feared and admired centuries after she became the Avatar.”

The publisher for the books had this to say:

“Bringing Kyoshi’s previously untold story to life in original novels will be a major pop culture event, not only for fans of the show, but also for readers hungry for a new epic YA saga. The Rise of Kyoshi has all the hallmarks of what YA readers love — bold storytelling set in a rich landscape with a strong heroine at the forefront!”

Kyoshi was recently revealed to have “by all accounts loved men and women”– that is, she was what we would likely consider bisexual– so it will be interesting to see if that will show up in these books. And there’s just so much we don’t know about her life growing up, the people around her (meeting her Team Avatar is an extremely exciting prospect), and what her corner of the Earth Kingdom was like before her legendary exploits, about 380 years before Korra arrived in Republic City. For reference that would be approximately equivalent to 1500s China, but Kyoshi herself and the culture of Kyoshi Island take more inspiration from Japan, so it will be very interesting to see how the worldbuilding takes shape. Overall there’s a lot to look forward to here!

This is a really cool development for the franchise and will hopefully open up the avenue for more books about different time periods and characters from the world of Avatar, something we’ve been asking for for a long time!

The Rise of Kyoshi is 336 pages long, it’s coming out on July 16th 2019, and it can be preordered here.

Here’s the preview of my piece for the @villainessartbook ! This volume’s theme is villainesses in western animation. Each piece features differents characters. I got to draw P’li and Ming Hua from Legend of Korra.