I was interested in reading this because of its provenance. It is interesting to see what another culture regards as classic literature. Unfortunately, after reading it, I'm thinking that is more an adventure tale for children rather than a book for adults. It is basically one long, long fight. The fighters change from scene to scene but the fighting just continues. Reciting move after move did nothing to let me picture what was going on or make me impressed with the action because I had no idea what was happening. I can imagine this being popular in a culture that supports it, but I did not find it compelling. If you have a background in kungfu and Chinese history, you might find it a lot more interesting than I did.

I struggled rating this for two reasons -- 1. I really, really wanted to love this because I love reading Asian literature, 2. the writing was hard to get through at times.

I recognize that this is a Chinese translation, and Chinese isn't a language that translates fluidly (if you can ever, truly translate precisely from one language to the next). That being said, I did enjoy the adventure and the history along with it.

If you are in to Chinese history and literature, I think you will enjoy this. If you have read "Musashi" by Yoshikawa (one I have yet to finish if I can find another copy), then this will arguably be easier to read. I'm kind of comparing apples to oranges by bringing in "Musashi," but if you reach for books that are challenging, smart, and historical in nature, I recommend this book.

Jin Yong’s epic Legends of the Condor series begins with this book. It is was originally written in Chinese in serial form and has been incredibly popular there for decades. Set in 13th Century China in a world of martial arts, it is a story of heroes and legends and warriors. Personally I found it to be a difficult choppy read, perhaps because of the translation. Nevertheless, because of its importance in Asian fantasy, it is worth another try down the road.

I was so excited to see this amazing book translated into English! Chinese culture is so fascinating to me and who better to read about it from that a native Chinese citizen? I found the world building to be so wonderfully written and even though the translation was a little skewed at times, how can you blame the translator for trying to embody Chinese ideas and words into an entirely different language?
Stupendous and such a wonderful way to spend your time! I enjoyed every moment of this book! I can't wait for more of Yong's books to be translated into English so I can enjoy more of his world building!

Jin Yong is an enormous name in Chinese literature--and finally we're getting English translations of one of his most famous series, Legends of the Condor Heroes. This series has been filmed multiple times, and the books have been in print for half a century.

For us Westerners looking through the tiny keyhole of translated Chinese epics, this one I think serves as a good introduction. I cannot comment on the quality of the translation, but I believe that beginning with the tale of Guo Jin was a good move because this first volume is basically a coming of age tale, about a boy talented in martial arts who is in spite of it a simple person.

The Western reader has a chance to "grow up" along with Guo Jin, becoming accustomed to the picaresque style, the breezy dialogue, the many martial arts terms and moves, while taking in the details of Mongolian life on the steppe around 1200 AD. (The most famous figure in this novel is Genghis Khan.) Also, we are introduced to the world of the Jiang hu, which overlies the eternally battling imperials versus the northern clans.

The characters range from exalted to treacherous villains to just a lot of fun. We get to know the Six Freaks of the South, among other colorful figures. The reader has a chance to absorb customs and hints of culture unfamiliar to Westerners, as Guo Jin navigates his way toward adulthood and his later fame as carried out in the rest of the series.

I'm so glad to see this series at last coming to the West, and thoroughly enjoyed the tale. Looking forward to more in this marvelous, complex world.

I am extremely disappointed. I had hoped for an engaging story from a culture and time period that I am not very familiar with and this book was such a let down. It's hard to know how much is the fault of the source material and how much is an issue with the translation, but since all I have to go on is the translation, I'll start there.

The writing/translation was clunky. The narrative felt stilted and choppy and failed to pull me into the story. I struggled with character names, and unlike some other reviewers, I found the kung fu fight scenes awkward to read, not engaging.

Also, while I realize that the characterization of the women, at least early on in the novel, which is all I can speak to, is probably accurate to the time period of the story, I find that I am unable to set aside my own personal feelings to enjoy the story for what it is. When Charity's husband is murdered early on, she laments the need to avenge his death rather than kill herself to join him in the afterlife, which is what she sees as her duty. Umm...no.

I am grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. However, I was unable to finish the entire work because it was just too dull, too choppy, and too irritating.

• Title: A Hero Born
• Author: Jin Yong
• Series: Legends of the Condor Book 1
• Pages: 395
• Genre: Wuxia / Historical Fiction
• Rating Out of 5 Stars: 3.5


My Thoughts:
The story itself is fictional but based with factual historical events. The main gist of it is two pregnant woman are left behind after their husbands (both are from prominent fighting families) are murdered. They and their children are separated, one is born and raised in the army of Genghis Khan and is fated to fight the son of the other family. You cover multiple generations of characters but that is the sum of it.
I remember back in the 90’s coming across this story through school. While my teacher gave us the general idea of the story, this translation (while not bad), I fear will go over many western readers heads. The writing can come across as very clunky and repetitive. The point of view can be hard to follow.
Wuxia is a classic Asian method of story-telling with beautifully rendered scenes that lend better to a physical/visual story telling then a written one. The story lines are often quite complex with many characters involved. Characters often have romanticized or lengthy titles and fight scenes are one motion followed by another counter-motion that can go on for several sentences. Because of this, in action scenes much of the page consists of titles of our present characters and the moves of their various fighting disciplines. For those not familiar with this approach, you’re probably not going to get much out of the scene. If you’ve seen movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, Hero, the fight scenes in these movies give you a general idea of the scenes in the book.
There’s a lot of action. If you are a fan of those types of movies, or are trained in any fighting disciplines, you’ll likely enjoy this title.
*E-ARC kindly provided by St. Martin’s Press via Netgalley

Raised on the Mongolian steppes by his mother, both of whom were under the care of the future Genghis Khan, Guo Jing was unaware he was the son of a Song patriot who was brutally killed by the Song dynasty's enemy, the Jin. Only after he had been trained for several years by the Seven Heroes of the South was he told he was meant to travel into China to face an opponent trained by a master of kung fu, the son of his father's sworn brother. But Guo Jing travels with little understanding of who he is to face and why.

For years, I have shied away from reading books by Chinese authors and books about the Chinese even though I am Chinese American. But, for some reason, I felt like I ought to read this one. I am not as familiar with Chinese history as I should be. My education focused on Western history with only the lightest brushes of Eastern history. Perhaps the fact that this book is set during the Song dynasty in the 1200s  made me feel this was a good one for me to read.

I prefer to write more balanced reviews that are as objective as I can make them. But, in this case, I was so strongly reminded of my childhood that that might not be possible. I somehow missed the fact that this is a kung fu book, written by a master of the kung fu novel who popularized them in China. The book description talks about Guo Jing being trained and having to fight an opponent. The cover depicts a warrior. You'd think I would have figured it out. Instead, it was all the fight scenes I kept reading. This book is littered with them. But of course it must be! It's a kung fu novel. What is a kung fu novel without kung fu? I do not enjoy violence. I do not enjoy books with copious amounts of fighting. But I didn't mind. Each fight scene reminded me of the old Chinese kung fu movies I used to watch with my dad. Granted, I never watched them closely, but, while reading, I could easily remember and imagine them. It was like having wisps of my childhood fed back into my brain. But what really struck me about the fight scenes in this book versus those in more Western novels was the respect given to and in the battles by the participants. They were different and so reminiscent of what I know of my heritage that I actually enjoyed fight scenes in a book for the first time ever.

But as much as I enjoyed and appreciated this novel, there were still a few things I didn't particularly care for. This first volume spans almost 20 years, so there are massive time jumps, and sometimes they're right in the middle of a chapter. It was a little disorienting. But, with those time jumps, come events that impact the present and future that then need to be told. I appreciate that the characters lived lives during the time jumps and what they did was important to the story, but those bits of information were seemingly dropped in the middle of the narrative when it became necessary for the reader to know that something had happened years before. I liked knowing what had happened because then it made the present story make more sense, but it did make the novel feel a little choppy. Lastly, the point of view shifted around between the two wives, Charity and Lily, in a strange, disproportionate way. This book is the first three volumes of the series put into one, but there is no delineation of this. The story simply runs together. After their husbands are attacked, the story follows Charity for a while, but then it switches to Lily, and then her son Guo Jing, and Charity and her child are seemingly forgotten.

My understanding is that Jin Yong's stories are incredibly popular in China, so perhaps my complaints are due to my Westernized upbringing. Still, the story is enjoyable and does not disappoint as a novel focused on the martial arts. I loved the Eastern feel of it, and loved how nostalgic it made me. Overall, this is a fun story full of adventure and excitement.


Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a free e-copy. All opinions are my own.

Link to post: https://thelilycafe.com/2019/09/17/book-review-a-hero-born-by-jin-yong/

I liked the basic storyline of this book and I felt it had plenty of potential. However, in my opinion, the book was kind of hard to read. The flow of words seemed clunky and that really made it hard to get fully into the story. I also felt that there was a severe lack of excitement to the fight/battle scenes. I thought that it was difficult to pin down the actual identity of this book. I anticipated epic fantasy but often ended up thinking B-movie or video game (which I both enjoy, by the way). I'm not sure if this was caused simply from it's translation or from tweeks that had been made to make it more modern and mainstream.

I was unaware that this was translated work, which worked out perfect because my goal was to read more works this year. Y’all this book was amazing! Epic battles. Mystical and creatively weird powers developed by supreme dedication to the art. This book was the rush I needed. I fear now I have a book hangover; how can I get my hands on the next book? This is a must read!

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press & Netgalley for gifting me this DARC in exchange for an honest review.

I very much wanted to enjoy this translated work but I found myself getting lost so many times. There were just too many characters and too much happening while also simultaneously nothing was happening. I love the history of Genghis Khan but this book wasn't for me either. I can understand the appeal to some but it definitely wasn't comparable to Lord of the Rings for me.

I think this book had many good plot points even though some are very basic I thought they were executed well. Let’s hope the rest of the series gets translated so I can continue to read it!

This is a classic case of "I love the idea of this book more than the execution," or perhaps more precisely it's a case of "I love that this book exists, but it's just not for me." I have loved both wuxia (martial arts inspired Chinese fantasy) films as well as less fantastical works of Chinese historical fiction (a la Netflix's RISE OF PHOENIX) and Chinese science fiction (including THE THREE BODY-PROBLEM and so forth) in the past. I'm also wary of the bottleneck that seems inherent to translating works from a world so rich in publishing as the Chinese market, with only a few authors making it onto Western shelves. To that end, I love that A HERO BORN is out there in the world, introducing new readers to a new and worthy author, series, and world.

Personally? I did not love the translation style. And as far as fantasy epics go, this one didn't push a lot of the boundaries and buttons I need it to. I don't know how much of that is a consequence of the many competing pressures on Chinese authors. And I don't know how much I was put off by this being a somewhat tediously conventional patriotic narrative. I'm just not in a place where I can enjoy that as much as others might. There are ways to turn the highbrow distant narrator-voice into a feature rather than a drawback, but perhaps because of the translator's style, it came off stilted and cold.

The epic Chinese classic and phenomenon published in the US for the first time!
A fantastical generational saga and kung fu epic, Jin Yong's A Hero Born is the classic novel of its time, stretching from the Song Empire (China 1200 AD) to the appearance of a warlord whose name will endure for eternity: Genghis Khan.

After his father was murdered, Guo Jing and his mother fled to the plains and joined Genghis Khan and his people. Loyal, humble and driven, he learned all he could from the warlord and his army in hopes of one day joining them in their cause. But what Guo Jing doesn’t know is that he’s destined to battle an opponent that will challenge him in every way imaginable and with a connection to his past that no one envisioned.

With the help and guidance of his shifus, The Seven Heroes of the South, Guo Jing returns to China to face his foe and carry out his destiny. But in a land divided by treachery and war, betrayal and ambition, he’ll have to put his courage and knowledge to the test to survive.

*** At first I wasn’t sure I would finish this book for the first pages listed ALL the characters and their backgrounds right from the start. And there seemed like hundreds! [Pretty darn close too!] And note these were not common names but ones I couldn’t pronounce so consequently, my reading was a bit slow at first until I really got into the story. But once in I was HOOKED! Even though the names were foreign, the action and pace moved extraordinarily fast. And that is due to the excellent translation of the tome by Anna Holmwood. It was an easy read with enormous momentum, and some of the key characters (of which some did not last long in this brutal world of fantasy and wonder) added a plethora of emotions from horror and hate to caring and love.

However, I did finish this book and there are a lot of words I can use to describe it – AWESOME – FABULOUS – UNFORGETTABLE – EMOTIONALLY STIRRING. Loved the pace, the people, the historical strands of actual historical figures, and the wonder of the fantasy and of course, the descriptions of all the martial arts moves and action!

Highly Recommended!!!

Marilyn Rondeau * marilynsbookreviews.com

When I requested this book, I thought it was the first in a series and that it was a new book [the description on NetGalley leads you to believe this]. Turns out, I was very, very, misinformed.

This is the first book in a set of T W E L V E [that has been out in Chinese for years]. And currently, it is the only one that has been translated from the Chinese into English [You find this out at the beginning of the book in a note from the translator]. AND! [as I just found out], the book just ends - at a very pivotal point I might add - and leaves you wondering WHAT just happened and what will happen and now I will never know what happens to all these people that I have spent 6 days reading about [I figured, given the title, that each of the twelve books was an independent story, each with a hero of the Condor. I was wrong.[. Six days of rough reading - this is not an easy book to read; it is filled with both Mongolian and Chinese customs [I am unfamiliar with most of them; thank goodness for my Kindle and the translation app it has], LOTS of Kung-fu [it is mostly as story about Kung-fu training and the different styles] and war and fighting. Lots and lots of war and fighting. And unfortunately, most of the time, the translation makes you feel like you are reading a 1960's subtitled Kung-fu movie [I actually read some of it with those kind of voices in my head], which was frustrating.

There were moments where I really did like the story, but then the fighting would begin again.
I will also say there are a bazillion characters - 6 pages of them at the front of the book. Several of them have the same name. Many use disguises and you find out they are a totally different person later in the book [and have to go back and try and figure out who they were in disguise]. It was, at many points, very confusing.

I am sure there are many people who will love this book - I myself enjoyed many parts of it, but it was mostly a miss for me. I am upset that I will never know what happened to all of the characters though. THAT should have been made clear in the description for the book so you would know before requesting it.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from this book when I first picked this up. It’s not a genre I’ve tried before, so I was intrigued about this one, mostly. And what I got was a chaotic, meandering, and above all entertaining tale.

A Hero Born is part one (of four, in book 1 of a trilogy) of Legends of the Condor Heroes. So, already, you could kind of expect the sort of plot this book would follow. There is a lot of backstory going on in this book. The storyline the blurb promises doesn’t even really start until probably around a third of the way in. But it’s okay, because there are a lot of action scenes to keep you interested in the meantime (even if sometimes they had me a little like how does that work??).

It’s kind of hard to explain what the book is about, because it’s so meandering. At its heart is a bet. Between the Seven Freaks of the South and a Taoist, over which of two sons will prevail in a contest. Only, first, they have to find/rescue the sons and train them. One boy ends up being raised as the son of a Jin prince, while the other finds himself raised among the army of Genghis Khan.

When I say this book was meandering, I mean I never really expected it to have a climax and ending in the way another novel might. In fact, I wasn’t all that surprised that it seemed to end mid-scene more than anything. It’s a book of periods of lulls followed by richly detailed and intricate fight scenes (which contrast sharply with the battles the author chooses not to describe at all), so its pacing feels a little all over the place. (Of course, how much of that is the book, and how much is the translation, I don’t know.)

There is one thing that threw me about the translator’s choices though, and that’s their decision to translate some of the characters’ names literally. For one, you have Skyfuro Guo or, memorably, Copper Corpse Hurricane Chen. But then, there are some names which don’t get translated (I think). But if you’re going to make the (very odd) decision to translate, why not translate all of them? Or, just let your readers read some non-Western names. Surely they can cope.

That (and the 1950s misogyny) aside, it was an enjoyable book, though. And one which I may, in future, be tempted to continue with.

I feel so bad for DNF’ing this book.. I was so ready for this Chinese inspired book!
Sometimes I feel stupid when reading a book because I just have no clue what the f*ck is going on.. This was one of those books.
I was just very confused about what was going on and how the different stories connected. In the beginning we followed two couples who were attacked by soldiers, and only one of the girls is saved who we then continue to follow. And I was enjoying this part! Than randomly we switch to this Taoist (who was shortly mentioned before). And I just couldn’t follow this part of the story at all, and I had no clue how it connected to the first part. Probably if I continued on reading, I might have figured it out. But it was just too confusing and I wasn’t enjoying my time reading it!
I’m very sad this wasn’t for me! But I’m pretty sure this book is much loved by many people, so hopefully you might enjoy this! You might enjoy this better if you’re familiar with the events this is based on!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC of this book for honest feedback.

Reading the synopsis...
"The Song Empire has been invaded by its warlike Jurchen neighbours from the north. Half its territory and its historic capital lie in enemy hands; the peasants toil under the burden of the annual tribute demanded by the victors. Meanwhile, on the Mongolian steppe, a disparate nation of great warriors is about to be united by a warlord whose name will endure for eternity: Genghis Khan.

Guo Jing, son of a murdered Song patriot, grew up with Genghis Khan's army. He is humble, loyal, perhaps not altogether wise, and is fated from birth to one day confront an opponent who is the opposite of him in every way: privileged, cunning and flawlessly trained in the martial arts.

Guided by his faithful shifus, The Seven Heroes of the South, Guo Jing must return to China - to the Garden of the Drunken Immortals in Jiaxing - to fulfil his destiny. But in a divided land riven by war and betrayal, his courage and his loyalties will be tested at every turn."

This is the first book in this sci-fi/fantasy read. And what I missed that this was actually a "translation"; which I tend to avoid from past bad reading experiences. I just could not get into this novel! I was bummed, because I thought I would enjoy it from reading the synopsis.

I rated this 2.25/5 stars. It just was not for me.

Guo Jing and his mother had to flee China for the northern steppes of Mongolia when his father was killed. He grew up there and eventually was under the tutelage of the Khan Temujin, the man that would become Genghis Khan, as well as the fabled Seven Heroes of the South. The plan is to get stronger and more skilled so that he could return to China and avenge his father's death.

A Hero Born is book one of the Legends of the Condor Heroes, and there is an extensive note before the novel opens explaining this. The story of the Condor Heroes is a beloved one in China, and is a series of trilogies with epic kung fu, generational sagas, heated emotions and misunderstandings spurring on dramatic quests and pledges, as well as the strong ties of different fighting styles and techniques. I can't stress epic enough; this novel spans almost twenty years and involves a large enough cast of characters that we get a character list in the beginning of the book explaining the connections between them all. It starts off slow and there are moments of shifting perspectives that can make it a little hard to track who we're following. I don't think it's an artifact from the translation process, but a factor of the different storytelling style. If you enjoy the old kung fu movies (the kind with the bad dub jobs and obvious red paint for the flying blood spatters), this is the legend that spawned the entire genre.

The Song patriots Skyfury Guo and Ironheart Yang live as farmers with their wives when the Jin invade parts of China. Song officials are known to be corrupt, and some are less willing to protect the common folk from the Jin, let alone all of the tribes in the north. With both men assist a monk that killed a corrupt official, they are ultimately killed and their pregnant wives are taken hostage. Their sons are then the ones to eventually be trained and take up the mantle of justice that their fathers had carried. This particular volume follows more of Guo Jing's story, and that of his teachers, as well as their feuds and stories. It can seem over the top at times, but that's the nature of the art form. I was drawn into the story and the intense drama surrounding Guo Jing, and any fan of kung fu and wuxia stories will love this.

This review is set to release on September 27, 2019 www.quillandbooks.com/2019/09/27/a-hero-born


This one it is hard to evaluate the writing. Really I’m evaluating the translation. As a reader, I found this translation very difficult to follow. I teach ESL and I love learning about other cultures, so I was excited to immerse myself in a story originally written in Chinese. The words are translated to English, but there was so much in the way everything was phrased that I really could not follow this story very well. I kept having to look back and determine who this character was in relation to others.

I wanted to like this book because I love stories that have a large cast of character and a rich history. This seems like a story that has that. Unfortunately, I couldn’t grasp the cultural context, subtleties of the Chinese culture enough to grasp this story. I couldn’t relate to the characters or understand their motives. Here is an example of sentences from chapter one:

“I am forever in Madam’s debt, for you saved my life.” (I’m no translation expert but why use the word Madam?)

Later, Yan Lie realizes he has been robbed when the hotel attendant asks for payment. Instead of having the police summoned, he starts a fight with the attendant and beats up some thugs to get the police involved. Then when the police come, he presents a letter to summon the governor of the town. WHY? Why, when he realized he’d been robbed, did he not just ask the attendant to summon the police and the governor to find out who robbed him? I read plenty of novels with violence but in those stories there is usually a good reason for it. This is one example in which I feel like I am missing something because the book has sold enough copies to warrant several reprints, so clearly the book is good, at least to some. This makes me think it makes more sense to those who read it in the original language.

I wish the translator had taken more liberties in her translation to make the story more understandable for the american population.

Who Will Like This?
I can’t recommend this book for students. It is not aimed at students. For example, from what I can understand, Charity is married to a man. Yan Lie is part of an army group that attacks their village. Charity finds Yan Lie wounded and saves him. Yan Lie later returns, murders Charity’s husband and kidnaps her. Charity, not knowing he is her husband’s murderer, falls in love with this kidnapper.

So who will like this? I think those who read it in the original language, would like this.