A 2022 Historical Fantasy novel by Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay, set in the same world as Kay's earlier novels The Lions of Al-Rassan, The Sarantine Mosaic and The Last Light of the Sun.
Set in a Mediterranean-esque environment during The Renaissance period, it opens five years after A Brightness Long Ago and is a prequel to Children of Earth and Sky which is set about twenty years later.
All the Seas of the World is primarily the story of two business partners caught up in the geopolitical power struggles of the Middle Sea, a few years after Sarantium fell to the Osmali Asharites. One is Lenia Serrana, a woman who was abducted by Asharite corsairs as a child and has become an escaped slave with a murderous hatred of her former captors. The other is Rafel ben Natan, a Kindath merchant and occasional smuggler who was exiled as a child with the rest of his people from Esperana. Other characters from A Brightness Long Ago reappear, including that novel's narrator Guidanio Cerra.
After facilitating the murder of the khalif of the Majriti port-city of Abeneven, the pair sail for Batiara with two priceless treasures. This act alters the chronic state of war and raiding between the Jaddite and Asharite kingdoms as the High Patriarch of Rhodias calls for a crusade against the Asharite corsair haven of Tarouz and its pirate king Zariq ibn Tihon.
Tropes featured include:
- Action Girl: Lenia Serrana is definitely capable of this when required.
- Badass Army:
- The djani infantry of the Osmanlis are feared by their Jaddite opponents.
- Skandir and his men are few but more than pull their weight in a fight.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: As with most of Kay's novels. The novel as a whole draws on Mediterranean history from the 1450s to the 1530s, compressed into a few years.
- The Kindath are Jews, the Jaddites are Christians and the Asharites are Muslims.
- Tarouz is Tunis.
- The nearby ruins of Axarte are Carthage.
- Abeneven is Algiers.
- Batiara is Italy.
- Seressa is Venice.
- Firenta is Florence.
- Rhodias is Rome.
- The Osmanli are the Ottoman Turks..
- Ferrieres is France.
- Esperana is Spain.
- Astarden is Amsterdam.
- The Holy Jaddite Empire is the Holy Roman Empire.
- Sauradia is the Balkans and Trakesia is Greece.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: As per Kay's standard procedure, the powerful figures in the book have historical counterparts. That said, some met rather different ends.
- Zariq ibn Tihon = Hayreddin Barbarossa
- Ziyar ibn Tihon = Oruç Reis, Barbarossa's brother
- Folco Cino d'Arcorsi = Federico da Montefeltro
- The Sardi family as a whole resembles the Medici family of Florence.
- High Patriarch Scarsone Sardi = a composite of Pope Pius II and the Medici popes.
- Rasca Tripon "Skandir" = Skanderbeg, war lord and national hero of Albania
- Duke Ricci = Leonardo Loredan, Doge of Venice
- King Emery of Ferrieres = Francis I of France
- Grand Khalif Gurçu “the Destroyer” = Mehmed II the Conqueror
- The unnamed king and queen of Esperana who expelled their Kindath subjects are clearly drawn from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.
