A Hero Born is written simply. And that's all it needs to capture your attention.

There is kung fu fighting, mistaken identity, historical figures, mystical creatures and a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers. I can't imagine if I had been reading this story as it was originally serialized. Things may have been broken in the rage born from having to wait til next week or month. As it is, I can't wait for the next book in this series to be available.

The omniscient writing was a little challenging to get used to at first, but this style makes this book decidedly not one with an unreliable narrator. The reader is always given all the information even when the characters don't have it. Even with all this knowledge, you don't get bored. Watching the characters play out their drama and commonplace actions is just as delightful when you know SOMETHING is going to happen.

I recommend this book if you have ever enjoyed old kung fu movies. The story and plot points will be right up your alley.

A theme I like reading is how ordinary people rise to Herculean challenges and defend justice despite overwhelming odds. This is why I like westerns and thrillers where the common man becomes superhero in his quest for justice. That’s what caught my attention about Jin Yong's A Hero is Born (MacMillon 2019), Book 1 in Legends of the Condor Heroes. The story, written in 1957 by the world's best-selling Chinese-speaking author, is an epic series that when published in its original Chinese, counted its fans in the hundreds of millions. It spans decades of Chinese history, starting in 1200's and continuing until Genghis Khan. It includes tough moral men, talented in the hand-to-hand fighting of the Far East, maybe assisted by the occasional magic. It is about love, loss, triumph, power, and overcoming. 

It is a delight to read and unlike any other action or historic book you’ll ever read.

Why 4/5 instead of 5/5? I think despite the translator's efforts, the story lost something in the translation. I am pretty sure if I read it in the original Chinese, it would be 6/5.

--review to be published on my blog, WordDreams July 19, 2019

I've always admired kung-fu movies, the actors, the costumes, the culture and the kick~ass martial arts made for mystifying films. A Hero Born is the embodiment of that spirit, Transcending generations and cultures, this book is an insight to martial arts hero building. At the beginning the tenses of the writing can be a little difficult (as these stories have been translated from Chinese) but the plot is no less interesting for it, This book is the "movie in your head" embodied and it was a joy to read. It does have a 1001 Arabian Nights vibe to it, so make sure you're keeping track of the lineages and characters.

I went into this book really excited - my boyfriend loves the wuxia genre and has explained different aspects of it to me, though he's never read this particular text in its original form.

But even as a non-Chinese myself, I could tell things were lost in translation. Names were inconsistently translated literally or romanized; I actually found the translated names (like Skyfury and Ironheart) more distracting and harder to keep track of than the romanized ones. I also felt like I was missing something in the action scenes. Special abilities by the characters were described like Rainbow Dragon Crushing Sky (I did make this one up), which felt a lot like moves characters make in Japanese video games; my boyfriend informed me that they are not supposed to be described like this.

Even without this knowledge about what was lost/changed, I felt the translation was still a bit amateurish. It conveyed the story, but I never felt any emotion for the characters. I also never felt particularly grounded in the story's history, which is unfortunate considering I did study ancient Chinese history in university.

I think it's a loss because this genre is so well-loved in China, and I think Western readers would really enjoy it. Perhaps there will be another translation made in the future.

Couldn't get into it so I didn't finish. From what I read it seemed like it was written well but just wasn't my cup of tea.

Amazing story that was so visually perfect in its descriptions, sometimes the pace could slow a little but it always pulled you straight back in. I love books about the East and I’m so happy so many more are available now, this is a must read, interesting and such an epic story


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

An absolutely amazing experience. It is a world like no other that the author has created. At times it was a bit slow but then it sucked me right back in again. All in all a must read.

The book is incredibly wordy and boring. I felt like I was reading an encyclopedia, not a novel. Just not my cup of tea.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for a candid review.
First of all, this is NOTHING like The Lord of the Rings, except I suppose it is a fantasy. I think more people were killed in this book than I currently know, which did not endear it to me. It wasn't until more than half-way through the book that the reader finally gets to a main character who isn't killed and doesn't disappear, and while a nice young man, he's not very bright. It also simply ends, with no resolution of anything. Unfortunately, I am not tempted to read any more of this series.

This book is very involved and the characters are quite complex. The story is full of unexpected twists that grab the reader. Obviously the Chinese location is definitely different. Interesting reading!

I read another book in this series and was happy to read this one.
It's engrossing and entertaining, a great book that keeps you hooked till the end and make you travel to another time and ancient China.
I look forward to reading other books in this series.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I know this book would’ve been pretty good, but it just wasn’t for me. I think it was just too much going on all at once that I had to follow along and that’s something that can be very discouraging for me. I really liked the info dump at the beginning that explained the names/relations, etc. But unfortunately the first chapter was just too much for me.

The first thing I really noticed about this book was the incredibly evocative imagery. This is a fantastic tale of kung fu and Ancient China, and it lives up to it's legend. The translation into English is brilliantly done, conveying not only the full meaning and nuances of the tale, but also keeping the pace and "sound" of the original Chinese.
A truly great start to an epic tale - I look forward to reading the next books in the series!

In this book there is intrigue, romance, wicked princes and advisers. The translation of this book let it down and why I only gave it 4 stars, as it made the book difficult to understand at times as I got confused, but none the less the book it's self is a great book, the characters are great and the plot was a great plot and the explanation of the kung-Fu is great and really gets you imagining what moves they are doing in the moment.

overall this book was great and I appreciate that translating it into English must of been a difficult task so for that they did a great job but there were just a few places in the book that were a bit choppy and misleading. I would defiantly recommend this book to anyone that is into historical fiction and kung-Fu.

brief summary
This novel introduces English-speaking readers to the epic world of the wuxia, full of kung fu masters villainous and virtuous, sacred oaths, disguises, and intrigue as it follows the youth and training of a young man whose destiny was set before he was even born.

full review
This contemporary novel was actually written in 1957, but it is only with this translation that English speakers have widespread access to it, and we've certainly been missing out. Translator Anna Holmwood has rendered Jin Yong's text in such a way that to read it one feels they are reading the screenplay of an old kung fu movie, the sort with outlandish makeup and lots of wirework (which I shall henceforth refer to as wire fu). This can be a good or bad thing, depending on a reader's tolerance for contrived-sounding dialogue and outrageous claims of martial prowess and spiritual enlightenment narrated in the breathless prose of a penny dreadful.

The novel begins with a vow taken between two friends who are like brothers that their as-yet unborn children will either be sworn brothers or betrothed. They seal this vow by exchanging daggers emblazoned with the names of their offspring-to-be, which were suggested by a passing monk with whom they nearly did battle until proper respect and reverence was established all around. Both of these fathers are soon murdered dreadfully and their mothers are separated by villains, one to Mongolia and the other to a storage room for handy plot devices. The monk who named these fetuses comes across a group of seven warriors (who actually call themselves the Seven Freaks) and for some obscure reason must match himself against them, which terminates in a bet between them: the monk will find one of the missing mothers, the Freaks the other, and they will each teach the resultant child their martial arts and in eighteen years pit the children against each other to determine who is the ultimate winner (the Freaks or the monk).

What follows is the sort of convoluted plotting one expects from wuxia tradition. There's intrigue, romance, wicked princes and advisers, and a cameo from young Genghis Khan (back when he still went by Temujin). It is a lot of fun, but would probably be easier to follow as a cinematic experience, where there would be visual cues to help remind people who is who. Names fly fast and furious, and without the handy guide at the beginning of the book it would be easy to lose track of characters, even though their names have frequently been simplified or translated directly (for instance, the character Rong is named Lotus so that English readers can be in on the joke that this character is a woman in disguise, since most English speakers would not otherwise know that Rong has several semantic interpretations, some of which indicate femininity). Many characters have several names (all of the monks seem to, for instance), and their assumed names range from "eh, okay" to "what in the world" (I'm thinking specifically of Iron Corpse and Copper Corpse, an evil married pair who practices evil kung fu involving skulls and a lot of evil, apparently). Since this is the first book in a long series, it is to be expected that the cast of characters will increase drastically, so with luck there will be a series recap at the beginning of the next volume.

One of the traits that sets this book firmly in the wuxia tradition is the way characters are introduced to each other and to the audience. Minimal time is devoted to physical description, but multiple chapters are given to describing kung fu styles and then narrating the resultant battle between acquaintances. Because there's absolutely going to be a battle. Apparently kung fu masters are like cats, who must, upon meeting, establish who is the most important and best of all before any real conversation or useful action can be taken. The lineage of shifus must be exchanged (or divined upon recognizing a style of fighting), along with insults, false modesty, and finally epic wire fu battles involving not only implausible physical prowess, but feats of qi mastery that can literally render another human being stunned and speechless. It's unbelievable, of course, and more than a little silly, but for fans of the genre this is the stuff that makes the novel a delight. It also adds significantly to its length. If people simply bowed and exchanged names when they met, this book would be at least a hundred pages shorter.

I am not sure that this book makes the best introduction to the genre, as readers unfamiliar with the style might find the florid language and plot contrivances excessive and off-putting, but it does typify the wuxia genre, so fans should be pleased by this addition to English-language wuxia offerings. I was unable to make heads or tails of the chapter divisions, and why they were placed as they were, but I enjoyed the illustrations and appreciated the notes on translation and historical figures at the end of the book.

An interesting read. Read with my 16-year-old son and mandarin student, whose teacher got him really excited about the author. He says he enjoyed the book and its intricate plot. He liked the diversity in the types of characters. He did think it got confusing in places, and he thought it got a little slow in some places, but overall he enjoyed the book.

Being a history buff, I enjoyed this unusual book. At times the writing is jagged; it is unclear exactly what happened. I would tell myself 'it was lost in translation.' But the references to the Mongols, Khan, and that era made the read worth it to me. The question is, what happens next? The hero of the book, Guo, is a sensitive and honest young man, a good fighter, but appears not the brightest. I questioned whether Wanyan *could* be Wang's son, but the book didn't make it that far. I would be interested to read the next book - if there is one - just to answer that question.

“It begins with a storyteller, with news from the north, a tale of crushing defeat and humiliation, a great Chinese Empire in tatters and fleeing south.”


Oooooh boy was this a mistake. A Hero Born is the first in Jin Yong’s classic Chinese fantasy series, Legends of the Condor Heroes. It takes place in China and Mongolia, right around the time Genghis Khan is coming to power. The story follows a boy named Guo Jing as he matures and trains in the martial arts after his father’s death.


He is trained by the legendary Seven Freaks of the South (only one of whom is a woman) to become the best warrior he can be. He faces struggles, of course, and is repeatedly described as being dull and slow (never a likeable characteristic in your protag) which limits what he is able to learn. Unbeknownst to him, all this training is for a standoff planned by the Seven Freaks and another master, who is training another young boy. It is planned that they will have a martial arts battle, and the winner will be seen as having the better master(s), so it’s really only for their benefit.


I really did like how this all took place against the backdrop of Chinese history, and nerdy old me really appreciated learning something while I read. I was never really aware of the differences between North and South China, and the internal conflicts that plagued it before the Mongol invasion.


Now all of this sounds really good, except that it wasn’t. I’m sure that, in its original Chinese, this book is phenomenal. Unfortunately, in English, it falls flat. Like, Flat Stanley flat. The characters never gain any depth or exhibit any true or genuine emotion that I could relate too. Their words are robotic, and no character has a unique voice. We are repeatedly told what a character is like rather than witnessing their actions and determining for ourselves. Everything in this book is very, very dull and boring.


The fight scenes are numerous and riddled with Kung Fu move-names, which at least made the novel feel like a Kung Fu epic. For readers like myself, who don’t know what moves like “Open the Window to Gaze at the Moon” actually are, descriptions of the moves would be appreciated. I was simply left in confusion wondering what the fighters were actually doing.


Lastly, I need to tackle the way women are treated in this novel. Yes, I understand that this takes place in ancient China and was written in the 50’s. However, I am scared that this will be marketed like a new fantasy novel and have a few words of caution. The women in this novel are rarely shown as fierce warriors (with the exception of two) and always begin to cry at the slightest inconvenience. They never play a huge role in the story and are often damsels in distress. The one female member of the Seven Freaks of the South, Cyclone Mei, is often the first one to be injured in combat and the weakest of the group. The only genuine, strong woman in this novel is Lotus Huang and I love her.


To conclude, this is a novel that has a strong foundation in history, but not much else. It falls flat in characterization, action, excitement and basically everything that was promised.

I did not enjoy this book unfortunately. The translation seemed very literal making the language choppy. I had high hopes but this book unfortunately fell short.

Jin Yong’s epic serial starts with “A Hero Born” a classic wuxia story from the late 1950s. Yong’s story has been adapted into television, films and even a comic book. This is the first volume of an expected four book series, and it’s a doozy.

Set during the Jin Song Wars of China in the 12th-13th century, “A Hero Born” is a generational tale that starts with Yang Tiexin and Guo Xiaotian, sworn brothers who hate the Jurchen invaders. They both swear that, like them, their children will either be sworn-siblings or will marry. This kicks off an epic that will span decades of fantastical, mystical, and impressive martial arts fights.

Unfortunately, this translation, while a noble attempt by Anna Holmwood, left a lot to be desired. While likely adhering to the Yong’s original, which works well for those familiar with other Classical Chinese stories, it may be a bit off-putting for many Western readers. Also, while common in Eastern stories for a character’s name to change given circumstances, Holmwood would have been better served by leaving them consistent, as this may be another point of confusion for English-language readers.

That all said, Jin Yong’s epic is not one to be missed by fans of martial arts, whether familiar with wuxia or not. This epic tale spanning multiple generations in a China that is at once both very real, and filled with fantasy and the fantastical.