In The Lions of Al-Rassan, Kay crafts a fictional world inspired by al-Andalus and the Spanish Reconquista, one poised on the brink of its own reconquest. When we begin the novel, the Asharite (Kay’s Muslim analogues) Khalifate of Al-Rassan, which had conquered the lands once known as Esperaña from the Jaddites (Kay’s Christian analogues) three hundred years ago, has fallen and splintered into a patchwork of city-states ruled by petty kings.…