{"id":2627,"date":"2013-07-03T18:31:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T01:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/?p=2627"},"modified":"2013-07-03T19:52:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T02:52:18","slug":"book-reviews-equations-of-life-a-once-crowded-sky-the-chronicles-of-master-li-and-number-ten-ox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/?p=2627","title":{"rendered":"Book Reviews: Equations of Life, A Once Crowded Sky, The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n

Equations of Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was a time, while I was reading this, that I thought it was everything I’d ever wanted from a novel. It was about the point where (spoilers!<\/em>) the hacker hero and his ladyfriend, a warrior nun, were dodging AI mechas on their way to rescue a yakuza princess.<\/p>\n

I know, right? There are books I describe as “the kind of thing you will like, if you like that kind of thing”—it’s what I try to write myself—and Equations of Life<\/em> is a perfect example of the form.<\/p>\n

Strangely, though, as exhilarating as the novel was while I was reading it, it faded from mind almost immediately. I know there are sequels out there: I haven’t sought them out, and I probably won’t. That’s a weird place for a book to occupy. I enjoyed it very much and now I am done, thank you, I don’t want any more. Usually when I find an author I like I devour as much of their work as I can get, so I can’t explain my strange antipathy towards the subsequent books in this series…except to say that maybe I felt a little sugar-sick afterwards, as if I’d eaten a cupcake with too much frosting.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n

A Once Crowded Sky<\/strong><\/p>\n

Superhero novels have become their own subgenre. A few of these books—Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask<\/em><\/a>\"\", Soon I Will be Invincible<\/em><\/a>\"\"—are among my very favorite books ever. Others I simply remember fondly (Hero<\/em><\/a>\"\", Emperor Mollusk versus The Sinister Brain<\/em><\/a>\"\").<\/p>\n

But A Once Crowded Sky<\/em> didn’t hit for me. I was never persuaded by the storytelling, which is self-consciously “meta” and (for me) rendered much of the characterizations and setting false. I think a superhero story has to work on the first level, the tights-and-capes level, before it can go deeper: and this one didn’t.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n

The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox<\/strong><\/p>\n

These books I almost didn’t want to review, because now I’m going to have to admit how much I enjoyed them.<\/p>\n

I feel I would be on firmer philosophical grounds delivering a critique, as this is a case of a Western author writing “Chinese-flavored” material that combines well-researched and sourced material with a lot of stuff that was just, you know, made up. We’re talking here about everything from words, names, and phrases that were supposed to be Mandarin but patently weren’t, to spoof Confucian deities and texts. And I’m not comfortable with it—I think it’s stereotyping, I think it’s caricature—but the stories are really good, and really fun.<\/p>\n

My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao and I have a slight flaw in my character. This is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox, who is about to hit you over the head with a blunt object.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s delightful stuff, it really is. I can only shrug helplessly and say the material is clearly dated (it was first published in the Eighties) but retains a great deal of its charm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Equations of Life There was a time, while I was reading this, that I thought it was everything I’d ever wanted from a novel. It was about the point where (spoilers!) the hacker hero and his ladyfriend, a warrior nun, were dodging AI mechas on their way to rescue a yakuza princess. I know, right? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2651,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}