Customer Reviews

The Jade Owl

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After relocating from New York City to take on the position of a lifetime, sinologist Professor Rowden Gray learns upon his arrival that his position at the San Francisco Museum of East Asian Arts and Culture has been eliminated. Furious with the last minute turn of events, Gray stumbles upon Nick Battle who is none other than the son of Gray's long time mentor - John Battle. Gray finds that Nick possesses The Jade Owl an ancient Chinese relic previously believed to be the stuff of legend. They discover that The Jade Owl may open a sister relic The Joy of Finches held captive in the Museum's Asian display. Together they find The Jade Owl to be more than a relic, but the key to finding the lost tomb of the only empress to rule over the middle kingdom - Wu Tze-t'ien.

An eclectic expedition team including Gray, Nick, Nick's life partner and drag queen - Simone, a one-eyed Cherokee - Griffen, and Chinese American martial arts expert - Audrey, set out to return The Jade Owl to the empress. However, the Owl reveals itself to be much more than a relic, but a vessel for controlling, channeling, and altering Chi creating unspeakable power. These China Hands must return the Owl in time or unleash it's dangers to the world.

In The Jade Owl, Edward C. Patterson does a masterful job at taking the reader deep into a journey of China's cultural treasures. The history, foods, people, architecture, politics, even aromas of Hong Kong, Canton, Shanghai, Beijing, Guilin, are carefully and beautifully conveyed and Patterson's expertise in this area shines. He has also created characters so real that one feels they are reading a diary of life experiences as opposed to fictional fantasy. As a result, The Jade Owl has all of the intrigue and interest of an Indiana Jones mystery but is grounded in the reality of true to life characters making it more satisfying in the end.

My only hesitation to giving this novel 5 stars was the lack of conflict and action driving the first half of the book. While the mystery of The Jade Owl is the backbone of the story, it seemed to fade to the background in the first half in favor of the rich cultural excursions the expedition team took as they traveled China. None-the-less, this is a very satisfying read and Patterson is a very accomplished writer.

For those looking for the cultural intrigue of the middle kingdom and a fantastical mystery involving ancient relics of a long forgotten empress, The Jade Owl delivers. It is the first of the five book Jade Owl legacy.

China, present day and past, is still so mysterious and inviting. Sinologist Edward C. Patterson has written a masterful epic in The Jade Owl that will not only have you glued to this 595 page book, but have you before you are half way through the book, ordering book 2 of this series, The Third Peregrination!
Patterson's masterful story deals with an amazing 'work of art' The Jade Owl, commissioned by Empress Wu, and with its charmer/creator, became the stuff legends are made of from the Middle Kingdom on in China's impressive legends. It is not only a magnificent piece of art, but a metaphysical power that can enchant and destroy.
A group of Sinologists from San Francisco become part of The Jade Owl's destiny, including Dr. Rowden Gray, and Nick Battle, son of Grey's former mentor. Nick takes Dr. Gray to Chinatown - the ancient relic The Jade Owl still exists! Battle takes Gray to a club and Gray meets Nick's love, Simone DeLefleurry, or Simon as some may call him. So starts the beginnings of great friendships that encompass continents. The China Hands that were born to find the stuff of legends and must right the laws of ch'i before the Jade Owl and its destructive power literally change life as we know it.
Patterson is a well known sinologist who has taken the legends of China and breathed life into them in a non-stop Indiana Jones meets the Great Wall of China type of adventure. It is an amazing trek into the world of China and its people and history, and a series of love stories.
As a fledgling writer, I am always amazed the brilliance of someone's writing where a complex story is not only told with beauty, but each sentence seems touched by a poetic gleam.
The Jade Owl, like Gary Val Tenuta's The Ezekiel Code, is riveting and unforgettable.
Mr. Patterson is a prolific writer, and those works I have been honored to read so far have been told with grace and power.
May The Jade Owl hoot in your ear and have you ordering your copy.
The book, the Chinese mythology, the friendships are all truly magical. You will be recommending Edward C. Patterson's books to anyone asking if you happen to know any good books to read -
Patterson is a literary force to be reckoned with - much like his metaphysical forces - ethereal as the wind, yet as powerful.

Imagine a modern day "Lord of the Rings" and set the story in the lush backdrop of China, and that's my impression of Ed Patterson's gripping novel "The Jade Owl." Five intrepid adventurers are commissioned by a San Francisco museum to travel to China on a mission to trade historical artifacts with the Chinese. What the museum doesn't know is that the team is also carrying the Jade Owl, an ancient mysterious jade carving that is purported to have supernatural powers.

And what a team it is: Rowden "Rowdy" Gray, a college professor; Nick Battle, the son of a legendary Sinologist; Nick's partner and flaming drag queen Simon Geldfarb (aka Simone DeLefleurry); Xiao Ao-ti (Audrey), a young Chinese-American martial arts expert; and Griffen Jones, a one-eyed American Indian artist.

Before long the eclectic group is in China, where they begin their journey to find the hidden tomb of the Empress Wu Tze-t'ien, who was buried many centuries ago. Their mission is to take the Jade Owl to the tomb in order to - yes - save the world. Unfortunately for the group, there are plenty of bad guys around who want the Jade Owl and will stop at nothing to get it. Each member of the tightly-knit group has their chance to thwart the bad guys, and many times, it's Simon/Simone who demonstrates that he's not just there for comic relief.

During the group's journey, the Jade Owl demonstrates its vast powers, even ripping the fabric of space and time. It's up to the group to try to control the owl until they have completed their mission, a task easier said than done. The climactic scene is a real dandy, one of the most jaw-dropping climaxes I've read in a long time.

The author, Ed Patterson, has written a bang-up action-adventure thriller that pulled me in immediately. Although "The Jade Owl" is a standalone book, I know there are several spinoffs from the book, and after reading "The Jade Owl," I'm definitely hooked.

Bottom line: Two thumbs up and five stars.

Edward C. Patterson's book will take you on a breathtaking ride from San Francisco to Beijing with a museum curator, his mentor's son, a one-eyed Cherokee brave, a drag queen and, of course, the mystical jade owl.

I must admit that neither Mr. Patterson's characters nor style are like anything I've ever known before but they soon had me laughing out loud and thoroughly entertained. I heartily recommend it to everyone.

Edward C. Patterson gathers his group of china hands in downtown San Francisco and after some funny mishaps, suspenseful moments and amazing sleight of hand they are whisked away to china on a mission to return a Jade Owl figurine with amazing powers to the tomb of a magnificent Emperor hidden in China. Along the way, they meet shady characters who will try to hinder their progress and meet some new friends who will help them achieve their goal. The book is peppered with amazing scenery and attractions along the way that give the reader a sense of having been there in person.

This book has it all: Romance, mystery, intrigue, and adventure. The reader never quite knows where the entire story is headed as there are surprises along the way, most are presented by secondary characters who are memorable in their roles and the impact the Jade Owl statuette has on them. For much of the book, the characters are running breathless to their next adventure and the reader has no choice but to run along beside them to see what happens next. . . and this is only the beginning, as Patterson paves the way to keep us readers running head first into the following sequels.

Sinologist Rowden Gray, reeling from his failure to get a San Francisco museum post, falls in with a seemingly unlikely group of people bent upon achieving a strange coition of sorts of Chinese objets d'art. After taking up with one of the scions of his prolific (in more ways than one) intellectual mentor, John Battle, he joins a one-eyed Native American artist, a Chinese-American martial arts expert, and the scion's faithful drag-queen lover, as they embark on a wild chase to reach their objective. Much of the action takes place in a lovingly-described China. This is fantasy for people who don't read fantasy, adventure for those who avoid adventure books. The little bits of surrealism are a seasoning for the great writing, rather than a substitute for it, as is often the case in so many works of this type. A very enjoyable book.

Professor Rowden Gray, a Sung Dynasty expert, is furious. The curator's position he was supposed to start at the San Francisco Museum of East Asian Art and Culture has been snapped away. Rowden's devastated at the thought of returning to teaching, but when he's approached by a rather brazen museum employee, Rowden's life takes an unexpected turn. The employee, Nick, is on a quest to find a mysterious, ancient figurine known as The Jade Owl, believed to have belonged to Empress Wu thirteen centuries earlier, and he needs Rowden's expertise to accomplish this quest. It doesn't take Rowden long to realize that this mission is not only dangerous, but could change--if not end--their lives.

The Jade Owl is filled with thrills, mysticism, and adventure that captivated me from the beginning. The author's knowledge of Chinese culture and geography adds authenticity to the story; but beyond this, he's created memorable and likeable characters with distinctive voices.

The book's omniscient viewpoint allows the reader into different characters' heads, and the author even speaks directly to the reader at times, which for me, was a bit intrusive, (although this style was common earlier in the twentieth century). The ending was satisfying, although the epilog a little long. Still, there's enough juicy foreshadowing to make me want to pick up the next book. Enjoy!

The characters and dialogue make this book. Every conversation just sparkles with wit and energy. The characters are genuinely funny, even if their mission and the story itself are not.

The author also has a clear love of place and does a wonderful job describing the settings vividly. He doesn't merely stop at physical descriptions, either, managing to even capture the essential culture of a place.

While there are a number of plot twists, the arc of the story is ultimately predictable. It's a fun ride, but you can see where it's going.

The author sometimes gets a bit carried away with his own cleverness. To a certain extent, those knowing winks to the reader really define the voice of the story, but a few more murdered darlings would have made the story leaner.

This is a corker of a quest yarn. The author knows much about Chinese history and unspools it for the lucky reader in a tale of unlikely companions on a fantasy adventure with a supernatural chunk of jade. The "damn owl," as one of them repeatedly calls it, connects the travelers with the dead Chinese past, when it isn't trying to destroy the living. From time to time it even hoots.

The humor is chuckle-worthy (my favorite: "He viewed the twenty-hour haul to China like a middle passage---voluntary bondage in the hull of a modern metallic slaver") and, despite an occasional typo (the persistent grammatical confusion of past/passed also slows things down), the plot rocks along in can't-wait-to-find-out-what-happens-next fashion.

Patterson's vocabulary can be pretentious at times (people rarely walk, they saunter), even confusing when the words are obscure, but a good dictionary helps. Except for the words he makes up. But their meaning usually is clear. And this is only the beginning of a saga with sequels to come. Fly away on a long-distance hunt with The Jade Owl. You face little danger of grounding.

Mr. Patterson once again enthralls us with tales of the mysterious Jade Owl. An eclectic group of five - a professor/curator, the young son of a great China Hand, his love who is also a drag queen, a half-blind Cherokee Indian who protects the Owl with his life, and the young, beautiful Audrey who has a direct connection to the Chinese Dynasty who originated the Jade Owl and its legend.
Or is it a legend? Once the reader enters this book, this question will haunt them as the five trek across China with their foes who wish to possess the infamous figurine for their own evil purposes, right on their trail. The group who possess the Owl with all its magical powers vows to return it to its rightful place, no matter the danger involved, which lurks around every corner!
Don't we all wish we could go on such a journey of discovery? Dan Brown has nothing on you, Mr. Patterson! Highly recommended for all who love a good adventure!