I had a feeling this was coming. We finally get to the death of Liu Bei. It’s almost too convenient for the Shu; he had just failed to control himself and in some ways “deserved” to die for overzealously pursuing his Peach Garden Oath. Kongming comes in charge just
Nights 739-756 This week’s story was about a princess from the sea people named Julnar and her son. It felt similar in a lot of ways, with the shape of a king looking for a wife and finding a perfect slave woman to have a son with. But
Chapters 83-84 The Romance is still good! Chapter 83 was one of my favorites so far. Liu Bei gets his revenge at the cost of Huang Zhong, his third tiger general. And even after they recover the Green Dragon sword and have vengeance on all of Lord Guan’s
Nights 719-738 A very familiar story, we have another prince who needs to win over a princess by sneaking into a garden. We’ve seen these since Taj al-Muluk in Night 107, maybe earlier. This one even reuses a very specific plot element: the prince learns the princess’
Chapters 81-82 The throne doesn’t seem to suit Liu Bei. Since becoming Emperor, he has been enraged about the deaths of his brothers from the Peach Garden Oath. Even Kongming can’t talk him down. When Zhuge Jin arrives from the South to try to convince him to
Nights 696-719 Forget the Ali from Cairo from Nights 424-434. This week’s story of Ali al-Zaibaq, also from Cairo, is much more entertaining. Unfortunately, it is also problematic, even more than the average Nights story. We get some hatred of Jews, blackface, and a woman who
Chapters 78-80 Tons of plot in these chapters. Most importantly, we get the deaths of a major character (Cao Cao) and minor characters (Xiahou Dun, Hua Tuo, Liu Feng). Hua Tuo’s death is one of my favorites, given my love of lost books. His “Book of the Black
Nights 681-695 After the last couple weeks, I was worried that I was tiring of the Nights. But there was some good stuff here! My enthusiasm for the Nights has been restored. We can thank al-Asma’i, who the index says was a real-life expert on the
Chapters 76-77 With the biggest death of the book so far, and likely one of the biggest in the book overall, we really get the sense of the end of a great one. Sun Quan beheads Lord Guan and quickly regrets it. Sun is advised that Liu Bei will
Nights 649-680 It’s hard for me to say why I found this story so much more tiresome than what came before it. Maybe I’m getting tired of the Nights. Maybe work is particularly stressful right now. If I were to look for an objective reason, I’d
Chapters 74-75 Lord Guan continues to seem more imperious and arrogant. He is almost a new character, not the hero of the march we saw in Chapters 27-28. We are almost rooting against him in Chapter 74 when Pang De arrives to fight him. But it’s not
Nights 624-648 For the next couple weeks or so, we’re in a war story. It has been very violent and fast-paced so far, almost to a fault. Some of the villains appear and are dispatched so quickly that it has been hard to get invested in them.