Excellent! If you like Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Steven Seagal, or any other martial artist, then you will love Jebu. Setting: medevel Japan. Jebu is a novice monk of the Order of Zinja ("the Zinja are devils") whose first mission is to escort a young maiden to her wedding to a minor Japanese bureaucrat. He and she fall in love along the way, but he fulfills his duty and delivers her to her husband-to-be, who turns out to be a cruel and evil schemer. Blah, blah, battle with samurai, blah, fleeing to China, meeting Kublai Khan, blah, war between China and the Mongol horde, yadda yadda yadda. Excitement from start to finish. And, you brush up on your haiku while reading it. Recommended for would-be warriors and those like me who just enjoy a good action novel. Starting on Book 2 now.

Time of the Dragons

I can't recommend this story enough.   I first read the Shike saga when I was in my mid teens, and it became my favourite story for years afterwards, greatly affecting my entire world view at the time. I'm writing this review purely from memory, having virtually committed every word and line to memory years ago.   It is a sweeping, patient saga that spans a generation of men and women who lived during very turbulent times.   Shea has based the story on different historical people and events, and mixed them together to become part of one great fictional saga.  The story starts with the main character, Jebu, a young part-Mongol, part Japanese Zinja monk, being formally ordained into the order of Zinja as an initiate. From the first page, you will be hooked.   This story has everything. Burning questions about Jebu's past that need to be answered, great rivalries between different samurai clans that span decades, beautiful women, foreign lands and alien customs, history and an infusion of Zen philosophy. Not to mention brilliantly depicted violence and war on a grand scale.   There are some towering charcaters this tale, is Shea's fictionalised portrayal of the famous general Minamoto no Yoshitsune, called in this saga, Murotomo no Yukio.   There is Moko, the cross-eyed carpenter who Jebu spares on his first official assignment, who becomes a lifelong friend. The wise old sage, Taitaro, Jebu's foster father. The beautiful wilful Shima Taniko. The haunted Murotomo no Hideyori, again a fictionalised version of the historical Minomoto no Yoritomo.  This epic starts off during the lead up to the Gempei war in Japan, between the Murotomo and Takashi clans, then gives a glimpse into one of the greatest medieval empires the world has ever known, the Mongol Empire, during the time of Kublai Khan.  This is a masculine book, that men will revel in, but there is also a strong female perspective portrayed through the eyes of Taniko. In fact, large chapters and portions of the story are devoted to Taniko's perspective of being a woman in a man's world, and her rise from country samurai, to the ruler of the Sunrise land.   The overriding theme of this tale, is Zen-Buddhism, and you will find yourself seduced by this pragmatic way of looking at the world.   I definitely credit this book with putting me on what I believe was the path towards ultimate truth. Even though I have moved beyond the whole Buddhist thing, this novel definitely got me thinking about the big questions.   Any piece of fiction that can influence a person that much has got to be good.   The story is now under a share licence or something like that and is free to read online. But you can pick up used copies for next to nothing online.   Get your hands on a copy. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

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