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Chinese Dragons
You have farmed with your uncle in rural seventh-century China for as long as you can remember. Your long, tiring days in the fields come to an end when barbarians raid your small village. Will they torment you as a prisoner, or take you to a more exciting life?
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
3 people are currently reading
94 people want to read
About the author
R.A. Montgomery
156 books122 followersRaymond A. Montgomery (born 1936 in Connecticut) was an author and progenitor of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure interactive children's book series, which ran from 1979 to 2003. Montgomery graduated from Williams College and went to graduate school at Yale University and New York University (NYU). He devoted his life to teaching and education.
In 2004, he co-founded the Chooseco publishing company alongside his wife, fellow author/publisher Shannon Gilligan, with the goal of reviving the CYOA series with new novels and reissued editions of the classics.
He continued to write and publish until his death in 2014.
In 2004, he co-founded the Chooseco publishing company alongside his wife, fellow author/publisher Shannon Gilligan, with the goal of reviving the CYOA series with new novels and reissued editions of the classics.
He continued to write and publish until his death in 2014.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 29, 2024
Credit Choose Your Own Adventure for taking its readers to obscure eras in history, mining the richness of past civilizations for their distinct drama and intrigue. In Chinese Dragons, you are an orphan who walked many miles years ago to seek refuge on your uncle's farm after a plague wiped out your village, including your parents. It is A.D. 620 in China, ruled by the T'ang dynasty, a fearful time for commoners. Eastern Turks constantly invade from Mongolia, ransacking villages and murdering peasants as they stake claim on an ever-increasing swatch of the land. Their hegemony would seem inevitable if it not for Li Shi-min, a charismatic young Chinese warrior many believe has the intelligence and force of will to repel the Turks. You long to join Li Shi-min's patriotic soldiers and meet the Turks in battle, but all of that seems remote from your life. Your uncle, Wei T'ai, is not as prosperous a farmer as he once was. The River Wei has ebbed in recent years, making for meager harvests, and you are required to work from sunup to sundown gathering what little the dry land produces. Joining Li Shi-min's army seems an absurd dream, until one morning your cousin, Shining Face, announces that a ceremonial animal sacrifice by the military is planned near the city of Loyang, which isn't far from where you live. Wei T'ai would be furious if you abandoned your farming duties to attend the sacrifice, but is this not a monumental day for China?
"Do not welcome self-pity. It is but a poor guest who will rob you of much joy and energy."
—Chinese Dragons, P. 13
You owe your uncle for taking you in after your parents died, but if you elect to stay at the farm, the war soon comes to you. Eastern Turks swarm the village, torching buildings and killing all who resist. Even your mongrel dog, Black Moon, is a target. Within minutes most of your family and neighbors are brutally slain, and a Turk named Yi-Tung plans on selling you in the slave marketplace of Kashgar. You may find that Shining Face has also survived the massacre, but that's the only ray of hope. Will you go quietly with Yi-Tung, or would you rather wait for his associate, Three Finger Tong? He can't be as bad as Yi-Tung...right? You'll have opportunities to escape en route to Kashgar on horseback, but be cautious. You might wind up traveling with Hungry Eye, one of Yi-Tung's soldiers, and witness a confrontation between him and the legendary Li Shi-min; or, you and Hungry Eye could be injured in a riding accident. With the belligerent Turk at your mercy, will you seek help or let him die in the wilderness? Allow the spirits of your parents and grandfather to shepherd you toward the right decisions.
If you leave your uncle's farm to attend the sacrifice, you're spared the carnage of the imminent Turkish raid. You and your dog, Black Moon, are greeted on the road by a pair of strangers, a tailor named Han Yu and his wife, Flower. They're migrating to Loyang in search of a better economic future. They offer to hire you as an assistant, but are you ready to forsake your hope of joining Li Shi-min's army? If not, you'll eventually find their base of operations and enlist, but being a soldier isn't as romantic as you imagined. Few untrained fighting men will survive armed conflict with the Turks. Casting your lot with Han and Flower is safer, but succeeding in Loyang won't be easy; the city is a center of commerce and power, and attracts unsavory elements who wish to control that power. You'll have a sighting of Li Shi-min even if you go with Han and Flower, watching as hordes of Chinese await the sacrifice of a white horse to please the gods. Can you resist the urge to abandon your new career and follow Li Shi-min? China is at a crossroads in its history, and you are at a similar point in your own. Will you be an agent of peace, or war? Are you destined to shape history, or live and work in the relative anonymity of Loyang? The future is yours to decide.
Chinese Dragons is more culturally detailed than many Choose Your Own Adventure books, but it lacks action. Your goal of uniting with Li Shi-min to fight for Chinese freedom is never fully realized; even if you join the military, an ending is usually reached before you do anything of consequence. Because so little happens, Chinese Dragons isn't an interesting book, though it had potential to be. R.A. Montgomery's writing is decent, and there are a few bits of insight sprinkled throughout the text. At one point you marvel at your own inconsistency as a person: "Sometimes you think that there are several people inside you; one brave, one cowardly; one intelligent, and another who is a fool. You don't seem to be able to control which one it is who takes command of the situation." You're flawed, but so is every young person, doing their best to maximize their virtues and minimize character weaknesses on the journey of life. The events of this book will refine your personal qualities, if you survive. I rate Chinese Dragons one and a half stars; it could have been a more exciting, meaningful story, but it isn't bad. If I ever want a low-key historical gamebook, I'll come back to this one.
"Do not welcome self-pity. It is but a poor guest who will rob you of much joy and energy."
—Chinese Dragons, P. 13
You owe your uncle for taking you in after your parents died, but if you elect to stay at the farm, the war soon comes to you. Eastern Turks swarm the village, torching buildings and killing all who resist. Even your mongrel dog, Black Moon, is a target. Within minutes most of your family and neighbors are brutally slain, and a Turk named Yi-Tung plans on selling you in the slave marketplace of Kashgar. You may find that Shining Face has also survived the massacre, but that's the only ray of hope. Will you go quietly with Yi-Tung, or would you rather wait for his associate, Three Finger Tong? He can't be as bad as Yi-Tung...right? You'll have opportunities to escape en route to Kashgar on horseback, but be cautious. You might wind up traveling with Hungry Eye, one of Yi-Tung's soldiers, and witness a confrontation between him and the legendary Li Shi-min; or, you and Hungry Eye could be injured in a riding accident. With the belligerent Turk at your mercy, will you seek help or let him die in the wilderness? Allow the spirits of your parents and grandfather to shepherd you toward the right decisions.
If you leave your uncle's farm to attend the sacrifice, you're spared the carnage of the imminent Turkish raid. You and your dog, Black Moon, are greeted on the road by a pair of strangers, a tailor named Han Yu and his wife, Flower. They're migrating to Loyang in search of a better economic future. They offer to hire you as an assistant, but are you ready to forsake your hope of joining Li Shi-min's army? If not, you'll eventually find their base of operations and enlist, but being a soldier isn't as romantic as you imagined. Few untrained fighting men will survive armed conflict with the Turks. Casting your lot with Han and Flower is safer, but succeeding in Loyang won't be easy; the city is a center of commerce and power, and attracts unsavory elements who wish to control that power. You'll have a sighting of Li Shi-min even if you go with Han and Flower, watching as hordes of Chinese await the sacrifice of a white horse to please the gods. Can you resist the urge to abandon your new career and follow Li Shi-min? China is at a crossroads in its history, and you are at a similar point in your own. Will you be an agent of peace, or war? Are you destined to shape history, or live and work in the relative anonymity of Loyang? The future is yours to decide.
Chinese Dragons is more culturally detailed than many Choose Your Own Adventure books, but it lacks action. Your goal of uniting with Li Shi-min to fight for Chinese freedom is never fully realized; even if you join the military, an ending is usually reached before you do anything of consequence. Because so little happens, Chinese Dragons isn't an interesting book, though it had potential to be. R.A. Montgomery's writing is decent, and there are a few bits of insight sprinkled throughout the text. At one point you marvel at your own inconsistency as a person: "Sometimes you think that there are several people inside you; one brave, one cowardly; one intelligent, and another who is a fool. You don't seem to be able to control which one it is who takes command of the situation." You're flawed, but so is every young person, doing their best to maximize their virtues and minimize character weaknesses on the journey of life. The events of this book will refine your personal qualities, if you survive. I rate Chinese Dragons one and a half stars; it could have been a more exciting, meaningful story, but it isn't bad. If I ever want a low-key historical gamebook, I'll come back to this one.
July 29, 2016
"The room where you sleep is small and cramped. In one corner is stored the sacks of seeds needed for planting. There are not as many sacks as usual and your uncle and his wife are worried."
OH MY GOD SO BORING! Who starts an adventure book for kids like that? "In the struggle to feed a family, commodities like seeds had to be carefully portioned out and rationed."
This is called Chinese Dragons. I want to see some dragons. Or at the very least, martial arts masters who are referred to as dragons. I don't think that's asking a lot.
Because I needed a reason to push through, I decided to challenge myself. Not to survive or get a good ending, but to see how long this book would last. If I made it to 15 minutes, I'd count it a victory. If it was less than that, failure.
Ready. Set. Go.
56 Seconds: Well, I got out of goddamn bed. That's a start, I guess.
3 min 36 seconds: I haven't made any choices yet. And just to confirm, it sucked to be a Chinese farm kid whose parents are dead, especially if your cousins are a bunch of assholes.
4 min 10 seconds: I made a choice! Probably a bad one. I kind of had to decide if I was going to watch a battle or work in a field. I'm dying here. 5 minutes and all that's happened is I got out of bed and heard how crappy my life is? Let's cut to the chase, here. If this was one of the race car books, I would've been in a fatal but exciting crash long before now.
4 min 53 seconds: Ugh, now some asshole is offering me a job. Leave me alone! I want to get to the battle! No, I don't want security assisting some pot painter, a bright future away from my uncle's house. I want a damn battle. Where are the dragons?
6 min 31 seconds: I'm waiting in line to sign up for the army. For 45 minutes. This is ridiculous, like it was designed to torture me. The text ACTUALLY SAYS that I wait in line for 45 minutes. Wow. Choose your own adventure. How long will YOU wait in line? 45 minutes? 32 minutes? Choose and find out!
7 min 20 seconds: "You decide to stay with the army. 3 months later, you are a trained soldier.." Time is so fucking elastic in this story I can't even.
7 min 46 seconds: And as I'm walking around, having never spotted the enemy, I get shot in the chest with an arrow and die immediately.
Now, on the plus, I'm in the afterlife, and my dad makes a little joke like "You didn't even see him coming, eh?" Thanks, jerk. But like I said, on the plus, I'm in the afterlife, and my dad is pretty pumped about that.
On the minus, I made it about half the goal time.
And what the hell, R.A. Montgomery? I do almost nothing, and then an arrow hits me out of fucking nowhere and I'm just dead? That's cheap, man. I read all your nonsense about grain and farming and blah diddy blah, and then you skip right over my warrior training, which was probably awesome, and just go straight to my death. How did I not get to fight anyone? How was there no "If you swing your sword high, go to page 42. If you swing low, go to page 77"?
Death truly stalks us all in these damn books. Even with a lower standard of "Winning" I couldn't make it. Damn, Damn Damn.
OH MY GOD SO BORING! Who starts an adventure book for kids like that? "In the struggle to feed a family, commodities like seeds had to be carefully portioned out and rationed."
This is called Chinese Dragons. I want to see some dragons. Or at the very least, martial arts masters who are referred to as dragons. I don't think that's asking a lot.
Because I needed a reason to push through, I decided to challenge myself. Not to survive or get a good ending, but to see how long this book would last. If I made it to 15 minutes, I'd count it a victory. If it was less than that, failure.
Ready. Set. Go.
56 Seconds: Well, I got out of goddamn bed. That's a start, I guess.
3 min 36 seconds: I haven't made any choices yet. And just to confirm, it sucked to be a Chinese farm kid whose parents are dead, especially if your cousins are a bunch of assholes.
4 min 10 seconds: I made a choice! Probably a bad one. I kind of had to decide if I was going to watch a battle or work in a field. I'm dying here. 5 minutes and all that's happened is I got out of bed and heard how crappy my life is? Let's cut to the chase, here. If this was one of the race car books, I would've been in a fatal but exciting crash long before now.
4 min 53 seconds: Ugh, now some asshole is offering me a job. Leave me alone! I want to get to the battle! No, I don't want security assisting some pot painter, a bright future away from my uncle's house. I want a damn battle. Where are the dragons?
6 min 31 seconds: I'm waiting in line to sign up for the army. For 45 minutes. This is ridiculous, like it was designed to torture me. The text ACTUALLY SAYS that I wait in line for 45 minutes. Wow. Choose your own adventure. How long will YOU wait in line? 45 minutes? 32 minutes? Choose and find out!
7 min 20 seconds: "You decide to stay with the army. 3 months later, you are a trained soldier.." Time is so fucking elastic in this story I can't even.
7 min 46 seconds: And as I'm walking around, having never spotted the enemy, I get shot in the chest with an arrow and die immediately.
Now, on the plus, I'm in the afterlife, and my dad makes a little joke like "You didn't even see him coming, eh?" Thanks, jerk. But like I said, on the plus, I'm in the afterlife, and my dad is pretty pumped about that.
On the minus, I made it about half the goal time.
And what the hell, R.A. Montgomery? I do almost nothing, and then an arrow hits me out of fucking nowhere and I'm just dead? That's cheap, man. I read all your nonsense about grain and farming and blah diddy blah, and then you skip right over my warrior training, which was probably awesome, and just go straight to my death. How did I not get to fight anyone? How was there no "If you swing your sword high, go to page 42. If you swing low, go to page 77"?
Death truly stalks us all in these damn books. Even with a lower standard of "Winning" I couldn't make it. Damn, Damn Damn.
July 19, 2014
it said NOTHING about dragons or anything but, it had a war kinda in it so i guess it was kinda good -_-
August 19, 2015
The biggest problem with this "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" book is that you don't get to choose your own adventure. I'm not kidding. For eleven pages it goes on with no choices you're allowed to make. Where there should be a choice, instead it says "go on to the next page." It really drags, and that's for me as an adult! I can see a kid losing interest by the time they get to the fifth page where you just "go on to the next page."
Eventually after eleven pages, there is a choice, but after that, AGAIN you have to go several pages before coming to another. By the numbers: this book has only 12 possible endings, whereas the other CYOA titles I own have between 27 and 39 possible endings. So there is actually a LOT less choice than there should be.
And, any reference to dragons is misleading. This story is set in China but it is not about dragons, real or metaphysical...to be fair, I explored only three endings so maybe the other endings mention them. But in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure you're supposed to get some exposure in every storyline to what the title promises.
Not much if any educational value for learning about ancient China, either. I do not recommend.
Eventually after eleven pages, there is a choice, but after that, AGAIN you have to go several pages before coming to another. By the numbers: this book has only 12 possible endings, whereas the other CYOA titles I own have between 27 and 39 possible endings. So there is actually a LOT less choice than there should be.
And, any reference to dragons is misleading. This story is set in China but it is not about dragons, real or metaphysical...to be fair, I explored only three endings so maybe the other endings mention them. But in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure you're supposed to get some exposure in every storyline to what the title promises.
Not much if any educational value for learning about ancient China, either. I do not recommend.
December 3, 2018
I found this to be another great addition to the series, addressing a historical period I was unfamiliar with (the Tang Dynasty period of ancient China) in an interesting way. Montgomery changes up his usual style and writes with a more dramatic, legendary tone. The book is slower-paced and more introspective, preferring to illustrate the way of life during the time and less concerned with rushing into action scenes. There's a lot of moral choices to make, but you never actually get to become a warrior, which felt like a missed opportunity. Other than that, this was a great book.
June 15, 2023
I am giving it more a 3.5/5, okay this is choose your own adventure and I know it is made for a younger reader. But even though I haven't read one in a while I just felt that some of the story could have been a little longer. But over all I think it woud have suited a younger person or a person who may be more of a kid at heart. I did enjoy it and it was a nice change of pace of all the longer books I have been reading.
May 9, 2021
Classic. Beautifully written, infused with history and a depth of story not usually found in books of these 'choose your own path styles'. I did find some of the endings a little too open-ended, too soft and reliant on a que sera sera train of thought though, especially when compared with later examples in this genre but overall uber enjoyable. Line pencil illustrations were an added bonus.
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May 9, 2021Classic. Beautifully written, infused with history and a depth of story not usually found in books of these 'choose your own path styles'. I did find some of the endings a little too open-ended, too soft and reliant on a que sera sera train of thought though, especially when compared with later examples in this genre but overall uber enjoyable. Line pencil illustrations were an added bonus.
September 8, 2019
Pretty good! Lots of story.
August 23, 2023
It's been *years* since I read a CYOA. Stumbled upon this while at the library with my LO. Nostalgic read for me.
February 17, 2013
Our oldest has brought home various You Choose books from her elementary school library. And now at our local library we've discovered some of the books from the original Choose Your Own Adventure series that I read when I was a child. I remember loving books like this in my childhood and I am excited that our girls are discovering them as well.
This book focuses on war and conflct in ancient China during the Tang Dynasty, with marauding Mongolians and a Chinese warrior named Li Shi-min. Many of the paths took us on a bloody journey that we could hardly imagine, but the stories were dramatic and exciting. This story has more of an historical context than some of the others in the series, but it was a bit too brutal for our tastes.
Overall, these are entertaining, though sometimes graphically violent stories. I tend to prefer the "You Choose" series because they have an educational and historical context, but the books in this series are interesting, too. We enjoyed reading this book together.
interesting quote:
"We humans seem to have a capacity for cruelty against ourselves that goes beyond anything in the animal kingdom, if you get my meaning." (p. 62)
This book focuses on war and conflct in ancient China during the Tang Dynasty, with marauding Mongolians and a Chinese warrior named Li Shi-min. Many of the paths took us on a bloody journey that we could hardly imagine, but the stories were dramatic and exciting. This story has more of an historical context than some of the others in the series, but it was a bit too brutal for our tastes.
Overall, these are entertaining, though sometimes graphically violent stories. I tend to prefer the "You Choose" series because they have an educational and historical context, but the books in this series are interesting, too. We enjoyed reading this book together.
interesting quote:
"We humans seem to have a capacity for cruelty against ourselves that goes beyond anything in the animal kingdom, if you get my meaning." (p. 62)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews