This book had a good atmosphere and message. I felt the translation made it feel a bit off. I don’t agree with this being a LOTR type book because I didn’t get that at all. I really enjoyed it but I may be biased because I love most Asian fantasy I read. The culture and atmosphere always suck me in.

Thank you netgalley and publisher for the early copy!

I checked out this Fantasy novel but could not connect with the writing style.

This fun and exciting romp through a fantasy historic China and Mongolia feels like living in the world of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' Readers will experience the legendary martial arts techniques and honor-driven world of several different groups of heroes, against the set-piece of Genghis Khan and the Chinese Empire. Readers don't need to have complete familiarity with the history of China to understand the conflicts, as the characters and dialog are easy to follow - and more importantly, fun to follow.

The legendary historic warriors, both good and evil, and battles that ensure will appeal to fans of action and fiction. Readers beware for antiquated views on women and the world.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for allowing me to receive this E-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A HERO BORN
by Jin Young

This story interests me so much but unfortunately, I just haven't been able to get into it! I don't know if it is timing on my part or what but I want to give it a break and come back to it at some other time, the writing and translation are fantastic and looking forward to reading the final copy sometime in the future, maybe even the audiobook!

What I finished was great and it is on me for taking too long to finish!
4 Stars

A Chinese martial arts fantasy epic from one of the most widely read Chinese writers, A Hero Born opens Jin Yong’s Legends of the Condor Heroes series, which is a classic of its time.

Following the death of his father, Guo Jing grows up on the Mongolia steppes alongside of Genghis Khan’s army. A brave and loyal, if not the brightest, boy, Guo Jing receives training from various instructors, including a group of martial arts masters who are honor bound for personal reasons to train him in their ways. What he doesn’t know is that the martial arts world is watching his growth. Due to circumstances surrounding his father’s death, he is fated to one day battle an opponent with whom he’s shared a connection since he was in his mother’s womb.

Set against a turning point in Chinese history, A Hero Born takes readers from the Song Empire to its Jurchen neighbors in the north to the Mongolian steppes and back again. As Guo Jing comes into his own as a young man and martial artist, various political factions plot to gain power in opulent courts both in the north and in the south, empires sit on the verge of rising or falling, and martial artists fight—whether or not to bring honor and glory to their name and their sect, at least to prove their might.

A Hero Born draws on a rich history of Chinese culture. Told through multiple perspectives (primarily those of martial artists, but including a few others), it explores the many reasons why an individual chooses to fight, the importance of acting with honor, and the complex family ties that bind us. It does feel as though some nuances are missed in translation—for example, the significance of Chinese names, as the characters are chosen to form a specific meaning. Some characters’ family names are listed first (as in Guo Jing), which is the traditional form of presenting names in China; some are provided second (as in Skyfury Guo, the protagonist’s father). However, the English translation is engaging and worth reading, especially for individuals who are unable to access the original works.

Fans of fantasy, historical fiction, and stories featuring contests (in particular one-on-one or one-on-multiple-opponents challenges) may enjoy this book.

Writer’s Craft

Two things in particular stand out to me with this book.

First is the grand scale of the worldbuilding. Physically, the author takes readers across the Song Empire, Jurchen Empire, and Mongolian Steppes; another location is also briefly mentioned. The world is rich in culture from the common people’s everyday life to the opulence of the courts to the nuances of the martial arts world. The martial arts techniques are outrageous, dangerous, and wholly entertaining. Think Dragon Ball Z, without aliens, except the latter seems to have been inspired by wuxia (Chinese martial arts genre), which came first.

Second is the interplay of honor and family. For the most part, the rules of honor are clear. Good characters fight honorably; they are also quick to defend their honor and the honor of those who can’t fight for themselves. Evil characters throw away their honor and deceive good people in order to achieve their goals. Characters are also expected to uphold their family’s honor and their martial arts sect’s honor, even if it means fighting on behalf of something that was decided before their birth, lending to the multi-generational nature of this epic. What’s interesting is that, while it’s clear that the Song patriots are the good guys, individual identities aren’t always clear. The novel raises the question of where an individual’s loyalty lies: the place of his birth, the place that raised him, or the future of his own choosing.

Rating PG-13

Some violence with details, but not super graphic or gory
Some alcohol, but more as a cultural / social activity
Bias Notes

As an asian writer who wants to support other asian writers, I’m predisposed to liking books that feature asian characters and are written by asian authors. Also, my dad is a longtime fan of Jin Yong’s works.

A Hero Born (Legends of the Condor Heroes #1) by Jin Yong, translated by Anna Holmwood, was available on Netgalley. I chose it because I wanted to try reading an Asian story written by an Asian author. It is the first book in a series that is described as epic. It is also historical fiction of a culture that is rich and vast. The story is large in every way. It is over 450 pages. The book begins with a Cast of Characters which list each major character's names and tells a little about them.

Guo Jing and Yang Kang were sworn brothers at their birth. Their fathers were heroes who were killed defending their country. Their mothers fled the area. The two boys ended up being raised by the two different powers. A Taoist priest searches for boys, to bring them together again as brothers and as fighting companions. The book reminded me of the great film The Seven Samurai.
It was difficult for me to keep the locations, names, and allegiances straight. I had the same problem with Russian Literature in college. I think I need to listen to the audiobook. After that, I will have a better understanding of the book.

I received a copy of the ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for a digital edition via NetGalley of ‘A Hero Born: the Definitive Edition’ by Jin Yong in exchange for an honest review. It was published in September.

This is the first volume in the Chinese classic ‘The Legends of the Condor Heroes’. It was translated by Anna Holmwood.

While I enjoy experiencing world literature and was excited to read this historical fantasy, I soon found myself struggling. I read 75% before throwing in the towel as I found that I wasn’t enjoying it at all.

I found the matter-of-fact style of writing just didn’t engage my interest in the story or characters and the endless fights just began to meld into one another. So many decapitations!

I am sure this novel and the series will appeal to some readers, just not me..

I have a passion for foreign language literature without the ability to read anything but English. So, when I saw that the masterful work of Jin Yong was being translated into English, I jumped at the chance to read book one in this renowned series.

Now he hardest thing I find about reviewing translated works is knowing where to place both the praise and the criticism between the author and the translator. For one, this is definitely a story you know you're going to be in for a while (there are so many in the series, and I hope they all are translated in the end) so it requires some patience. That being said, the beginning was a bit slow for me and though it picked up I found this up-and-down interest level of mine to last throughout the first half of the book. In particular, the scenes with the Seven Heroes were dragging in the same way a television show who lets every character speak in every scene loses steam. I also found the fight scenes where there are more than two fighters to be rather boring because of how many people had to be featured and their actions explained before moving on.

But, that's my main criticism of the book. This combination of historical fiction, coming-of-age, and fantasy really enjoyable to me and it's even better knowing how long running the series is because I want to invest in the characters that much more. I loved the first generation of characters and watching Guo Jing grow up. Any part that focused on the fathers and sons was fantastic to me, my interest only wained when the story deviated to secondary characters. The whole section with the Great Khan in Mongolia was great and I can't wait for our hero to get back there.

One thing I would've liked to see though is less westernizing of the characters names. While some fit, like Charity for example, others like Lotus probably could've been left fully Chinese and then ones like Hector were just strange to read amidst the unchanged names. That's a small thing though.

I'm really looking forward to book two and the rest of the series. Bringing these kinds of huge works to an English audience is a real treat for me and I can't wait to see where the sons go next.

Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher St. Martin's Press, the author Jin Yong, and the translator Anna Holmwood for the opportunity to do so.

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

A Hero Born (Legends of the Condor Heroes #1) by Jin Yong (translated by Anna Holmwood) is a martial arts epic, retelling Chinese legends. The author is one of China’s most widely read living writer.

The Song Empire in the 13th century has lost half its territory, including the capital, to the Jurchen invaders. While the war is raging, the peasants suffer and the great powers underestimate the Mongol warriors who are being untied by Genghis Khan.

In the great Kahn’s army, a son of a murdered Song patriot grows up. Gou Jing is humble and loyal, but not too smart. Gou Jing’s fate, however, is to confront an opponent who has many more advantages than him.

To help Gou Jing confront his fate, several masters, shifus, help him out. The Seven Heroes of the South train him endlessly so he can fulfill his destiny at the Garden of the Drunken Immortals.

As many people who do not live in China, I was unfamiliar with Yong, but I always enjoyed Chinese mythology (even though I could not tell you much about it) and the fantasy realm around them. The movies are mostly fantastic, so when I read about A Hero Born (Legends of the Condor Heroes #1) by Jin Yong (translated by Anna Holmwood), I decided to give it a shot.

This novel is very reminiscent of the old tales of knights and chivalry. Instead of swords, the warrior fight with kung fu, but are just as chivalrous and cartoonish. It’s easy to see how these stories have influenced many in the literary world, as well as other media such as TV shows and movies.
In fact, I could easily see Kill Bill and other Tarantino movies being influenced by these stories.

This novel is the first in a series of 12 books, Legends of the Condor Heroes. The novel draws on Chinese history, traditions, myths, and legends. The translation reads like an adult fairytale, it is vibrant and easily imagine if you’re a fan of kung-fu movies, or even the epics coming out of China in recent years.

I really didn’t like this one. While the story was fascinating, the translation just wasn’t right. There were various parts where the story just didn’t work anymore due to the translation being weird, like when a guy gets shot in the back of a head and precedes to act like nothing has happened, it was just really off putting and didn’t seem to be proofread at all.

I find myself in the position of recommending a book that I can't finish! This is a first for me. First published as a newspaper serial in China mid 20th century, you can see the origins of the Chinese martial arts sagas that have sustained the movie industry in China, and their graphic battle scenes, full of flying blood and body parts. Despite the fact that I usually read a book in the same amount of time as others watch movies, when it comes to bloody details, I can watch the movies, but I can't read a book with the same level of violence.
So it might be worthy of five stars if I could judge the entire story arc, but I just have to go with the writing of the first 100 or so pages, and give it 4 stars.

This is an old story translated from the Chinese. Supposedly a Chinese version of Lord of the Rings. I loved Lord of the Rings but couldn't get into this one at all.

This book wasn’t for me. I found the writing stilted and the story boring. I wanted to love it, but I just wasn’t meant to be.

A Hero Born is the first installment of a several book saga written by Jin Hong and translated from the original Chinese to English by Anna Holmwood. When I requested it from Netgalley, it was widely touted as the Chinese Lord of the Rings. I couldn’t disagree more.

But this opening portion of the saga is amazing. Blending history, myth, and some serious martial arts, A Hero Born introduces drama, love, kung fu, honor, and sedition and treachery in a volatile and compelling mix. For this westerner, at least, the history was somewhat known. The mythology was less known, and the various types of kung fu were a total mystery.

I really liked the mix of history and myth/story and despite not understanding all the kung fu moves named, enjoyed learning a little about the various styles. Certainly, there was a lot about the various styles, how they differ, a bit about the philosophies behind them, and how various heroes used different styles. I like the politics of kung fu as well, seeing which factions were in opposition to each other and which worked together, or at least didn’t obstruct each other.

Here, on the cusp of the end of the Song Dynasty, before Genghis Khan has risen to take power of the Mongols, when the Jin harry them all, we begin the journey. A kindness done, an honor broken, lives lost, a child born. And so, a legend begins and a title is revealed.

Despite feeling like some of the lyricism was lost in translation, I really enjoyed this book. It’s a glimpse into the past, into legends from another culture, and also into the values of that culture. No, this isn’t anything like Lord of the Rings. It’s completely compelling all on its own. I’m eager and ready for the next part.

I can see that this is a well-written book. It's a historical fantasy, set in ancient China. There's lots of kung fu an swordplay. I can see that it is a quality book, but I found the story hard to get into. Ultimately it just wasn't for me.

Book Review: A Hero Born (Legends of the Condor Heroes #1) by Jin Yong

"A hero is not merely born, he is honed in the moments when his love and loyalty are most sorely tested..."

Then comes the day when the hero saves Temujin, who is none other than Genghis Khan himself, the first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire.

The year is 1205. For decades the Song Empire has been fighting an invasion from the north by the Jurchen Jin Empire of Manchuria. Meanwhile, the great Mongol commander Temujin is gathering power and men out on the steppes...

There is a promise of epic battles, strategies, long arrays of helmets, swords and spears, hordes and cohorts of Dynasties and Empires and their foes.

Then that same promise takes a turn. A man, long thought dead - a ghost - rescues and flees with his long lost wife, she who'd kept his memories, his beloved spear, his garments. The promise takes the form of a universal and immortal tale of loyalty, heroism and eternal love.

Jin Yong crafts a seamless boundary between fact and myth of Chinese martial arts combat and swordsmanship, historical and fictional characters, and monumental events in Chinese and world history.

The original text in Kanji, a mixture of pictograms, ideograms and others, is colorfully rendered in picturesque Hanyu Pinyin translation. Translator Anna Holmwood took five years and provides an abundance of background on the use of terms, notes on the text, and a synopsis for the next three volumes of the collection.

Great author. Commendable translation. This is one captivating read!

Review based on a complimentary Advance Reading Copy from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley.

Wow, pretty good! It was an interesting and intricate story with lots of detail and history woven in. Worth a read if that's what you enjoy.

DNF. I feel guilty about not finishing this, because I don’t even think there is anything particularly wrong with it, except that we are just not jiving right now.

I attempted to read the introduction three times before I decided it was way too dry and skipped to the beginning. In the beginning, we meet two heroes, Skyfury Guo and Ironheart Yang, that feel earnest in their desire to be heroes, but also a little like SpongeBob and Patrick in their competence. I hate saying that- because I know this is a cherished piece of literature in China, but the whole thing just felt a little cartoonish.

The part that I read was technically all backstory for the hero: what happened in the months leading up to his birth. I might have continued if the introduction were dropped and the back story was reduced to 10-15 pages. (If we’re looking at the blurb: “Guo Jing, son of a murdered Song patriot” this is as far as I got in the book, the murdered Song patriot.) If the pacing is this slow, 15% of the book is back story, I just don’t want to continue.

The action scenes weren’t very exciting to me. I read once, that the difference between a good action scene and a bad one, is that a bad one will only describe what is happening. Good action scenes will describe how a character feels when they are in the action. This is a case where the movements are described adequately, but entirely without feeling.

I had a hard time envisioning the setting and the characters. The villains, from what I read, seemed like they weren’t going to be very fleshed out at any point in time. Just hooded figures, evil magistrates, maybe a shadowy emperor or something. It’s a dated method of story telling. Understandable, since it was originally written in 1957, but also something I don’t want to read right now.

I might come back to this at some point, knowing what I know and skipping the back story because the premise does sound very exciting (Genghis Khan!) but it’s not going to be any time soon and I don’t want to leave the book unreviewed on NetGalley. I attempted it. I made it through 70 dense pages or so.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley who provided a copy in exchange for review.

This has been a hard review to write because it has taken me so long to read.

This is a translation of a Chinese classic. This is the Chinese epic equivalent of J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis. It was originally published in 1957. Now we have an English translation for the first time.

And it took me a long time to read because the translation is absolutely top notch. The translator captured the culture perfectly, while still being accessible to an English reader. I may have struggled with the names, but the action and fantasy never made that be an obstacle to my reading.

I'll be cliche for a moment and say it was like having Crouching Tiger playing in my head every time I read a fight sequence. But that does not overshadow the life journey that is the heart of this story.

I recommend investing the time in reading this classic epic. You will learn a lot about yourself too.

This story was not an easy one to write the review as the original Chinese novel was released in the 1950s so a long time ago. And due to it, I think there was something off in the style for me as a modern woman.
The story starts right before the Jin Empire attack the Chinese provinces, but right before that one Taoist brings 'the prophecy' of future of two unborn yet children of Patriots.
After the attack, two pregnant women must RUN AWAY from their homes and find shelter somewhere in the world.
One of them will find herself in the enemy's empire, but maybe thanks to it she will be able to affect the future of this part of the world?
The other one will be thrown into Mongolian steps. A harsh place where it will be a miracle to survive, but meeting Khingis Khan might be a miracle or curse depends on the future.
Their sons (of two women that needed to run away) grew up separately and with a different set of enemies in their minds, but will they manage the life that long to reconnect like their fathers in the past?
I hope that book two will be even more imaginative than this one as I really liked 'A Hero Born'.