Daniel Fox (1) (1959–)

A coup forces boy emperor, Chien Hua, to retreat to the source of his jade - the small island of Taishu. Jade can only be possessed by the emperor himself due to its inherent properties. It has always been transported, protected and controlled, by wealthy jade masters but with the emperor so close at hand, why shouldn't the miner clans profit from the transaction themselves?
Li Ton, captain of the pirate ship Shalla, has just put all the monks of The Forge to the sword. He's never believed the tales that they ensorcelled a dragon beneath the harbor with their power but he does think their prayers to the old gods keep the fishermen and tradesmen safe. A protection he wants removed, his cargo bays all the better for it.
General Tunghai Wang has all his soldiers in place, ready to cross the harbor, ready to face the emperor and take the jade throne. All that remains is the boat crossing.
And then there's the dragon. She is real, powerful and angry…and free.

Chinese fantasy is not something I’ve read before and I wasn't sure what to expect. The world building is lovely, so packed and concise and the language witty and unexpectedly lyrical at times. Will definitely read book two.… (mais)

I ended up passing on this book. I got about 130 pages in and even though I like the writing, I can't figure out what the heck is going on. There are a thousand characters and no mentions of what went down in the first book, so I couldn't tell who anybody is or what they're doing or how they're related to anybody else. After a hundred pages I could figure out some of it but I felt like I was missing the whole story. It's tough sometimes when you get the second book in a series for review -- most of the time you can catch up just fine, but this is one of those cases where the first book is a necessary read.… (mais)

Third part of the medieval China-inspired fantasy by Chaz Brenchley writing under his Daniel Fox pen name. And make no mistake, this is the third and final part of a single story which began with Dragon in Chains, rather than the third of three novels. You'll need to have read the first two parts to get the most out of this book. Fortunately, that's no hardship. This is a complex story that needs the space to do justice to the lives of its characters.

At the end of the second part (Jade Man's Skin), the young Emperor had control of the island of Taishu, source of the jade that underpins imperial power, and was about to lose the city of Santung across the strait to the general who was attempting to overthrow him -- until the no-longer-chained dragon disrupted the petty wars of humans. In this volume the characters have to deal with the consequences -- the dragon will not permit boats to cross the strait unless they are protected by the presence of the Li-goddess of the sea, in the form of one of the children the goddess has taken for her use as a human avatar. As the humans play out their struggles for power, so do the dragon and the goddess, in a complex tales with many strands. It does not end in the boy Emperor winning back his entire empire, but that would not be the right end for this story, and it ends well enough.

As with the first two parts, this offers a thoughtful look at war and its aftermath, written in stunning prose. The trilogy is a long read, but well worth the time.… (mais)