Customer Reviews

Beneath the Tree of Heaven (Chung Kuo Novel , No 5)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Take the chance and embark on a long journey with David Wingrove. You will not be let down. Problem is, you will see nothing of your friends or family for the next three months.

But, that is what you are looking for in a book, isn't it?

David Wingrove's series continues to keep me coming back for more. The characters are well developed, the intrigues are captivating and the possibilities are scary... Can't wait until the next volume arrives at my door.

What if in the 21st century the western powers were degenerate and the Chineese filled the leadership vacuum. This is another of David Wingrove's well written and researched novels of the world of Chun Ko

I ordered a gently used book in like new condition. What I got was a filthy de-commissioned library book with a binding so broken the book was in pieces. The seller asked me to seal the package back up and send it back as rejected, which got me a lovely lecture at the post office about the miss-use of the USPS. I ended up paying to return the book. I'm not sure I will ever buy another used book through Amazon. So Sad.

When J. Michael Straczynski was talking about the third season of Babylon 5, he said that he had pointed a lot of guns on the series and the third seasons was when he was going to shoot them. An apt metaphor for that season as well as this book. MAny of the pieces of the struggle that WIngrove has been painstakingly moving into place now come to fruition as in succeeding chapters Mars, America and the T'ang themselves engage in rebellion and battle.

It doesn't end well for most of them. Wingrove began to buck the conventions early in the first book when he cast most of the decent characters on the side of tyranny and the despicable ones on the side of freedom. HOwever, he goes much farther into the complex web of civilization when he shows good intentions going bad and the clarion song of liberty turning into a bloodbath. It's rather un-American to say that if you buck the system, take action, and strike a blow for freedom that you'll be crushed and your entire civilization destroyed, but that's pretty much what happens throughout.

Great moments with Kennedy in his attempts to negotiate his own willingness to sacrifice everything for a dream (including that dream), the African Tang in his most psychotic (and at the 11th hour most sympathetic) and surprisingly enough Hans Ebert, who has sparse scenes but spends them working out his own version of redemption.

Missing is Stefan Lehman who spent book 4 consolidating a criminal empire. Of course, he's mentioned once or twice, but Wingrove has the patience to let him work off-camera.