The Heavenly Sword by Alice Poon

I would like to thank the author for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher - Earnshaw Books

Published - 10/1

Price - £15.99 paperback £6.18 Kindle eBook

Set in a world of human conflicts, fantastical martial arts, sorcery and celestial magic, Alice Poon's debut fantasy, The Heavenly Sword, follows a martial maiden's heartbreaking adventures in her quest for love and justice.The goddess Chang'e, reborn as Shandong village girl Tang Sai'er, is sent by the Deities to the mortal world to impede a future tyrant. Her mission requires her to be both a warrior and also chaste. The Prince of Yan, Zhu Di, the Sky Wolf incarnate and once Chang'e's suitor in heaven, incites a brutal civil war to usurp the throne. He secretly covets Sai'er, but also fears her power.

Ma Sanbao, a eunuch in Zhu Di's Palace, falls in love with Sai'er while they train together in Wudang kung fu. Sai'er is enamored of Sanbao, but knows she must focus on her celestial mission and her desire to protect her family and village folks from the tyrant. When Sai'er and her allies pit themselves against the wicked new Emperor and other adversaries, one being the vicious Green Dragon, Sai'er has to enlist the help of the immortals. But even with their help, she finds that her dreams are on a collision course with her mission.

As regular readers of the blog know and the gifs alone should have been a clue I love doctor Who. If you ever read a writer talking about it you may notice something unusual they’ll say the difficulty is how much plot an episode has. Its a show that requires constant momentum from the teaser to the finale - lots of energy to capture your attention and just possibly divert you from questioning the sense behind the plot! Sometimes I want a deep, thoughtful chewy tale to read and every now and then a fast rollercoaster and with Alice Poon’s new wuxia fantasy The Heavenly Sword we get a seriously tale of students, martials arts, emperors and gods which does just enough to keep me flowing through the tale.

In ancient China once there was a young teenager named Sai’er and her foster brother Binhong train under her father to learn martial arts. Eventually they will be good enough to train under one of the great masters. Sai’er learns that her family run a secretive organisation to help bring order to a dangerous place whil she also finds she is a reiincarnation of a celestrial goddess to deal with the dangerous reincarnated Sky Wold who is dangerously up to seixing more power in his form of an ambitious prince. Sair’er learns new skills, finds neew eneies, betrayals and allies plus an ssortment of magical gods and demons to help create a new era for the country.

I had a lot of fun reading this as the story flows at 100mph keeping me entertained. We move very quickly every few pages to a new revelation, set piece, martial arts lesson or celestial beings in flashback (Yes the Monkey King makes a memorable appearance or two). Poon is clearly having a lot of fun writing the story and slotting together a huge amount of plot which strangely works. Each act/revelation opens up the next mini-adventure and there is enough variety to keep the reader on their toes. Its not simply fight followed by fight with simple escalations in power levels of the opponents. By the end of this first part of a planned duology we have moved a huge amount from a small village setting to the fates of Heaven and Earth being at stake.

There are a couple of drawbacks to this approach. Characters are constantly reacting and not having a chance to breathe and get us to know them in their quieter moments. Every scene they have leads to the next plot point so there can seem to be a lot of coincidences happening on top of one another but that is is very much the tradition this tale pays homage to. It is notable that Poon cites Yin Hong’s novels as an influence and indeed this reminded me of that novelist’s approach lot. This may be a read that rewards more episodic reading to help set up up for a fast paced next instalment and then give yourself a breather before plunging into the next chapter/instalment.

If you’re looking for a fun entertaining and fast paced adventure then I think you should enjoy The Heavenly Sword but just be careful you stop for air on occasion. You will not be bored and should also enjoy the weaving of history and myth that makes the backbone of the story.