Silver Phoenix (Kingdom of Xia, #1) in Multiculturalism in YA,Fantasy, Sci FI,Paranormal and fun books ;p

Oct 06, 2010 The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears rated it it was amazing

Shelves: genre-fantasy, sub-genre-historical-fantasy, genre-mythology, genre-ya-fiction, sub-genre-asian-themed-fantasy, characters-asian-heroines, characters-asian-heroes, characters-chinese-heroines, characters-chinese-heroes, settings-alternate-asia

Loved this. Bought because of all the racefail surrounding the cover--that booksellers didn't think a book featuring an Asian heroine would sell (New York publishers and booksellers need to seriously get their heads out of their collective asses). However, I was sucked into the story from the first page and hated for it to end. I know there's a sequel. ...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Camille Picott rated it really liked it

Shelves: asian-influenced-spec-fic

The Writer's View - a unique approach to book reviews. For more, visit www.camillepicott.com

I want to thank the author, Cindy Pon, for writing this book! It's the sort of book I wish I'd had as a teen -- A YA fantasy adventure set in an Asian-inspired setting with strong, loveable Asian characters. The setting, particularly the demons, has a strong root in Asian myth and legend. It was such a relief to find something completely "Eastern" in teen genre fiction. I wish there were more books out th The Writer's View - a unique approach to book reviews. For more, visit www.camillepicott.com

I want to thank the author, Cindy Pon, for writing this book! It's the sort of book I wish I'd had as a teen -- A YA fantasy adventure set in an Asian-inspired setting with strong, loveable Asian characters. The setting, particularly the demons, has a strong root in Asian myth and legend. It was such a relief to find something completely "Eastern" in teen genre fiction. I wish there were more books out there like this!

Worldbuilding with food

Pon's setting has so many equisite Eastern details, but the one that really struck me was her details of the food. (It helps that the heorine, Ai Ling, has a very healthy appetite as is pre-occupied by food on a regular basis.) Here are some examples of the food in this book: Deep-fried aquash coated in rice-paste batter. Rice porriage simmered with sweet yams. Braised meatballs. Sticky rice balls with sweetened taro. Rice Porriage with picked vegetables and salted pork.

Isn't all this detail great? It never occurred to me to beef up my worldbuilding with food. (No pun intended!) I just love how much dimensions these culinary details added to Pon's world. I'm definitely going to have to try this out in one of my books.

Deux ex Machina

For those of you not familiar with deux ex machina as a literary device, here's the definition from Wikipedia: [Deux ex machina] is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object. It can be roughly translated as "God made it happen," with no further explanation, and, depending on usage, is primarily used to move the story forward when the writer has "painted himself into a corner" and sees no other way out. However, in other cases, it is used to surprise the audience, or, commonly influenced by editors and/or publishers, bring a happy ending into the tale.

To be honest, I am not a fan of deux ex machina in stories. I am pre-disposed to dislike this when I find it in stories. I just want to let you know this bias upfront, because it may not bother some readers, but for me personally it really affected my enjoyment of this novel.

And as much as I enjoyed Silver Phoenix, I was disappointed when a dragon miraculously appeared and took Ai Ling to visit a goddess. This goddess neatly explained 1) all the supernatural occurences Ai Ling had been experiencing, 2) revealed who the bad guy was, 3) explained why the bad guy was after Ai Ling, and 4) explained what Ai Ling had to do to save her father and defeat the bad guy.

Despite this gripe, I did enjoy this story. I highly recommend it anyone looking to escape conventional "Western" fantasy elements.
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