From the Bookshelf of The Sword and Laser…

Bridge of Birds (The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, #1)

Barry Hughart

Start date: February 1, 2013

Finish date: February 28, 2013

Discussion: 2013 Reads

Discussion leader: P. Aaron Potter

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2013 Reads

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What Members Thought

Feb 17, 2013 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: location-china, sci-fi-fantasy, around-the-world, read2013, sword-and-laser

This was the February pick for the Sword and Laser, and I'm glad I read it. It feels more like a translation of a Chinese mythological tale than a novel written by a guy named Barry in 1984. That's a good thing, in my opinion. It has a lot of the humor found in bizarre characters and nonsensical cultural practices (because of an emperor's whim or fetishization, I am not saying that the Chinese are nonsensical) that I have seen in a lot of *actual* Chinese literature, and Japanese too. The fantas ...more

18 likes · Like · see review

Dec 07, 2012 Eric rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy

It's hard for me to define this book using my own words, so I will steal the dictionary's.

fa·ble: a legendary story of supernatural happenings.

It is, in a word, a fable, not of the talking animal kind, or the kind that are only for children, but of the kind in the definition above. In the story, the legends are those of "an ancient China that never was" and the supernatural is presented as only magical realism can (this video has a much clearer and more detailed explanation of that aspect of the ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Feb 22, 2012 Jlawrence rated it liked it

Shelves: sword-and-laser

This fable-like novel of adventures in a alternate historical China has a few issues. First, there's some instances of thoughtless sexism that mar the charming spell it wants to cast. Second, its farcical, over-the-top tone didn't quite work - it sometimes achieved comedy or wonder, but mostly kept me at a distance. Scenes would imaginative, or perilous, or kind of amusing, but slide by with little impact. This distance was not helped by the characters being mostly flat, and death/escape-from-de ...more

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