River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

Firstly, as an ethnic Chinese reading this novel, I commend Kay on his research and besides minor quibbles, I really think his fictional Northern Song Chinese setting came across as authentic and compelling.

I had never read him or Chinese historical fantasy before so I had little expectations of what I will be getting. I was pleased to learn that this is a tale where Kay re-imagines history in a fantasy setting even though the fantasy element is on the slight side. Nevertheless, since my one true love in reading remains fantasy and I know of the major history events that this book relates this does capture my interest. I’m also satisfied with the open-ended ending which leaves me with some hope that Ren Daiyan, the fictional equivalent of Yue Fei, potentially did not meet his bad end (I doubt it given his character but at least the ending dangles some hope in front of you). There was one point where I hoped the ending would be more positive towards Ren Daiyan but I think the current ending fits the book better so I’m content.

Overall, I think Kay is a writer that I will want to add to my list of favourite authors. I think he has a good handle of the omniscient voice even though it made the opening (specifically chapter 1, I definitely started getting into the book after chapter 2 when Lin Shan appeared) a bit slow and at times I felt like the omniscient voice was interference (but other times it felt insightful and deep). I also appreciate his prose- lyrical and full of imagery. However, the main characters (Ren Daiyan and Lin Shan) are only a part of this epic tale, small vehicles in some sense. I do like epic tales and I like this aspect of this book well enough but this does stop me from bonding with the characters and does take away from this book.

Songs of Insurrection by JC Kang

I DNFed this book, the start of the Dragon Songs Saga. I got to the half way mark and then I just didn’t feel like I have the patience to keep on reading it. Perhaps because I came to this straight after River of Stars, I had high expectations of a Chinese fantasy series written by a fellow ethnic Chinese. But I think why I DNFed it was partially this high expectations, partially I was the wrong reader for this series and partially I just had issues with various aspects of the story or the writer’s way of doing things.

Firstly, I didn’t feel like this story really needed to be set in a fictional ancient China and in fact, this story was more like ancient China and a bunch of ethnic Chinese characters shoved into the conventional fantasy setting than an authentic Chinese fantasy story like River of Stars. Specifically, I felt like the conveyance of Chinese elements were primarily delivered through scattered Chinese terms emphasised via italics and sometimes the interchangeable use of specific Chinese terms and their meaning in English just seemed completely random to me. Perhaps that’s my unique experience as a Chinese and this book is really targeted at the ESB market so I’m just the wrong audience for this.

The other aspect in which I think I’m mismatched with this book is that the portrayal of the female protagonist Princess Kaiya mainly resulted in my boredom and disbelief. I felt like perhaps this book should be labelled under romance as a large part of the first half of the book seemed to concern Princess Kaiya being smitten with this foreign prince. This does have a narrative purpose in making readers question whether her actions are really decided by her or she was under undue influence but an unfortunate side-effect was that she was always feeling like her stomach was full of butterflies or other similar wording which really got to the point of being repetitive. Also, Princess Kaiya came across as a sheltered wall-flower who kept second-guessing her own actions and then stick to them anyway. I do get it on one level- it’s a reflection of her being a teenager and/or the Chinese upbringing where you have a fear of going against rules. But again it gets repetitive when she keeps doing that. The same goes for her emotional range-she’s forever fluctuating between determination and doubt/apprehension, even when she’s supposedly drunk (I don’t drink alcohol so I have no first hand experience to relate to but I felt like her thought pattern is the same whether she’s sober or drunk which just doesn’t seem right. I also feel like in this story she fluctuates between being sober and drunk within the span of three or four hours or that’s the way it appears to me). So all in all, whenever we arrived in a chapter in the princess’s POV, I felt an urge to skip it except for the event of the chapter. The pacing of the chapters is nice and quick, that’s the main merit I see in this book and why I stick to the half way mark. That and the other story line with Tian and Jie who were portrayed a bit better in that I couldn’t find direct fault with them but there was nothing to endear them to me either.

The above were my main disconnect from this book but some other nitpicks I also have included: the tendency for readers to get confused when a scene contains multiple sidecasts and the author’s attempt to make them distinct through coupling names and physical attributes don’t always work; world building tidbits like there being three moons and their usage in time measurement that came into the story and then had little narrative functions and sometimes only caused confusion or just in general diverted attention from the story.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Picked this up for my overseas holiday read and I think it’s a good choice- The chapters are short enough that I can breeze through it. As for the story itself, I do think it has all the qualities of a classic. While the omnipotent voice creates distance compared to contemporary novels, I am still captivated by the anti-hero of the story enough to look him up and learn that he is completely fictional. I am also impressed by the depiction of the sense of smell that is central to this novel which then branches out to the other senses. Overall, a good choice for long time readers of the mystery genre looking for a high quality light read.

Yes, you’ve read it correctly, in this post I am going to talk about what I am not writing. This is my attempt to set out expectations for my future/prospective readers *wink*

Let’s start with genre (and for those who need a reminder, mine is Chinese fantasy or fantasy in a Chinese setting with Chinese characters): I am not writing Chinese historical fiction but more like fantasy vaguely inspired by Chinese history. Basically, I am ‘stealing’ bits of real ancient China as a setting to fit into my story and then giving full reins to my imagination to modify or even change completely. And I am not definitely not writing any genre combination that involves romance (don’t get me wrong, I don’t have ‘a thing’ against the romance genre per se other than that it’s not part of my reading diet) since romance is one of the two elements that will get me into procrastination mode whenever I have them in my story.

The second part relates to style. I am not writing a page turner. That does not mean I’m writing a slow-paced novel necessarily but I am not writing something that is full of ‘hooks’ to get the readers interested in what’s going to happen next and has no other merit to it other than this momentum. I also do not necessarily write succinctly (I actually like what I call flowing prose which others might call verbose. I do not love long sentences for their own sakes but sometimes prose/description I especially like just happen to be full of semi-colons or made up of long sentences) nor do I write graphically (that is related to this aphantasia condition that I talked about earlier that I only recently found out is a thing and that I have, instead I go for what I call impressionistic/atmospheric writing).

And that’s it today. Next week, the second of my Remarkable Women in Ancient China serial comes up and then I will be releasing my novella A Thread of Chance over the reminder of February. So stay tuned.

I went off to outline the first book of a Chinese fantasy series that I intend to debut with under the name of Moonlake (I am waiting until I have more materials before sharing details but stay tuned!). Yes, you heard me correctly, I’ve been outlining a book for almost 2 years now and I intend to wrap it up and move onto draft 1 in October this year. Why so long? Well, I set out to trial a more comprehensive outlining method and this is the result. I think my outline is more robust with this procedure but I also figured out where I could chop it down to a year in the future. We will see.

What else have I done? I’ve enrolled in two intensive online writing courses for the purpose of self-education. I’ve read a healthy number of books and watched a healthy number of TV series to replenish the well of inspiration I can draw upon.

And oh, I shall be back on weekly basis and stick to it more than ever before. I will also be shifting the focus of my blog away from being predominantly the documentation of my writer’s journey towards a split between writer-journalling and having more fun and relevant content for my future novel readers.

Glad to be back and hope to do better at engaging with my blog followers.

To be honest, I have more than enough things floating around my mind to blog about but as the title of this post indicates, I’m suffering from a restless mind at the moment. So I might as well commit the clamour to my blog and then move on. I think it comes from two main sources, both of which relate to the epub that I’m involved in. Basically, I’m mired in all these promotion campaigns for it (promotion on my own social media which I don’t usually touch, searching for book review bloggers, exploring tools available to self-published authors etc.) while I’m stuck on my second solo contribution towards the second issue of the Excursions from the Citadel dealing with wizards.

 

Now, this isn’t a sympathy-garnering post so I’m going to start talking about activities I personally engage in to deal with a restless mind:

1. Reading/watching TVs/gaming: operating on the principle that immersion into these leisurely activities will distract my mind from its current state. I did that on and off yesterday and today. TV turned out to be the best amongst the three simply cos I’ve been watching a mainland Chinese spy thriller TV series on DVD with Mum together and a TV series always give you more opportunity to lose yourself especially if you watch it with someone else. The book is a short story collection and I wasn’t much in the mood of reading given that I could as easily read it on the train to and from work. Gaming, I’ve only got 80 Days Around the World Match-3 puzzle game on my PC now and that isn’t so fun after I’ve done the 81 Journey more than 15 times already. But that’s the only game that I actually bought after playing it for a bit.
2. Chatting with friends which operate on the same principle above but give me more human interaction and you can discuss your concerns with someone rather than having it simmer perpetually at the back of your mind. I was only able to do this today but I think it’s working like a charm. At least, it eliminated one worry pestering me about the new story that I’m stuck on.

 

And I’m bringing this post to an end now. The activities I listed isn’t really helpful to get me out of the block I have with my story but this is just about my restless mind. At any rate, there are plenty experts more qualified than I am to give advice about how to get through Writer’s Blocks. I myself even have put a post on this topic based just on my own situations. Farewell for now, come back next week for a post with more substance.

Pictures of all the horses can be seen here . Listing over there is in reverse order to this post here.

No. 10: The Yellow-hoofed Flying Thunder (Zhao Huang Fei Dian)

As its name indicates, it has four yellow hoofs but its body is white throughout. It is a very tall, powerful, dignified, elegant and yet arrogant mount. It is the preferred mount of the villainous warlord Cao Cao (the closest pronunciation is Chow Chow) whenever he returned in triumph after a battle.

No. 9: Stolen Pure Black (Dao Li)

One of the eight legendary horses used to pull the carriage of Zhou Mu Wang (a warlord of ancient times), it was said to light black all throughout and with a slender neck. It was said to be a very strong and fast horse with a great temper that makes it hard to tame.

No. 8: De Le Biao

Its fur is a yellowish colour with white showing through with its mouth being of a light black colour. It was ridden by Li Shi Ming, second emperor of the Tang dynasty when he recovered a part of the land in the modern Shan Xi province. It is put in the first place of honour among one of the burial places of the Emperors of the Tang dynasty.

No. 7: The Jade Lion that Shines in the Night (Zhao Ye Yu Shi Zi)

It is white throughout, with nary a hair of a different colour. It was said that this horse was of a foreign breed and could travel a thousand Chinese miles in a day (about 300 km- 550 km depending on the dynasty of reference). It originally appeared in the Water Margin (one of the 4 classics in Chinese literature about a bunch of righteous outlaws/grass-root rebel heroes) driving a section of the plot and has since been said to be the mount of a number of people such as Zhao Yu of the Three Kingdom era (his signature image is a rider on a white horse wielding a silver spear).

No. 6: The Yellow Horse Speckled with White (Huang Biao Ma)

As its name indicates, this horse has white spots on its yellow hide which are concentrated around its belly and its ribs. Its mane contains tufts of white hair that are shaped like a full moon. Consequently, it also has the nickname of “the Jade-headed Dry-straw Yellow of Xi Liang” (Xi Liang is a place). In addition, this horse’s ribcage will always be visible no matter how much it is fed, earning it the nickname of “the Dragon with Protruding Bones”. It is reputedly the mount of a famous general in the early days of the Tang dynasty who is called Qin Chong.

No. 5: Shadowless (Jue Ying)

The mount of Cao Cao of the Period of the Three Kingdoms in ancient China (starting from the ending days of the Han Dynasty). From its name, it is clear that it runs so fast that its shadow won’t be able to keep up. It was recorded in The Book of Wei (a historical record) that Shadowless was hit by a volley of arrows on its cheek and legs (presumably to its death) and in the same battle Cao Cao was injured on his right arm.

No. 4: Melancholy Dew Purple (Sa Lu Zi)

The mount of Li Shi Ming (2^nd Emperor of the Tang Dynasty) when he vanquished Wang Shi Chong of the Luo Yang province on his Eastern campaign. It was killed by an arrow in its chest and is in the first place of honour on the place dedicated to mounts within the Emperor’s tomb.

No. 3: Black Piebald (Wu Zhui)

The mount of Conqueror Xiang (major competitor to founder of the Han dynasty, also his sworn brother). It is a horse whose body is purely black and shiny (like a bolt of black silk) and has four hooves as white as snow. For this reason, it is called the Black Piebald who Trod on Snow (Ta Xue Wu Zhui). It has a long and smooth back and short hips and strong limbs. In the legends, after Conqueror Xiang slayed himself with a sword alongside the Black River (Wu Jiang), this horse followed on the footsteps of his owner by jumping into the river.

No. 2: Di Lu

The mount of Liu Bei of the Period of the Three Kingdoms, it was famous of having borne its owner across a mountain stream spanning several Chinese miles called Tan Xi and thus helping him to chase the opposing army chasing him. It was the most famous horse of its ear but was still one of the more renowned ones. In particular, its popularity was greatly heightened as it appeared in the work of Xin Qi Ji, a famous poet of the Southern Song dynasty.

No. 1: The Red Rabbit (Chi Tu)

Its original name has the same sound (and the second character is almost identical except for having an additional part to it) but actually means “a ferocious red horse like a tiger”. It was reputedly of the breed of “Han Xue Bao Ma” or Blood-coloured Sweat Horses which is a breed of horses imported by the Chinese whose sweats is blood-coloured. It has become a term used to describe a really good horse as in the saying “Chi Tu among horses, Lu Bu among men” (Lu Bu happened to be one of its owners who was reputedly the greatest warrior of his time). It lived in the same era of Di Lu and was the most famous horse of its era and possibly ever afterwards till now. It was reputedly first the mount of Dong Zhuo and was given to Lu Bu as a bribe to win him over. After Lu Bu’s death, it was given to Guan Yu by Cao Cao (who killed Lu Bu) to try to win him over from Liu Bei (who was Guan Yu’s elder sworn brother). After Guan Yu was slayed, it was said that Chi Tu missed him so much that it refused to eat anymore and died.