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A review by sherwoodreads
Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao
Having been immersing myself in Asian (Chinese especially) historical media and literature for the past eight years, I was so excited to grab this vivid, cheerfully irreverent homage to Chinese mythology, especially the fantastical tales. This is A.Y. Chao's debut, first of a series, and I am so looking forward to more!
Our narrator is Lady Jing, ward of Big Wang, the King of Hell--who rules the mythic world that overlies thirties Shanghai. I've now seen enough series and films (including film clips from the actual period) set in thirties Shanghai, to salute the research that went into evoking an amazing period in China's very long history. Thirties Shanghai was a meeting and amalgam of different cultures, each gleefully borrowing from the others to try them on, resulting in an exhilarating period that, unfortunately was all too soon overshadowed by world war.
This is a perfect setting for a story that borders the mythic world with a trip across the river.
Lady Jing is nearly 100 years old, and, typical for Xianxia, that means she's a young thing teetering on the verge of adulthood. In Xianxia, a cosmos full of gods and demons and weird spirits, time measure is in centuries and millennia. She's a "mongrel," or so her horrible relations insist, which is why she's the ward of the King of Hell. She's half huli, or nine-tailed-fox, and half vampire. She's been raised by a couple of venerable mythic figures in Big Wang's Court. ("Wang" by the way, means "king") She's feisty and mischievous and burgeoning with nascent power, but like many adolescents on the verge of adulthood, she's too impatient to sit for lessons. Especially as it seems everyone in Hell's court hates her guts, and there are powerful figures related to her who go out of their way to be cruel. With the emotional fallout you'd expect.
Lady Jing is requested by Big Wang to meet a mortal who is proposing a bank for the undead. Big Wang is interested in modernizing Hell, which means creating a bank. So Jing meets Tony Lee, a mortal who is clearly (except to inexperienced Jing) smitten with her, pretty much from the start.
Adventures ensue, with plenty of earthy observations by Jing, as she painfully comes to terms with aspects of her birth and early years. Perhaps symbolic, she fights hard against wearing the qipao, the gorgeous silk gown of the period--skin-tight, it looks spectacular on the right body, at the cost of moving. Or even breathing freely. And Jing, trained in martial arts, needs to be able to move.
I won't say any more than that. I galloped through the book, delighting in Jing and her adventures, and her slow, wary approach to growing up and into her powers. Along the way we get a thorough grounding in Chinese myth; what I loved most, I think, was Mr. Lee's reason for coming to Big Wang in the first place. That resonated with so many of the Chinese stories I've been inhaling over these past few years. Likewise, I loved the scattering of Chinese vocabulary through the story, exulting in the fact that I recognized all these words.
The result was a satisfying immersion in a world I want to revisit, leaving me looking very much forward to Lady Jing's further adventures.
Our narrator is Lady Jing, ward of Big Wang, the King of Hell--who rules the mythic world that overlies thirties Shanghai. I've now seen enough series and films (including film clips from the actual period) set in thirties Shanghai, to salute the research that went into evoking an amazing period in China's very long history. Thirties Shanghai was a meeting and amalgam of different cultures, each gleefully borrowing from the others to try them on, resulting in an exhilarating period that, unfortunately was all too soon overshadowed by world war.
This is a perfect setting for a story that borders the mythic world with a trip across the river.
Lady Jing is nearly 100 years old, and, typical for Xianxia, that means she's a young thing teetering on the verge of adulthood. In Xianxia, a cosmos full of gods and demons and weird spirits, time measure is in centuries and millennia. She's a "mongrel," or so her horrible relations insist, which is why she's the ward of the King of Hell. She's half huli, or nine-tailed-fox, and half vampire. She's been raised by a couple of venerable mythic figures in Big Wang's Court. ("Wang" by the way, means "king") She's feisty and mischievous and burgeoning with nascent power, but like many adolescents on the verge of adulthood, she's too impatient to sit for lessons. Especially as it seems everyone in Hell's court hates her guts, and there are powerful figures related to her who go out of their way to be cruel. With the emotional fallout you'd expect.
Lady Jing is requested by Big Wang to meet a mortal who is proposing a bank for the undead. Big Wang is interested in modernizing Hell, which means creating a bank. So Jing meets Tony Lee, a mortal who is clearly (except to inexperienced Jing) smitten with her, pretty much from the start.
Adventures ensue, with plenty of earthy observations by Jing, as she painfully comes to terms with aspects of her birth and early years. Perhaps symbolic, she fights hard against wearing the qipao, the gorgeous silk gown of the period--skin-tight, it looks spectacular on the right body, at the cost of moving. Or even breathing freely. And Jing, trained in martial arts, needs to be able to move.
I won't say any more than that. I galloped through the book, delighting in Jing and her adventures, and her slow, wary approach to growing up and into her powers. Along the way we get a thorough grounding in Chinese myth; what I loved most, I think, was Mr. Lee's reason for coming to Big Wang in the first place. That resonated with so many of the Chinese stories I've been inhaling over these past few years. Likewise, I loved the scattering of Chinese vocabulary through the story, exulting in the fact that I recognized all these words.
The result was a satisfying immersion in a world I want to revisit, leaving me looking very much forward to Lady Jing's further adventures.