A review by reddoscar
Yellow Sky Revolt by Baptiste Pinson Wu

adventurous funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

Review of Yellow Sky Revolt (Three Kingdoms Chronicles #1) by Baptiste Pinson Wu 

Offered to write a review for the author after purchasing the book myself. 

 

*Spoilers Ahead* 

 

Yellow Sky Revolt is an action packed adventure following the life of Liao Hua, a historical warrior during Three Kingdoms China whom we know little about. Being historical fiction there are events and characters that must appear and Baptiste Pinson Wu does a brilliant job of weaving history and fiction together to create an exhilarating romp through ancient China, regardless of reader familiarity. 

 

 

Plot Summary 

 

This is a rundown of Liao Hua (Dun/Chun), I’ve missed out a number of characters. 

 

Yellow Sky Revolt follows Liao Hua during the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the beginning of the Tyranny of Dong Zhuo. The prologue sets the scene, Liao Hua is an old man and has seen his Kingdom, Shu-Han, fall to the might of Wei near the end of this turbulent period of Chinese history. He has been summoned to the Wei capital and asked by the victorious general Zhong Hui if he would write down the history of Shu-Han. Chen Shou is assigned as Hua’s scribe, a young man, idealistic and born into comfort, a comfort built by Liao Hua and his many, many dead friends and heroes. Hua is bitter at Liu Bei’s son, Liu Chan “that piss poor example of a son,”having lost the war. He is bitter at Chen Shou for being young and soft handed, unused to the hardship his predecessors, Liao Hua’s friends, had to suffer to build Shu-Han. He is bitter he has to ride in a carriage rather than on a horse, even at 83. But he agreed to tell his story, rather than slit his own throat, and so he begins with his childhood and becoming involved in the Yellow Turban Rebellion. 

 

Liao Hua, named Liao Dun as a child (I will discuss naming and other cultural factors later on), is a boy of 6. His father is a farmer, a mild mannered and, in Dun’s eyes, weak man and his sister is a baby. Dun’s hero is his Uncle Cheng, an Adept of the Way - a healer and travelling warrior - spreading the word of the Great Peace founded by Zhang Jue. Cheng Yuanzhi visits Dun’s village of Fa Jia Po every few months and Dun looks forward to it every time. A boy obsessed with fighting and battles and martial prowess while the adults around him try, and fail, to temper his martial instincts. 

 

Liao Dun travels with his Uncle Cheng to the massive city of Xiangyang on the pretext of selling the family’s crop there will fetch a higher price. While there they witness the execution of a fellow Adept of Cheng Yuanzhi’s, He Luo, who screams, “Death to the blue sky,’ before the executioner botches the job. When He Luo’s head is held up the crowd respond with silence, not adulation, and the Yellow Turban uprising is all but guaranteed. Dun, being a child, pisses himself and faints later waking on the back of his empty cart. Cheng returns with fresh clothes dyed yellow and with a long length of yellow fabric which Dun ties round his waist. The pair travel back to Fa Jia Po and Dun promises not to tell his father of the execution until Cheng has left town. 

 

Dun shares the story of He Luo’s death and while his father is angry at Cheng the story spreads and gains a life of its own. Soon the whole commandery knows of the injustice. Months go by before Cheng returns and when he does the rebellion has begun. He is being chased by Han soldiers of the local militia and tells the villagers of Fa Jia Po to get rid of their yellow “belts” and to hit him and tie him up to make it look like they are loyal to the Emperor. The soldiers arrive, arrest Cheng, and leave but Dun and others think this an injustice. They retie their belts, find what few weapons they have, mainly farming tools, and plan an ambush on the soldiers to free Cheng. The plan works with minimal losses and Cheng is at first angry but thanks them all the same. He tells them the yellow cloths aren’t belts but turbans, meant to be tied around the head. The villagers can’t return to Fa Jia Po and Cheng offers to lead them to the city of Wan to join up with the Grand Adept Zhang Mancheng who is leading the revolt across the nearby commanderys and provinces. And so, at age 8, Liao Dun marches to war… 

 

 

Worldbuilding 

 

Ancient China is a historical period rife with potential and little known in the west, save through games like Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Baptiste Pinson Wu has given life to the Three Kingdom’s period by including a wealth of foreign and ancient culture to craft the world of 2nd century China. 

 

To start with, names, surnames are first, given names second. But we also have childhood and adulthood names. Liao Dun becomes Liao Hua once he reaches adulthood, which is not in this first of a, hopefully, many book series. Within the nobility, moneyed, and courtly classes there are courtesy names. Cao Cao’s is Mengde. It is rude for someone his age or younger to use his given name, Cao, rather than his courtesy name, Mengde. A man older than Cao Cao may get away with using his given name but it depends. Furthermore, it would also be rude to call an adult, Cao Cao, by his childhood name, Cao Anmin, though this has not yet come up in the story. Those familiar will be glad to have this included and those unfamiliar do not worry Baptiste Pinson Wu has pulled off the naming conventions very well. It is clear who is who and the reader will be able to follow along without issue as BPW has limited the use of courtesy names only to prominent characters. 

 

BPW has chosen to include Chinese measurements too, so cun, li, shi, and others appear. Usually these are applied in the lightest way, word changes, cun instead of inch, li instead of mile (which is 1/3 of a mile), and shi instead of hour (which is actually 2 hours). These changes help the worldbuilding and storytelling while posing no issue for the reader’s understanding. 

 

Other terms are included, such as zuoyi, liangguan, dao, and jian but again are utilised in a way that doesn’t impact understanding while adding to the worldbuilding. When the reader needs a little extra information BPW will include it, for instance for a zuoyi which is a military salute were one’s fist sits inside an open hand around chest level. These things are explained and the exposition flows as you experience the world through Liao Hua’s memory of his life. Later in the story we are treated to the most important of arts, poetry, and its companion, calligraphy even being shown how different styles of calligraphy will be important in later books. These are all impactful to the story, character development, and plot and helps craft a rich and vibrant view of ancient China. 

 

Being a historic period there are events that have to happen, happened a certain way, people who existed, and some who didn’t. BPW has included some of the romanticised events, and characters, from Luo Guanzhong’s legendary Romance of the Three Kingdoms rather than the more factual Records of the Three Kingdoms. Though both have errors. Historically speaking Romance has been absorbed into Chinese culture to the point where veering from the novelised events is often frowned upon. Those familiar with Dynasty Warriors will be familiar with Romance as well and find great enjoyment in Yellow Sky Revolt. It is also clear BPW has done a wealth of research on the history and culture of China and taken the pains to get things as accurate as possible while maintaining creative flexibility. BPW has weaved together his fiction, with Romance, and Records with impressive elegance. I especially enjoyed Liao Hua’s first encounter with Guan Yu and the subsequent encounter at the end that weaved his own ideas with Luo Guanzhong’s. 

 

 

Characters 

 

From the moment I met Liao Hua I liked him. He’s a grumpy old man detesting the youth that lost the Kingdom he helped build and called home. Furious that the young man, Chen Shou (the writer of Records of the Three Kingdoms) is happy there is peace rather than angry his now former-Emperor’s dream is dead. Hua was much the same as a child, fiery and eager for excitement. We follow Liao Dun on his journey from a 6 year old son of a farmer to an 8 year old Yellow Turban in revolt against an Empire and all the way up to thirteen as a messenger for Cao Cao and more during the Loyal Rebels attempt at removing the tyrant Dong Zhuo from power. For a child Dun is not passive and while events unfold around him it certainly feels like Dun plays a part in moving the story along and the older he gets the more he drives events. 

 

Uncle Cheng Yuanzhi and Uncle Deng Mao, uncle being an honorific and not necessarily to do with blood, are affable, healers and warriors of the Way of Great Peace. It is easy to understand why a fiery child such as Dun who longs for battle and fighting would look up to this pair of skilled warriors who are free to roam the land doing what they are called to. Both care for the boy and teach him basic fighting, horse riding, and more mostly out of necessity. The land is dangerous and chaos is coming. 

 

Zhang Jue is a master of illusion. Hiding his own calamitous health from almost all his followers, excluding his brothers and the high ranking Adepts. His way of healing is also a mirage. There is no magic, though it is claimed there is, but understand it is about confession. A person’s ill health is often caused by a build up of guilt and admittance of this guilt can cure the individual. Uncle Cheng admits this late in the rebellion and Dun is amazed and hurt by the revelation. But he undergoes the healing with Uncle Deng and attests to it’s power first hand. A grand leader, an expert in people, Zhang Jue builds the Yellow Turbans, during his one on-page appearance, to a religious frenzy all with help of Liao Dun. 

 

After the Yellow Turbans are crushed we are treated to a who’s who of Three Kingdoms heroes and villains. Dong Zhuo, Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Xiahou Dun, and many officers in Cao Cao’s forces which will be well known to fans of Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Many follow an expected portrayal with slight warping from the story being told from the point of view of an old man remembering his childhood. This difference helps set Yellow Sky Revolt as a distinct work while also flowing with the point of view of the book. I found Xiahou Dun to be the biggest difference to how he is usually portrayed. 

 

Cao Cao, as always, lives up to his moniker - the Hero of Chaos. A cunning and perceptive man capable of war, leadership, poetry, and strategy. Careful and at times machiavellian he sees the world for what it is and holds considerable ambition for himself and by extension those around him expecting only the best from those he deems trustworthy enough to serve him. Though an off line of dialogue about not being able to house another orphan of war because “my wife will kill me,’ struck me as un-Cao Cao-esk. The wife in question, Lady Ding, did poison Cao’s concubine who birthed his eldest son, and heir, Cao Ang, so perhaps the fear is justified, while Lady Ding has been unable to birth any children. 

 

Xiahou Dun is a strict task master, firm with the rules and law, free with the cane, and straightforward to the point of boring in Liao Dun’s eyes. An expert at military logistics and prickly around honour. Cao Cao sends Liao Dun to Xiahou Dun’s household instead of his own. Liao Dun becomes Liao Chun by Xiahou Dun’s request and Cao Cao’s order. Chun is poor at serving around the Xiahou household and the general’s wife sends him to work in the stables where the boy excels under the tutelage of old Xin Ping. A lazy, knowledgeable, one handed stable hand who teaches Chun a great deal about caring for horses. At every point Chun is learning the skills he needs to survive in war torn land and at every point it is enjoyable to read. 

 

 

Writing 

 

The story is written from the first person perspective which meshes well with the setup of Liao Hua telling Chen Shou about his life. The prologue sets the expectation for style brilliantly. Because the reader knows Liao Hua is in his eighties and is telling someone else the story it allows for little oddities in the writing, such words like ‘equitation’, ‘homonymous’ or ‘disapprobation’ appearing in childhood chapters. Or times when the telling outweighs the showing, which isn’t often nor does it slow the pace but it does happen. The style itself is rather plain and to the point, which is fine and fits the character, a man who was illiterate until his teens and prefers the saddle and sword to the cushion and brush. Although, personally, I prefer to read Guy Gavriel Kay-esk stained glass window prose to Brandon Sanderson’s clear pane approach. 

 

The book spans 7 years and some of those years pass by in mere pages while others unfold over hundreds. BPW has accomplished a difficult task in maintaining a fast paced story without the exposition of skipped years impacting the ebb and flow. 

 

There is only one sentence that left me disappointed and it is one that seems to be haunting my reading. ‘“She’s ready,” I replied. And ready she was.’ (P365 of the paperback). Why oh why does this turn of phrase keep appearing in books I’m reading. First it was Chuck Wendig’s terrible Star Wars Aftermath then it was R.S. Penney’s Bounty Hunter (review here) and now in Yellow Sky Revolt. It is an awful sentence and I really wish writers would kill it. There is no need to show me something through dialogue and repeat it through telling. No need. See, I don’t need that separate ‘no need,’ and while some will argue it adds emphasis the style ‘something happens. And happen it did’ is weak. 

 

There are cool turns of phrase and clever metaphors dotted through the story such as, ‘Never use a hare to do a tiger’s job,’ and ‘Long as a day without water.’ These little flourishes do aid the writing, characterisation, and world building when they crop up and it is a testament to BPW that he understands who, when, and where he is writing. And this skill to weave fiction and history together is really where the book shines. Liao Hua is made to connect with all the major players without it feeling forced. The plot is character driven while also being well grounded in the history and it’s an impressive feat of writing. 

 

 

4.5/5 

 

Well written, well researched, and all round excellent introduction to what promises to be a fantastic series. A cast of characters that has you feeling and rooting for them to succeed even when you know they are doomed. Must read for fans of Dynasty Warriors and hearty recommendation to anyone looking to explore a truly incredible period of Chinese history. Also for fans of action packed adventures.