Interesting topics (17th c China, Jesuits, Portuguese colonization in Asia) that I had known nothing about, so acquired knowledge on the plus,. Bit too long and descriptive --yawn-- but easily rectified by skimming over these bits; though at times the description made the scene vivid, and beautiful. Characters rather artificial. ( )

For anyone who has read James Clavell's "Tai-Pan" and "Shogun" this book is like slogging through a muddy rice field. Give it a miss.

I received a review copy of "Manchu: A Novel (The Imperial China Trilogy Book 1)" by Robert Elegant (Open Road Integrated Media) through NetGalley.com. ( )

Sometimes a book wears you down. You find yourself plodding away at it, determined to finish but finding that the number of remaining pages never seems to get any less. This, I'm afraid, was one of those books. A sweeping epic following the Jesuit mission in China in the mid 17th century, and told through the eyes of an ambitious young Englishman, it had scope to be very engaging. And it isn't screamingly bad. It's well-informed and detailed to a fault. But one is left with the powerful sense that 200 of its 634 pages could have been cut without any great loss to the story - in fact, probably to its advantage...

For the full review, due to be published on 11 April, please see below:
https://theidlewoman.net/2017/04/11/manchu-robert-elegant ( )

Epic historic fiction of the fall of the Ming dynasty to the Ching (Manchus) from the perspective of the European churchmen & traders there at that time (1624 - 1652). Starts a little didactically but ends up as a good story well told.
Read Oct 2006 ( )

Rather dreary account of the wars founding the Ming Dynasty. ( )