Most of the action here is with Xuande’s crew: Ma Chao defects to him, and Lord Guan fends off Lu Su’s assassination attempts. It’s a good narrative. I’m over halfway through Three Kingdoms, and I’m still finding myself curious to see what happens next. In
Nights 537-566 These are the nights of Sindbad, which I’ve compressed into a single week. It’s a longer week than normal; I’ll make up for it next week by limiting myself to just the nights of the City of Brass. Sindbad is among the most famous
Chapters 62-63 With the death of Pang Tong, things seem like they are falling apart for Liu Bei just as he is finally taking the Shu. It’s been interesting to see how the author makes Liu Bei remain heroic even as he conquers the Riverlands from his distant
Nights 508-536 The three nested stories from last week all end, each with a happy ending for all but the snake queen and the villains. Janshah has the best story. He wins a difficult bride: the beautiful Shamsa, a jinn woman whose bird costume lets her fly like a
Chapters 60-61 I’m happy to report that the new minor characters that ended Chapter 59 turned into a good plot related to our main characters. They bring us to Zhang Song, whose physical description reminded me of a frog (“an angular brow . . . a tapered skull; his nose was
Nights 483-507 Wow, this was a great week and quite a shift in style! This week we get the start of three nested stories: first Karim, then Buluqiya, then Janshah. Karim’s story starts off fine; the best part is how he gets trapped in a pit of honey
In these chapters, we have a quick goodbye to Zhou Yu, reintroduce Pang Tong (Young Phoenix), spend most of our time on the rise and fall (?) of Ma Chao, and finally end with introducing two confusingly named enemies: Zhang Lu and Liu Zhang. There are some good highlights. Pang Tong
Nights 462-482 This week has lots of short stories. First, it's a few about the Angel of Death coming for various wealthy people. Then we get some stories about piety and how Islam is superior to Christianity. Overall, it's not a strong week. One of
Chapters 55-56 We get a good episode with Xuande and Lady Sun, then a brief interlude with Cao Cao, then another failed scheme by Zhou Yu. Cao Cao’s interlude is the best. He has finally finished the Bronze Bird Tower, and it’s a classic villain’s lair.
Nights 437-461 Tawaddud is the ideal of a young woman in the Nights: religious, brilliant, sexually desirable (sigh), and a slave (sigh again). The Nights are starting to wear me down with all the authors’ lusting over slave children. In the story, Tawaddud impresses the sultan and his advisors
Chapters 53-54 We’re over 900 pages into the book, and we’re still meeting significant characters. Chapter 53 brings us Huang Zhong. At first, he seems to be an enemy of Liu Bei, but instead he joins him. In the same chapter, we lose a minor character (Taishi
Nights 414-436 This week starts with a bunch of short stories, followed by a story about Ali from Cairo (a character from a Magic card). The early short stories are fine, with the huge caveat that they involve love between men and slave girls. After those, we get a