• Title: A Hero Born
• Author: Jin Yong
• Series: Legends of the Condor Book 1
• Pages: 395
• Genre: Wuxia / Historical Fiction
• Rating Out of 5 Stars: 3.5


My Thoughts:
The story itself is fictional but based with factual historical events. The main gist of it is two pregnant woman are left behind after their husbands (both are from prominent fighting families) are murdered. They and their children are separated, one is born and raised in the army of Genghis Khan and is fated to fight the son of the other family. You cover multiple generations of characters but that is the sum of it.
I remember back in the 90’s coming across this story through school. While my teacher gave us the general idea of the story, this translation (while not bad), I fear will go over many western readers heads. The writing can come across as very clunky and repetitive. The point of view can be hard to follow.
Wuxia is a classic Asian method of story-telling with beautifully rendered scenes that lend better to a physical/visual story telling then a written one. The story lines are often quite complex with many characters involved. Characters often have romanticized or lengthy titles and fight scenes are one motion followed by another counter-motion that can go on for several sentences. Because of this, in action scenes much of the page consists of titles of our present characters and the moves of their various fighting disciplines. For those not familiar with this approach, you’re probably not going to get much out of the scene. If you’ve seen movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, Hero, the fight scenes in these movies give you a general idea of the scenes in the book.
There’s a lot of action. If you are a fan of those types of movies, or are trained in any fighting disciplines, you’ll likely enjoy this title.
*E-ARC kindly provided by St. Martin’s Press via Netgalley

Raised on the Mongolian steppes by his mother, both of whom were under the care of the future Genghis Khan, Guo Jing was unaware he was the son of a Song patriot who was brutally killed by the Song dynasty's enemy, the Jin. Only after he had been trained for several years by the Seven Heroes of the South was he told he was meant to travel into China to face an opponent trained by a master of kung fu, the son of his father's sworn brother. But Guo Jing travels with little understanding of who he is to face and why.

For years, I have shied away from reading books by Chinese authors and books about the Chinese even though I am Chinese American. But, for some reason, I felt like I ought to read this one. I am not as familiar with Chinese history as I should be. My education focused on Western history with only the lightest brushes of Eastern history. Perhaps the fact that this book is set during the Song dynasty in the 1200s  made me feel this was a good one for me to read.

I prefer to write more balanced reviews that are as objective as I can make them. But, in this case, I was so strongly reminded of my childhood that that might not be possible. I somehow missed the fact that this is a kung fu book, written by a master of the kung fu novel who popularized them in China. The book description talks about Guo Jing being trained and having to fight an opponent. The cover depicts a warrior. You'd think I would have figured it out. Instead, it was all the fight scenes I kept reading. This book is littered with them. But of course it must be! It's a kung fu novel. What is a kung fu novel without kung fu? I do not enjoy violence. I do not enjoy books with copious amounts of fighting. But I didn't mind. Each fight scene reminded me of the old Chinese kung fu movies I used to watch with my dad. Granted, I never watched them closely, but, while reading, I could easily remember and imagine them. It was like having wisps of my childhood fed back into my brain. But what really struck me about the fight scenes in this book versus those in more Western novels was the respect given to and in the battles by the participants. They were different and so reminiscent of what I know of my heritage that I actually enjoyed fight scenes in a book for the first time ever.

But as much as I enjoyed and appreciated this novel, there were still a few things I didn't particularly care for. This first volume spans almost 20 years, so there are massive time jumps, and sometimes they're right in the middle of a chapter. It was a little disorienting. But, with those time jumps, come events that impact the present and future that then need to be told. I appreciate that the characters lived lives during the time jumps and what they did was important to the story, but those bits of information were seemingly dropped in the middle of the narrative when it became necessary for the reader to know that something had happened years before. I liked knowing what had happened because then it made the present story make more sense, but it did make the novel feel a little choppy. Lastly, the point of view shifted around between the two wives, Charity and Lily, in a strange, disproportionate way. This book is the first three volumes of the series put into one, but there is no delineation of this. The story simply runs together. After their husbands are attacked, the story follows Charity for a while, but then it switches to Lily, and then her son Guo Jing, and Charity and her child are seemingly forgotten.

My understanding is that Jin Yong's stories are incredibly popular in China, so perhaps my complaints are due to my Westernized upbringing. Still, the story is enjoyable and does not disappoint as a novel focused on the martial arts. I loved the Eastern feel of it, and loved how nostalgic it made me. Overall, this is a fun story full of adventure and excitement.


Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a free e-copy. All opinions are my own.

Link to post: https://thelilycafe.com/2019/09/17/book-review-a-hero-born-by-jin-yong/

I liked the basic storyline of this book and I felt it had plenty of potential. However, in my opinion, the book was kind of hard to read. The flow of words seemed clunky and that really made it hard to get fully into the story. I also felt that there was a severe lack of excitement to the fight/battle scenes. I thought that it was difficult to pin down the actual identity of this book. I anticipated epic fantasy but often ended up thinking B-movie or video game (which I both enjoy, by the way). I'm not sure if this was caused simply from it's translation or from tweeks that had been made to make it more modern and mainstream.

I was unaware that this was translated work, which worked out perfect because my goal was to read more works this year. Y’all this book was amazing! Epic battles. Mystical and creatively weird powers developed by supreme dedication to the art. This book was the rush I needed. I fear now I have a book hangover; how can I get my hands on the next book? This is a must read!

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press & Netgalley for gifting me this DARC in exchange for an honest review.

I very much wanted to enjoy this translated work but I found myself getting lost so many times. There were just too many characters and too much happening while also simultaneously nothing was happening. I love the history of Genghis Khan but this book wasn't for me either. I can understand the appeal to some but it definitely wasn't comparable to Lord of the Rings for me.

This is a classic case of "I love the idea of this book more than the execution," or perhaps more precisely it's a case of "I love that this book exists, but it's just not for me." I have loved both wuxia (martial arts inspired Chinese fantasy) films as well as less fantastical works of Chinese historical fiction (a la Netflix's RISE OF PHOENIX) and Chinese science fiction (including THE THREE BODY-PROBLEM and so forth) in the past. I'm also wary of the bottleneck that seems inherent to translating works from a world so rich in publishing as the Chinese market, with only a few authors making it onto Western shelves. To that end, I love that A HERO BORN is out there in the world, introducing new readers to a new and worthy author, series, and world.

Personally? I did not love the translation style. And as far as fantasy epics go, this one didn't push a lot of the boundaries and buttons I need it to. I don't know how much of that is a consequence of the many competing pressures on Chinese authors. And I don't know how much I was put off by this being a somewhat tediously conventional patriotic narrative. I'm just not in a place where I can enjoy that as much as others might. There are ways to turn the highbrow distant narrator-voice into a feature rather than a drawback, but perhaps because of the translator's style, it came off stilted and cold.

The epic Chinese classic and phenomenon published in the US for the first time!
A fantastical generational saga and kung fu epic, Jin Yong's A Hero Born is the classic novel of its time, stretching from the Song Empire (China 1200 AD) to the appearance of a warlord whose name will endure for eternity: Genghis Khan.

After his father was murdered, Guo Jing and his mother fled to the plains and joined Genghis Khan and his people. Loyal, humble and driven, he learned all he could from the warlord and his army in hopes of one day joining them in their cause. But what Guo Jing doesn’t know is that he’s destined to battle an opponent that will challenge him in every way imaginable and with a connection to his past that no one envisioned.

With the help and guidance of his shifus, The Seven Heroes of the South, Guo Jing returns to China to face his foe and carry out his destiny. But in a land divided by treachery and war, betrayal and ambition, he’ll have to put his courage and knowledge to the test to survive.

*** At first I wasn’t sure I would finish this book for the first pages listed ALL the characters and their backgrounds right from the start. And there seemed like hundreds! [Pretty darn close too!] And note these were not common names but ones I couldn’t pronounce so consequently, my reading was a bit slow at first until I really got into the story. But once in I was HOOKED! Even though the names were foreign, the action and pace moved extraordinarily fast. And that is due to the excellent translation of the tome by Anna Holmwood. It was an easy read with enormous momentum, and some of the key characters (of which some did not last long in this brutal world of fantasy and wonder) added a plethora of emotions from horror and hate to caring and love.

However, I did finish this book and there are a lot of words I can use to describe it – AWESOME – FABULOUS – UNFORGETTABLE – EMOTIONALLY STIRRING. Loved the pace, the people, the historical strands of actual historical figures, and the wonder of the fantasy and of course, the descriptions of all the martial arts moves and action!

Highly Recommended!!!

Marilyn Rondeau * marilynsbookreviews.com

When I requested this book, I thought it was the first in a series and that it was a new book [the description on NetGalley leads you to believe this]. Turns out, I was very, very, misinformed.

This is the first book in a set of T W E L V E [that has been out in Chinese for years]. And currently, it is the only one that has been translated from the Chinese into English [You find this out at the beginning of the book in a note from the translator]. AND! [as I just found out], the book just ends - at a very pivotal point I might add - and leaves you wondering WHAT just happened and what will happen and now I will never know what happens to all these people that I have spent 6 days reading about [I figured, given the title, that each of the twelve books was an independent story, each with a hero of the Condor. I was wrong.[. Six days of rough reading - this is not an easy book to read; it is filled with both Mongolian and Chinese customs [I am unfamiliar with most of them; thank goodness for my Kindle and the translation app it has], LOTS of Kung-fu [it is mostly as story about Kung-fu training and the different styles] and war and fighting. Lots and lots of war and fighting. And unfortunately, most of the time, the translation makes you feel like you are reading a 1960's subtitled Kung-fu movie [I actually read some of it with those kind of voices in my head], which was frustrating.

There were moments where I really did like the story, but then the fighting would begin again.
I will also say there are a bazillion characters - 6 pages of them at the front of the book. Several of them have the same name. Many use disguises and you find out they are a totally different person later in the book [and have to go back and try and figure out who they were in disguise]. It was, at many points, very confusing.

I am sure there are many people who will love this book - I myself enjoyed many parts of it, but it was mostly a miss for me. I am upset that I will never know what happened to all of the characters though. THAT should have been made clear in the description for the book so you would know before requesting it.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from this book when I first picked this up. It’s not a genre I’ve tried before, so I was intrigued about this one, mostly. And what I got was a chaotic, meandering, and above all entertaining tale.

A Hero Born is part one (of four, in book 1 of a trilogy) of Legends of the Condor Heroes. So, already, you could kind of expect the sort of plot this book would follow. There is a lot of backstory going on in this book. The storyline the blurb promises doesn’t even really start until probably around a third of the way in. But it’s okay, because there are a lot of action scenes to keep you interested in the meantime (even if sometimes they had me a little like how does that work??).

It’s kind of hard to explain what the book is about, because it’s so meandering. At its heart is a bet. Between the Seven Freaks of the South and a Taoist, over which of two sons will prevail in a contest. Only, first, they have to find/rescue the sons and train them. One boy ends up being raised as the son of a Jin prince, while the other finds himself raised among the army of Genghis Khan.

When I say this book was meandering, I mean I never really expected it to have a climax and ending in the way another novel might. In fact, I wasn’t all that surprised that it seemed to end mid-scene more than anything. It’s a book of periods of lulls followed by richly detailed and intricate fight scenes (which contrast sharply with the battles the author chooses not to describe at all), so its pacing feels a little all over the place. (Of course, how much of that is the book, and how much is the translation, I don’t know.)

There is one thing that threw me about the translator’s choices though, and that’s their decision to translate some of the characters’ names literally. For one, you have Skyfuro Guo or, memorably, Copper Corpse Hurricane Chen. But then, there are some names which don’t get translated (I think). But if you’re going to make the (very odd) decision to translate, why not translate all of them? Or, just let your readers read some non-Western names. Surely they can cope.

That (and the 1950s misogyny) aside, it was an enjoyable book, though. And one which I may, in future, be tempted to continue with.

I feel so bad for DNF’ing this book.. I was so ready for this Chinese inspired book!
Sometimes I feel stupid when reading a book because I just have no clue what the f*ck is going on.. This was one of those books.
I was just very confused about what was going on and how the different stories connected. In the beginning we followed two couples who were attacked by soldiers, and only one of the girls is saved who we then continue to follow. And I was enjoying this part! Than randomly we switch to this Taoist (who was shortly mentioned before). And I just couldn’t follow this part of the story at all, and I had no clue how it connected to the first part. Probably if I continued on reading, I might have figured it out. But it was just too confusing and I wasn’t enjoying my time reading it!
I’m very sad this wasn’t for me! But I’m pretty sure this book is much loved by many people, so hopefully you might enjoy this! You might enjoy this better if you’re familiar with the events this is based on!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC of this book for honest feedback.

Reading the synopsis...
"The Song Empire has been invaded by its warlike Jurchen neighbours from the north. Half its territory and its historic capital lie in enemy hands; the peasants toil under the burden of the annual tribute demanded by the victors. Meanwhile, on the Mongolian steppe, a disparate nation of great warriors is about to be united by a warlord whose name will endure for eternity: Genghis Khan.

Guo Jing, son of a murdered Song patriot, grew up with Genghis Khan's army. He is humble, loyal, perhaps not altogether wise, and is fated from birth to one day confront an opponent who is the opposite of him in every way: privileged, cunning and flawlessly trained in the martial arts.

Guided by his faithful shifus, The Seven Heroes of the South, Guo Jing must return to China - to the Garden of the Drunken Immortals in Jiaxing - to fulfil his destiny. But in a divided land riven by war and betrayal, his courage and his loyalties will be tested at every turn."

This is the first book in this sci-fi/fantasy read. And what I missed that this was actually a "translation"; which I tend to avoid from past bad reading experiences. I just could not get into this novel! I was bummed, because I thought I would enjoy it from reading the synopsis.

I rated this 2.25/5 stars. It just was not for me.

Guo Jing and his mother had to flee China for the northern steppes of Mongolia when his father was killed. He grew up there and eventually was under the tutelage of the Khan Temujin, the man that would become Genghis Khan, as well as the fabled Seven Heroes of the South. The plan is to get stronger and more skilled so that he could return to China and avenge his father's death.

A Hero Born is book one of the Legends of the Condor Heroes, and there is an extensive note before the novel opens explaining this. The story of the Condor Heroes is a beloved one in China, and is a series of trilogies with epic kung fu, generational sagas, heated emotions and misunderstandings spurring on dramatic quests and pledges, as well as the strong ties of different fighting styles and techniques. I can't stress epic enough; this novel spans almost twenty years and involves a large enough cast of characters that we get a character list in the beginning of the book explaining the connections between them all. It starts off slow and there are moments of shifting perspectives that can make it a little hard to track who we're following. I don't think it's an artifact from the translation process, but a factor of the different storytelling style. If you enjoy the old kung fu movies (the kind with the bad dub jobs and obvious red paint for the flying blood spatters), this is the legend that spawned the entire genre.

The Song patriots Skyfury Guo and Ironheart Yang live as farmers with their wives when the Jin invade parts of China. Song officials are known to be corrupt, and some are less willing to protect the common folk from the Jin, let alone all of the tribes in the north. With both men assist a monk that killed a corrupt official, they are ultimately killed and their pregnant wives are taken hostage. Their sons are then the ones to eventually be trained and take up the mantle of justice that their fathers had carried. This particular volume follows more of Guo Jing's story, and that of his teachers, as well as their feuds and stories. It can seem over the top at times, but that's the nature of the art form. I was drawn into the story and the intense drama surrounding Guo Jing, and any fan of kung fu and wuxia stories will love this.

This review is set to release on September 27, 2019 www.quillandbooks.com/2019/09/27/a-hero-born


This one it is hard to evaluate the writing. Really I’m evaluating the translation. As a reader, I found this translation very difficult to follow. I teach ESL and I love learning about other cultures, so I was excited to immerse myself in a story originally written in Chinese. The words are translated to English, but there was so much in the way everything was phrased that I really could not follow this story very well. I kept having to look back and determine who this character was in relation to others.

I wanted to like this book because I love stories that have a large cast of character and a rich history. This seems like a story that has that. Unfortunately, I couldn’t grasp the cultural context, subtleties of the Chinese culture enough to grasp this story. I couldn’t relate to the characters or understand their motives. Here is an example of sentences from chapter one:

“I am forever in Madam’s debt, for you saved my life.” (I’m no translation expert but why use the word Madam?)

Later, Yan Lie realizes he has been robbed when the hotel attendant asks for payment. Instead of having the police summoned, he starts a fight with the attendant and beats up some thugs to get the police involved. Then when the police come, he presents a letter to summon the governor of the town. WHY? Why, when he realized he’d been robbed, did he not just ask the attendant to summon the police and the governor to find out who robbed him? I read plenty of novels with violence but in those stories there is usually a good reason for it. This is one example in which I feel like I am missing something because the book has sold enough copies to warrant several reprints, so clearly the book is good, at least to some. This makes me think it makes more sense to those who read it in the original language.

I wish the translator had taken more liberties in her translation to make the story more understandable for the american population.

Who Will Like This?
I can’t recommend this book for students. It is not aimed at students. For example, from what I can understand, Charity is married to a man. Yan Lie is part of an army group that attacks their village. Charity finds Yan Lie wounded and saves him. Yan Lie later returns, murders Charity’s husband and kidnaps her. Charity, not knowing he is her husband’s murderer, falls in love with this kidnapper.

So who will like this? I think those who read it in the original language, would like this.

Folks who follow me and G-POP.net know that I am a huge fan of kung fu movies. I love films like Five Deadly Venoms, The Crippled Avengers, Executioners from Shaolin, Invincible Armour and more. So when I heard that there was a book out there that inspired many of the kung fu films I watched as a kid, I had to get my hands on it. I couldn’t wait to read A Hero Born by Jin Yong.
Written in the 1950s and never before translated into English, A Hero Born takes place during the battle between the Japanese and the Song Empire and the rise of Genghis Khan. The book begins in 1205 with two friends Skyfury Guo and Ironheart Yang who are trying to survive with their pregnant wives in the midst of serious political strife. The Jin Empire is advancing towards their part of China and their own capital is showing signs of corruption and a lean toward allowing the Jin to take over.
The two soon find themselves helping a Taoist monk named Qiu Chuji, a man who would inadvertently brings death to their homes as they aid him in fighting Jin soldiers and Song officials, marking them as traitors. Attempting to spare their pregnant wives, the two fight for their freedom. Guo and Yang are believed dead and their wives go underground to protect their unborn babies.
We flash forward and meet Guo Jing, son of Skyfury Guo who has grown up amongst the great warrior Genghis Kahn’s people. Gaining recognition by the Kahn as a young man with fierce loyalty and a humble spirit, Genghis Khan orders his best men to train Guo Jing in the arts of war. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Guo Jing, a sort of bet has been struck between the Seven Freaks of the South and the Taoist Qiu Chuji. Distraught that he may have caused the death of Skyfury Guo and Ironheart Yang, Qiu Chuji has been trying to find their offspring for years. Through the ruse of a bet, he enlists the aid of the great martial artists to help him find one of them in hopes that he will bring them together again.
When the Seven Freaks come upon Guo Jing, they train him to their best abilities, but find that no matter how earnestly he tries, he can’t seem to perfect his skills…that is, until he meets another mysterious Taoist who helps him train in secret. As Guo Jing grows in skill and maturity, it becomes time for him to return home and face the son of his dead father’s long-lost friend. But the revelations that come during this quest may be more than Guo Jing and the Freaks have bargained for.
As I read this book, I found myself smiling. A Hero Born is very clearly the early inspiration for a great many of the kung fu films I watched as a child. The stories often begin with a wrongful murder and a need to avenge the victim. Often times the deceased is a victim of a corrupt official who has been bought off by a member of the invading Japanese Empire. Sometimes that victim is a rebel fighting those invading forces. Those who choose to go against this evil enemy find themselves going through rigorous, and often times unorthodox, trainings to get into shape for the final battle against the big bad. Often times that big bad has some unusual sort of kung fu which allows them to leap amazing distances, balance atop incredibly small items, appear to be unharmed despite being struck by heavy and damaging blows and there are some who have the ability to appear invincible, hiding one specific spot that, if struck, will mean their deaths.
A Hero Born has all of these and more, including those awesome sounding specialty moves like Bare Hand Seizes Blade, Deadly Dragon Flies the Cave, Roll Down the Bead Curtain, the Five Finger Blade technique, and the amazing lightness kung fu techniques. The story plays out just like the movies and I could actually picture each and every scene in my mind’s eye. I was captivated by this novel and found myself telling every fan of those old karate flicks that I knew about A Hero Born.
Of course, there comes a point when you reach the end of a novel and I was saddened when I finally reached the last page, especially since it ended in a cliffhanger. That being said, I am happy to tell you that A Hero Born is part of a series of stories written by Jon Yong called Legends of the Condor Heroes. I can’t wait to read the rest of this series!

DNF'd @ 15%

I was really looking forward to A Hero Born, but unfortunately it just wasn't for me. I'm not entirely sure if that has more to with the genre or this new translation into English, but the style didn't do anything for me. I felt entirely disconnected from all of the characters and events to that point. I have a feeling though that I may enjoy the story in another format. Oh, well. Thanks anyway, NetGalley.

Reading "A Hero Born" brought me back to being a college student almost 10 years ago when I first heard of "Legend of the Condor Heroes." It was always on my "to watch" list that I had of Asian dramas, but I never got around to it. I might have to check out the latest dramatization of it though, because "A Hero Born" became a fun and enjoyable read. 
If I was going to write a review for the first 30% of the book though, it would have been 2.5 stars. I was not enjoying it to the point of dreading it. Trying to understand the history while parsing through literal translations of people's names and attacks was frustrating. Having a prologue that explains some of the history helped, but I actually found reading a few wiki articles about the Song and Jin empires and Genghis Khan helped me have a better appreciation for the story and helped the setting make a bit more sense.

I don't know if it is the translation, or a product of the times (I believe this was originally written in 1957), but it reads a bit choppy. It took me a while to get used to the style of writing and appreciate the story. As part of the translation, the translator used literal naming conventions. As a result, you get names like "Skyfury Guo" and "Justice Duan"- rather than what they would be called in Chinese. It was distracting reading names in this way, but I can't hate on it too much because it makes sense- if you're not used to seeing or hearing Chinese names and you don't know the meaning of the names, a lot more would be lost in translation.

Even with that difficult beginning, I still rated this as a 4-star book. It's a Chinese classic and once I got over the slowness and difficulty of the first half of the book, the second half was really interesting. I look forward to sequel (book one ends with a bit of a cliffhanger!).

On a side note: I loved the endnote of this book- it's not a spoiler so I won't tag it as such. "Legend of the Condor Heroes" was a mistranslation because condors are not native to Asia. The title remains though because the story has been popularized as "Legend of the Condor Heroes." How crazy/fun/interesting is that?!

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced reader's copy of this book. I'm so glad to see this new translation and re-release of this Chinese classic.

DNF @ 17%

I honestly went in with a little doubt, because translated texts are so hit or miss with me, depending on if things are translated to the letter of the original (which often sounds weird in English) or translated in the spirit of the original. I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the translation! Bearing in mind that this is a book written long ago from a different culture, I expected there to be differences in the prose from what I'm used to or normally read. For the most part, though, the translation flowed smoothly (smoother than I expected, for sure) and was really easy to get into and read.

Ultimately, though, this book was just not for me, as I need a little more from my prose and plot. There are a lot of things I recognize from wuxia, and if you like that genre, you'll probably enjoy this. The fighting scenes aren't particularly action-packed or drawn out, but they're easy to picture and what you might expect from the genre. For me, though, the hardest part was a lack of a real plot. Unless I absolutely love the characters (which I feel like I didn't really know these characters, and this isn't the sort of story where I feel I'd connect with them well), I need some action or momentum, and this book just doesn't provide that.

Speaking of which, there were a lot of characters, and like I said, the writing style and story structure just didn't lend actually getting to know them. Which I really need, personally. Also, I knew this story just wasn't for me about the fourth time one of the lead females contemplated simply committing suicide because she's just merely a woman and what more can she do.

I've seen this story compared to Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, and I think that really hurts it. If you're going in expecting either one of those, you're doomed to be disappointed. This is very obviously classical Eastern literature, which shouldn't be compared to Western literature, because they're very different, with different writing styles and tropes and expectations, etc. I think it sets the wrong expectations. No, it doesn't particularly have anything in common with the two comped titles other than that it's a high fantasy story.

Even though this book isn't for me, personally, I can see it being a big hit for fans of wuxia and/or those who are used to reading Chinese translated works. I think of someone like my husband, in particular, who loves reading Chinese novels, and who doesn't care so much about how the prose sounds or if it starts slow, but is more in it for the overall payoff of the story as a whole.

DNF @ 59%

Do you enjoy Chinese martial arts films?
Are you able to forgive weak, clunky prose?

If you answered yes to both questions, then this is the book for you.

First, the good: this is a charmingly classic story, especially if you're familiar with the Chinese wuxia genre. Oaths of brotherhood, endless talk of honour and loyalty, the never-ending balance of issuing challenges and trying to save face for oneself and one's opponent. Qiu Chuji's proposal of an 18 year challenge to the Seven Freaks, which would prove their skills without making any of them lose face, was a stroke of genius on behalf of the plot.

Unfortunately, I found myself struggling to get through this book. I wish there was more character development to make the narrative flow better, and to alleviate the neverending flow of battles, but alas, this is not a book for someone that enjoys deeper exploration of characters.

What more, the extremely inelegant prose hampered how much i could enjoy the plot. I've not read the original Chinese version, so I won't remark upon the translation's faithfulness. But I imagine the following issues were likely present in the original version, which debuted over 50 years ago to a world with very different literary standards from now. Readers should go into this book expecting several things that would be considered basic writing flaws nowadays. Clunky sentences, awkward transitions, sudden leaps of logic, random information dumps plunked down in the middle of nowhere, a *heavy* reliance on telling vs showing, POV-jumping up the wazoo—oh boy, this book is merciless in how it clashes with modern writing sensibilities. Chunks of the book read like a Wikipedia plot summary rather than an actual fiction narrative replete with dialogue, description, etc.

I see some other reviews picked this book up upon hearing it was the Chinese equivalent of The Lord of the Rings—and I couldn't think of a worse way to introduce readers to this book. If you come to this book expecting Tolkien's mastery of prose, you will leave sorely disappointed. Conversely, if you hate how slowly Tolkien paced his stories and wished he described trees less often and jumped straight into the battles (not me! Tell me more about every single leaf, Professor Tolkien!), you might just love A Hero Born, which is action-packed from beginning to end.

It's not without its merits, but unfortunately, A Hero Born fell short of my expectations.

It's always hard to review a book where you're needing to critique both the original material and the translation, which is the case here. The book is the first book in The Legend of the Condor Heroes series originally published in 1957. The new edition, published here, is the first American version of this now classic novel.

As someone who was not familiar with the original source material nor any of the movies and television series made from the source material, I did enjoy the fantasy world-building that occurred within this novel. It's billed as a Chinese Lord of the Rings, which may not be a completely appropriate comparison, in my opinion. However, it is a fantasy journey that the heroes must undertake, which is why I think the comparison is made.

As a whole, I found the read enjoyable if a bit long-winded in a few places. Again, it's hard to tell if this is from the original or a result of the translation here. For those interested in fantasy quests, I definitely think this book is going to be a must read for many.

I had the opportunity to review this book prior to its publication from the publisher. However, the review is completely my own and not impacted by the publishers.

Ahoy there mateys! I tried multiple times (3+) to get into this book and just wasn't excited to keep reading. I am not really sure if this was because of me mood or the translation or the story itself. I am not adverse to trying again in the future because it sounds awesome. But I have come to terms with the fact that I am not going to read this before its release date of 9/17/19. I am however grateful to the publisher for the review copy. Happy reading and sailing!