★★★★☆ Classic historical novel of ancient China

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Luo Guanzhong, Ronald C. Iverson (Editor), Yu Sumei (Translator)

There are four widely-recognized classic Chinese novels. Seriously, do a web search for "classic Chinese novels" and you will find dozens of pages referring to "The Four Classic Novels of Chinese Literature". (Wikipedia lists six on its Classic Chinese Novels page" -- these include the usual four, plus two others.) The phrase "Four classic Chinese novels" also appears frequently in commentary on Chinese literature. The four are

Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Water Margin
Journey to the West
Dream of the Red Chamber

Some of these come in multiple versions, even in Chinese, and multiple English translations, often with different titles. (For instance, Dream of the Red Chamber is also known as The Story of the Stone.) So it can get a little confusing. In my (inexpert) opinion, Three Kingdoms is the best novel of the first three. (I don't include Dream of the Red Chamber in my judgment because its discussions of Chinese poetry, art, and calligraphy are too far over my head.)

Don't be confused by the word "romance" -- it is used in its original sense -- essentially just "novel". Three Kingdoms is not a story of romantic love. It is a historical novel of the very early days of China, in the second and third centuries, before China existed as a single nation. It describes the political and military battles for the rule of what would eventually become China. It was written much later (mostly 15th century, although modern versions incoroporate later editing by other writers). Although Luo Guanzhong referred to historical records, the narrative of Three Kingdoms is probably not terribly accurate with regard to real events. (My own impression is that Three Kingdoms is roughly as accurate a guide to historical events as Shakespeare's plays, and less accurate than, say, Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series.) There is, however, one way in which Three Kingdoms feels quite real. Real history is big and messy. Three Kingdoms is also big and messy.

The most famous incident in Three Kingdoms is called the Peach Orchard Oath. This is a version of the Oath (from Wikipedia)

When saying the names Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, although the surnames are different, yet we have come together as brothers. From this day forward, we shall join forces for a common purpose: to save the troubled and to aid the endangered. We shall avenge the nation above, and pacify the citizenry below. We seek not to be born on the same day, in the same month and in the same year. We merely hope to die on the same day, in the same month and in the same year. May the Gods of Heaven and Earth attest to what is in our hearts. If we should ever do anything to betray our friendship, may heaven and the people of the earth both strike us dead.

It is not clear that this ever happened in reality -- historical sources don't mention it. It is likely that Luo adapted the story from folktales.

It has, however become historical. The Peach Orchard Oath has resonated down Chinese culture and history. For instance, it is referenced in Water Margin. It has served as a model for Chinese secret societies and military organizations. And it is central to Three Kingdoms. Although, as I said above, Three Kingdoms is a story of extraordinary complexity, from a certain point of view it is simple. Liu, Guan, and Zhang can rely completely on each other -- this gives them an advantage over the hundreds of other generals and would-be emperors they face, for whom treachery is entirely routine and to be expected.

If you read just one classic Chinese novel, it should be Three Kingdoms.

Amazon review

Goodreads review

Comments

★★★★☆ A spaceship makes tea and a detective looks for bodies

The Tea Master and the Detective Aliette de Bodard Aliette de Bodard 's The Tea Master and the Detective is a novella/novelette (it took me about two hours to read) set in de Bodard 's Xuya Universe . In my opinion, a reader will benefit from a little background reading on Xuya before attempting any Xuya stories. Of the three I have read so far, which are The Citadel of Weeping Pearls , Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight , and The Tea Master and the Detective , this is the only one that is really comprehensible without a prior introduction to the world. The main innovation in this story, and one of the principle features of de Bodard 's Xuya, is the existence of spaceships who are persons. Science Fiction fans will have encountered the idea of conscious spaceships before this. The earliest example of it that I know was Anne McCaffrey 's The Ship Who Sang , and a more recent example is Ann Leckie 's Imperial Radch ...

★★★★★ Witches and pain magic

Storm Cursed Patricia Briggs As I have noted elsewhere , the three pillars of magical society in Patricia Briggs 's Mercyverse , also Mercyverse , are werewolves, vampires, and fae. However, she also feels free to import any folkloric creatures that anyone has ever told stories about. Thus Mercy herself is descended from First Nation not-quite-a-god Coyote. Aside from the big three, most of these other magical beings are one-offs. And since Briggs is all about the politics and palace intrigue, they don't have the standing to become pillars of Mercyverse magical society. In fact, the first three books, Moon Called , Blood Bound , and Iron Kissed , served as introductions to werewolves, vampires, and fae, respectively. If there is a fourth, it is witches. Witches are important in the Mercy Thompson series and even more in the companion Mercyverse series Alpha and Omega . Columbia basin witch Elizaveta Arkadyevna has a...

★★★★★ Kaladin and Sylphrena dance

Wind and Truth Brandon Sanderson Some books contain a moment so perfect, so luminous, that it glows up an entire series. I think of the scene in Lloyd Alexander 's Chronlces of Prydain in which Fflewddur Fflam burns his harp, or the reunion of Molly and Foxglove in Ben Aaronovitch 's Lies Sleeping , or Cordelia's return from her shopping trip in Lois McMaster Bujold 's Barrayar . Wind and Truth , the latest installment in Brandon Sanderson 's Stormlight Archive contains such a moment. It is when Kaladin, trying to imagine something that would make him happy, realizes, "He wanted to go dancing with Syl." Kaladin, "an old spear who wouldn’t break," is a grizzled veteran who has been a solider, a slave, and a leader and who has survived the hardest of lives. Sylphrena is an honorspren -- that is, she is an audible, visible, and occasionally tangible embodiment of Honor. She and Kal are bound by oaths, not t...

★★★★★ Brilliant, dark and dangerous and angry

Once There Was Kiyash Monsef Marjan Dastani is an orphan. Her mother died of cancer when she was eight years old. Her mother's death broke Marjan and it broke her father Jamsheed. Eight years passed, then her father was murdered. That was three months ago. Marjan is still grieving, and hers is not a gentle grief. Marjan does not grieve gentle -- she grieves hard and she grieves angry. Marjan's father was a veterinarian. He had a small, struggling practice in Berkeley. Marjan, being still in High School, has no formal training in veterinary practice. Her father, however, let her watch while he treated animals, and even asked her assistance. Even without formal training, Marjan is a practically trained vet. Marjan's father frequently left Marjan to herself for days or a week while he left town on unexplained trips. Now, months after her father's death, she receives a phone call, and a request to travel to England (along with a first-class air ticket). At the airport a dig...

★★★★☆ Once the engine starts, it's great

The Briar Book of the Dead AG Slatter Personnes d’un certain âge had an experience that I think most of you young folks now manage to avoid: starting a small gasoline engine with a pull cord. Here's what that's like. You always start by flooding the carburetor. Then you pull the cord, the engine turns over, and stops. You do it again and again. Finally, maybe on the fourth pull the cylinder fires once -- "putt". Then, on the next pull, you hear it fire three times -- "Putt, putt, putt," and stall again. At last, you pull once more time, the engine catches, you open the throttle a bit -- "Roar!", and you're off. I mention this, because that's what reading A.G. Slatter 's The Briar Book of the Dead was like. At the beginning I could feel Slatter trying to start this plot. She'd pull the cord, it turned over and failed to catch. Finally, about a third of the way into the book, I felt the engine fire. The next chapter after that it...

★★★★★ Finding a home

The Blue Sword Robin McKinley When I was growing up my father's job kept my family moving. Mom and Dad eventually settled down, but just when they did I became an itinerant academic, moving to study and work at various research institutions. I was a 27 year old grad student at Stanford when I first read The Blue Sword and the longest I had ever lived in one place was six years. (Understand, I am not complaining -- I was and am a Happy Nomad.) There's a peculiar type of homesickness experienced by rootless people. One usually thinks of homesickness as being away from and missing a very specific place -- the place one calls home. But I had no place to call home. And yet I sometimes felt homesick -- I felt the lack of a home -- all the more because there was no home where I longed to be. In the first few chapters of The Blue Sword I immediately recognized this feeling of rootless homesickness in Angharad (Harry) Crewe, the hero of the book. As the book begins Harry ...

★★★★☆ Thursday Next goes recursive

First Among Sequels Jasper Fforde We ended Something Rotten with what looked a lot like a resolution. We learned that Granny Next, who had been hanging around wearing blue gingham and looking for the ten most boring books ever written, was in fact Thursday herself in her old age. If you've read the previous books in Jasper Fforde 's Thursday Next series , nothing will surprise you less to learn that 110-year-old Thursday had somehow become a contemporary of mid-thirty-year-old Thursday and died happily in her presence. And if you HADN'T read the other books, you might think that this means that Thursday is going to survive to a grand old age and die peacefully, in the presence of her family. Happy endings all around! But of course nothing is more labile than the past in the Thursday Next series . Thursday's husband Landen has blinked in and out of existence for most of the previous books. So, although I do suspect that Thursday's eventual fate will be as fo...

★★☆☆☆ There must be a more concise way to say, "Scientists are bad, and I don't understand virology."

Rise: A Newsflesh Collection Mira Grant Rise: A Newsflesh Collection is a collection of short fiction adjacent to Seanan McGuire 's Newsflesh series of zombie novels. It includes all the Newflesh short fiction currently (14-Jul-2022) listed on Goodreads' Newsflesh series page , except for Fed . And the collection is NOT short. Most of the eight stories included are novellas and took me about two hours each. So, it was a long slog, which I undertook only as part of my project to read everything McGuire has published. I was glad to reach the end. There is, in my opinion, one rather good story in here: The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell . By itself it would rate a high three stars. It is the reason the book gets two stars rather than one. Without further ado, here are the stories: Countdown tells the story of how the Kellis-Amberlee virus (the Newsflesh zombie virus) came to be. it is a long recitation of McGuire ...

★★★☆☆ Simon is still droopy, but at least we learn things

With Sweet Peace Seanan McGuire With Sweet Peace is Seanan McGuire 's September 2022 Patreon reward. It is a story in her October Daye series , and continues the recent series of short stories about Simon and August Torquill's settling into their new lives in Saltmist. Here's how she introduced it on Patreon, Uh-oh! Here we go again. Faerie needs therapists, but at least August knows what those are, and can help her father a little bit with trying to figure himself out. We're Undersea again, as the timeline marches forward, and August gets info Toby lacks. With Sweet Peace is the sixth Patreon story set in what I will call the Lorden household (because Lorden/Twycross/Torquill becomes unwieldy). In A Killing Frost Simon Torquill was freed of his entanglements with several horrifying fae women: Eira Rosynhwyr, Amandine, and Oleander (although to be accurate, Oleander had already been dead for several novels at the time) and immediate...

★★★★☆ An adult middle-grade children's novel

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches Sangu Mandanna When I began The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches I thought it was a middle-grade novel. The cover is very middle-grade-ish. And three of the main characters, the young witches girls Altamira, Terracotta, and Rosetta, are middle- grade or young-teen girls. The tone is also very middle-grade. As Sangu Mandanna writes in her Acknowledgements When I started writing this book, we were eight months into the pandemic and all I wanted to work on was a warm, cozy, romantic story about magic and family. And that, indeed, is what she wrote. Mika, our heroine, is a lonely, emotionally scarred young woman who finds a home and a family. It is all very warm and cozy -- it feels like the perfect middle-grade novel. I was therefore a little surprised by this quote: Her eyes very round, seven-year-old Altamira said, with perfect gravity, “That was some excellent Mary Poppins shit right there.” That made me laugh ...

Search This Blog