The Dragon's Nine Sons (The Celestial Empire) (Mass Market Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Roberson's latest (after Set the Seas on Fire) takes a standard Dirty Dozen plot that contrasts awkwardly with its ornate Chinese vs. Aztec interplanetary milieu. Two of the Dragon Empire's dissident officers, space captain Zhuan Jie and troop commander (or bannerman) Yao Guanzhong, are tapped to infiltrate and destroy an enemy asteroid base. But before they can blow up the rock, they must first master their squadron of outcasts and improvise the rescue of dozens of prisoners marked for blood sacrifice. Cogently choreographed action and vividly drawn opposing cultures are intriguing (for instance, Mexica spacecraft are hardwired to work only when primed with human blood) but Roberson's subtly distant tone, heavy-handed foreshadowing and narrow focus leave readers struggling to properly grasp the larger conflict. Tight, fully resolved character arcs leave few direct openings for the epic series the book supposedly begins. There's potential here, but little polish and less context. (Feb.)
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Product Description

In a distant future where the Chinese have seized control of the world and colonised the stars, a disgraced naval captain and a commando who knows secrets he should never have learned are picked to lead a suicide mission. Piloting a salvaged Mexica spacecraft to Xolotl, the asteroid stronghold of their enemies, they are armed with enough explosives to reduce the Mexica base to dust. But when they arrive to find dozens of Chinese prisoners destined to be used as human sacrifices, their suicide mission suddenly becomes a rescue operation.  This is a clash of empires old and new.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Solaris (January 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844165248
• ISBN-13: 978-1844165247
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #268,865 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Setting but Character and Plot Issues, February 6, 2008

By	W. Lancaster - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'd like to say for starters that I love an original setting. I read a lot so I get extremely tired of the similar and formulaic worlds and cultures. I was not tired of this setting.

Imperial China never fell and became a world spanning empire. In the year 2052, by the outdated an unused Gregorian calendar, 4952 since the reign of Huang-Di, the Yellow Emperor, It is colonizing the planet Mars, called the Fire Star, using fusion space ships. However, the Aztec Empire of Mexica wants to conquer the planet and gather the live prisoners for their bloody sacrifices.

Nine Imperial Soldiers, all condemned to die for various crimes, have been offered one last chance for a pardon. Use a captured Mexica ship and plant a fusion bomb in the heart of the enemy supply base, in a virtual suicide mission.

It's a fascinating concept and Chris Roberson did his research. Both the Chinese and the Aztec empires have been well researched and are believable. This is also hard scifi with all the technology used being plausible which is a rarity considering that the story is not focused on the technology.

The names could be an issue for some people. There are nine main characters to keep track of and they all have Chinese names. I did appreciate that Chris Roberson kept them relatively short, all of one syllable, and did not bring in family names to confuse the issue.

It has the potential to be a great book but it trips in two places, which brings it down to average.

The first are the characters. They're all two-dimensional. The personalities of this nine-man band are all standard. You have the stoic, the coward, the trickster, the religious, the mentally challenged, the gambler, ect. None of them really break out of their roles, which becomes a major problem in the middle of the book when they're all alone on the cramped ship.

I get the feeling Roberson visualized the middle as a character study. Nine people, all with different personalities, all flawed, all trapped in a to small space on the way to their deaths. The possibilities are endless but he can't make it work, there just isn't enough character there. The personalities clash, they get into a fight, and then at the end one of them will monologue their back-story.

Yes, it all holds together, yes, by the end everything will make sense, no, it is not particularly engaging. There is no character depth or study of human nature, there is no real conflict even, all the intercharacter decisions are relatively straightforward. The back-stories are relatively engaging but without energy or life to them, it becomes a recital of facts and predictable encounters. It never lost my attention but I was never really enthralled.

That took out the entire middle of the book.

Roberson could have bumped the review up to four with a good ending but like the middle it came off as slightly lackluster. Its as if he filled all the dots to get them to the enemy base, but once there Roberson realized he'd set up an impossible challenge for his characters and had no idea how they were going to pull it off. He fills in with lots of setting information on Mexica and Aztec culture so that it begins to feel more like a scholarly essay then a commando raid into a heavily guarded enemy fortress.

For me at least it maintained some interest but pulse pounding excitement it was not.

The "Twist" to the story is the change from suicide to rescue mission. This happens in the last fifty pages and is well set up and foreshadowed throughout the book. Why they spoiled the surprise by pasting it onto the back of the book I have no idea. In the end though the lack of characterization hurts it as well. When the change comes everyone basically shrugs and says ok in about one page, admittedly, they have reason but the one character I'd except to give even a token dilemma and soul searching doesn't.

If there was a sequel (yes, some of them do survive) I'd read it because this setting has so much potential but Roberson is going to need to study Character Drama or military Sci-Fi this fails as both. At the least Roberson is going to need to put a lot more thought onto what his characters are thinking and feeling next time.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done!, May 1, 2008

By	leongkm - See all my reviews

His knowledge and grasp of Qing dynasty Chinese and Meso-american history is apparent in the way he is able to take known 18th century Chinese and 16th century Aztec/Mayan institutions and attitudes and extend it into the future, something many authors who attempt this usually fail to do convincingly.

He manages to stay away from rehashing stereotypical views of imperial China and therefore manages to do an impressively convincing job of putting together a world where a completely different set of rules, values, institutions and societal norms comes to fore, allowing the reader to envision a completely different historical timeline. This alternate history he opens up shows the reader a world far more diverse and interesting if these other world cultures had not been stymied and been allowed to develop into the modern world.

He takes the reader into the unknown by opening up the reader's mind and not only shows the possibilities of how other traditional civilizations could have progressed and modernized but that it is possible for them to progress and modernize. We will DEFINITELY be watching this author.

Leong Kit Meng
(author of "Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity" ISBN 981-05-5380-3)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent read, but nothing special, March 5, 2008

By	Douglas Hess (Stuttgart, Germany) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As the other reviews have said, this is basically the Dirty Dozen (or 9 in the case) set in an alternate future. It's almost impossible to read this book and not compare it to the Dirty Dozen. The book is consistently okay, and the author makes a good attempt at character development, but the problem is he attempts to tell the story of all nine characters and move the plot along, it's just too much for one book so everything feels too quick. There's more pages spent discussing the trip to their objective, or more correctly discussing the personal histories of the various characters, than there is in their training or the mission itself. The Dirty Dozen had a better balance in terms of character development and plot. Characters who won't survive the mission don't all need a lot of backstory. In any event, it's not a bad read, but it's not going to win any awards.