Reviews

I'm making this a general review of the whole tetralogy. Wow, where to start. I enjoyed this reading mightily for two main reasons, it's an easy read in terms of the language used, and it's wonderfully well documented.

Reading it was a breeze but what really captured my attention is how well Jin weaves historical facts with the characters of the novel while, at the same time, running a parallel world of martial artists (wulin). From a storytelling point of view, it's hard to switch from one to the other and back and it's a testament to Jin's masterful storytelling skills.

Another facet I loved was how well documented it is, dragging you to an incredible era within China's history, but at the same time, expanding on the existing sources and imagining how mighty heroes used the secret texts of the time. I always wondered how people from the epoch interpreted the cosmological and obscure Taoist manuals, and Jin brings this to life with his wonderful fantasy. And that's the thing, sometimes it's hard to unravel Jin's interpretation from the real historical sources because he braids it so masterfully.

On to the less marvelous aspects, well, it's a rather clique book with a very simple narrative that's easy to read but won't leave a durable mark from the literary perspective. It's definitely no Lord of the Rings as they claim. It's something else, as entertaining and interesting as Tolkien but on a different plain altogether.

While some characters are borderline comic, others are very well defined, even within their simplicity. Here is where you can see what do the Chinese culture feels is important in someone's character vs. the western vision. At some points, it felt that this book has influenced the behavior of a whole generation, in a similar way that the notion of Budo spread like wildfire after WWII in Japan.

That said, the two middle books felt a bit reiterative, and while some scenes were fun to read, eventually it's more of the same. This last volume felt a little rushed, trying to tie up many open plots in a brief amount of time and it shows.

Overall, I highly recommend this book if you like martial arts and Chinese culture. It's a really fun book, hard to put down and very well researched but with plenty of fantasy in it. This particular translation is pretty good from what I could gather so give it a try.

aardwyrm's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It's the series where punching 200 sharks is a reasonable start to a book, and it ends exactly the way you'd expect, with fun violence and vaguely wise speeches and very little resolution of anything other than who is the coolest (it's the main characters). Pure power fantasy. Goofy as shit. Great stuff.