A coup forces boy emperor, Chien Hua, to retreat to the source of his jade - the small island of Taishu. Jade can only be possessed by the emperor himself due to its inherent properties. It has always been transported, protected and controlled, by wealthy jade masters but with the emperor so close at hand, why shouldn't the miner clans profit from the transaction themselves?
Li Ton, captain of the pirate ship Shalla, has just put all the monks of The Forge to the sword. He's never believed the tales that they ensorcelled a dragon beneath the harbor with their power but he does think their prayers to the old gods keep the fishermen and tradesmen safe. A protection he wants removed, his cargo bays all the better for it.
General Tunghai Wang has all his soldiers in place, ready to cross the harbor, ready to face the emperor and take the jade throne. All that remains is the boat crossing.
And then there's the dragon. She is real, powerful and angry…and free.

Chinese fantasy is not something I’ve read before and I wasn't sure what to expect. The world building is lovely, so packed and concise and the language witty and unexpectedly lyrical at times. Will definitely read book two. ( )

Most epic fantasy written in English has its basis in Western culture. While the worlds created in these books are not our world, they are generally recognizable: the use of language is comfortable, the foods are what we or our ancestors ate, the customs are basically familiar. Even mythological creatures look the way we expect them to, so that unicorns have horns and dragons have wings. When there are exceptions to these rules, the author is certain to provide an explanation, and the exception is often integral to the tale.

In recent years, however, the Far East has begun to appear in fantasy more and more often. Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet, for instance, is set in a vaguely Far Eastern milieu. R. Scott Bakker’s The Prince of Nothing series has a Far Eastern feel. And now Daniel Fox’s new series, Moshui: The Books of Stone and Water is explicitly set in China – not quite our China, and not quite Pu-Yi, the last emperor in our universe, but in China in some alternate universe. A I have learned for the first time that Chinese dragons can fly, but do not have wings.

The first book of the series, Dragon in Chains, is set in Taiwan and the strait in between in and mainland China. The young emperor has fled to this island in the face of a rebellion by one of his generals, who has considerable military backing. Taiwan – here called Taishu-island – is his last refuge. It is not at all clear how or even if he will be able to reclaim his empire, even though he has the Jade Throne with him, a furnishing that is essential to anyone who would claim to be emperor.

Although the rebellion is the frame for this novel, the picture in the frame is considerably more complex and populated by numerous interesting characters and subplots. One such character is Han, who is a scribe’s servant when the book opens but quickly becomes both more and less than that as fate wraps its arms around him. Old Yen and his granddaughter, Mei Feng, fish in the strait on the boat that is their family’s only valuable possession – even more valuable in a time of war, and especially when commandeered to carry the emperor. Li Ton, a brutal pirate, has his own agenda that seems to have nothing to do with the rebellion, politics or the emperor, but looks can be deceiving – especially in his case. Yu Shan is a member of a clan that mines jade in the interior of the island; all jade belongs to the emperor, by law, but Yu Shan is part of jade, and jade a part of him, and it has properties that make him an unusual young man. And overlying all of them is the dragon, chained to the bottom of the sea, angry at her captivity and eager to take her revenge.

The stories of all these characters, and several more, are woven together with skill by Fox. He is able to follow several related themes at once without confusing the reader, and ultimately to bring them together in a conclusion that, upon reading, seems inevitable.

Fox writes especially well about how war affects the people who live in a city that comes under attack. I found it difficult to read about Ma Lin and her family, and came away from the book admiring her most greatly among the characters. In fact, Fox’s women seem generally to be very resilient individuals, smart beyond their apparent stations in life, and very much survivors no matter what the odds. Fox’s men seem often to be led by the women, usually without their knowledge, giving the women in this patriarchal society much more power than is immediately apparent.

I was not surprised to read that Fox has written several dozen books, hundreds of short stories, poetry and plays, because he is clearly not a new writer; the assurance with which this book is written makes that clear. I assume that “Daniel Fox” is a pseudonym, because I cannot seem to find any of these books, stories, etc., which is rather a pity because I’d seek them, having so much enjoyed Dragon in Chains.

Right now, though, I’m happy enough to be able to read Jade Man's Skin, which will be followed this coming March by Hidden Cities. Ably written and with an uncommon setting, this fantasy series is worth reading. ( )

This gorgeously written book is the first part of a new fantasy trilogy which draws on medieval China for its inspiration. It's an alternate universe China, of course, and one of the ways in which it's alternate is that magic is real, if largely subtle. Subtle enough that some characters do not realise that the magic is there. Even the dragon of the title is a background menace in this first book, thought of as myth by the people who don't live in her territory, although she's a key part of one of the main plot threads.

That's plot threads, plural. One of the joys of the book is that there are multiple plot threads, skillfully balanced by a writer who knows how to use them to create a complex story with several distinctive characters. All of these threads converge on Taishu, a remote island on the edge of empire. On the physical edge, at least. Taishu may seem remote and insignificant to most, but it is the source of the jade that underpins the power of the Jade Throne and the Emperor who sits on it. He who holds Taishu holds the empire, in a very real sense, and Taishu is about to become the centre of more than one conflict.

Scribe's apprentice Han is enslaved by the raiding party of pirates who kill his master. They are not local men, and their leader Li Ton pays no heed to his frantic warnings against their next raid -- upon a monastery whose monks' magic keeps the chains bound tight about the dragon held under the sea. After all, everyone knows that dragons haven't been seen for hundreds of years, if they were ever real in the first place. As Han and the monastery's sole survivor fight to hold the bindings in place, the dragon senses freedom, and Han senses her.

Fishergirl Mei Feng finds her life changed one night, when her grandfather's boat is commandeered by generals, by the emperor himself. The boy emperor is fleeing from a rebel army, his own loyal troops not enough to stand and fight, or so his mother and his generals say. They have one hope, to hold the Jade Throne and the jade mines that are the true source of imperial power. In the end the Hidden City is wherever the throne is, and so the Hidden City moves to a remote island, along with as much of the army as can find boats to cross the strait. But the Son of Heaven finds one unexpected resource on the fishing boat that carries him to safety -- a local girl to be a friend his own age, someone who is loyal to him both as emperor and as lonely, isolated boy. And in particular, is loyal to him, not the mother and generals who see him as too young to be anything other than a figurehead.

The jade miners have heard that the emperor himself has come to their island, and what they hear is a chance to break free of the middlemen who offer them a pittance, a chance to take his jade to him themselves. It is his jade, they know that; but perhaps he will give them a better reward for their work in mining it than do the jademasters. And so one clan of miners breaks the law and sends one of their young men with the fabulous new piece they have unearthed. Yu Shan is prepared for bandits in the hills, but even so he has a more twisted path to the emperor's notice than he imagines. For he is young and does not know the secret of the jade, why it is so tightly controlled.

These could all easily become a cliched story, but here they are in the hands of a master storyteller. Fox weaves them together to make a multi-layered story where subtle clues are laid well in advance, creating an "oh, of course!" as the hints finally slot together to make the full picture. It's no surprise that this works so well, as "Daniel Fox" is the pseudonym of an award-winning writer with a depth of experience in both crime fiction and fantasy. The world he has created is strongly grounded in reality, but has magic added, and the consequences of that are woven into the world he shows, rather than the magic being thrown in with no thought for how it might affect things. This world and its characters are described in beautiful and beautifully controlled prose. The result is a richly detailed fantasy that explores new ground rather than treading well-worn paths.

Dragon in Chains is quite definitely the first part of a single story, but there is enough plot, and intermediate resolution of various plot threads, to make the book a satisfying read in its own right rather than merely a cliffhanger designed to get you to keep buying the series. This is a complex and enticing dark fantasy that is well worth the wait for the next part.

Official release date is 27 January 2009, and the book is available for pre-order at Amazon UK and at Amazon US.

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