This pseudo-historical look at a world where gold is munched like nuts, people can live forever, monsters can be created by eating pearls and the dead are brought back to life by skilled magicians is amazing. It’s a dazzling juxtaposition of extreme wealth and abject poverty, where a person’s caste may not necessarily bind them to their position.
Fan Zǐlán is an ambitious character, smart, willful, determined, avaricious and loyal to her family. She’s also a mixed-race girl and despises her unseen father for blighting her both with a common name and a tainted past. She’s one of those characters with sharp edges, prickly to the point where she’ll saucily tell off a royal prince if she feels he’s misbehaving.
Her tale of how she rises from being a skilled worker, capable of resurrecting the dead, to an imperial alchemist is fascinating in its details. The author warns us that it’s only partially based on true historical details but don’t let that get in the way of what turns out to be a ripping good yarn, complete with a Cinderella romance (featuring a girl who doesn’t want to become royalty), the shambling dead, near-invulnerable beings with hardened skin of pearls, visions of the afterlife and a conniving concubine whose Machiavellian cunning makes her one of the most impressive villains you’ll ever read.
Fan Zǐlán’s tale gives us four redoubtable female presences, some of whom nearly overshadow her. But that’s not a bad thing. It would be insulting if she were the only smart person around and everybody else were dullards and dimwits. They form different aspects of the feminine and allow us other windows into these alien culture.
There is one caveat. At one time, the Moon Alchemist warns Zǐlán that she has been resurrected but that her life will be lost again if she lets one piece of gold pass her lips. But Zǐlán has been testing gold pieces brought to her by her clients for years by biting down on them to check if they are genuine! This is something that Zǐlán doesn’t mention to her or even think about herself. It makes me wonder if I’ve missed something in the text that explains this or whether the author made a mistake.
There will be a sequel and I want to see how Zǐlán makes her way in a world radically changed by her daring.
Fan Zǐlán is an ambitious character, smart, willful, determined, avaricious and loyal to her family. She’s also a mixed-race girl and despises her unseen father for blighting her both with a common name and a tainted past. She’s one of those characters with sharp edges, prickly to the point where she’ll saucily tell off a royal prince if she feels he’s misbehaving.
Her tale of how she rises from being a skilled worker, capable of resurrecting the dead, to an imperial alchemist is fascinating in its details. The author warns us that it’s only partially based on true historical details but don’t let that get in the way of what turns out to be a ripping good yarn, complete with a Cinderella romance (featuring a girl who doesn’t want to become royalty), the shambling dead, near-invulnerable beings with hardened skin of pearls, visions of the afterlife and a conniving concubine whose Machiavellian cunning makes her one of the most impressive villains you’ll ever read.
Fan Zǐlán’s tale gives us four redoubtable female presences, some of whom nearly overshadow her. But that’s not a bad thing. It would be insulting if she were the only smart person around and everybody else were dullards and dimwits. They form different aspects of the feminine and allow us other windows into these alien culture.
There is one caveat. At one time, the Moon Alchemist warns Zǐlán that she has been resurrected but that her life will be lost again if she lets one piece of gold pass her lips. But Zǐlán has been testing gold pieces brought to her by her clients for years by biting down on them to check if they are genuine! This is something that Zǐlán doesn’t mention to her or even think about herself. It makes me wonder if I’ve missed something in the text that explains this or whether the author made a mistake.
There will be a sequel and I want to see how Zǐlán makes her way in a world radically changed by her daring.