Martial arts novels of the sword

       Louis Cha's novel, "The Book and the Sword," was originally written for serialization in Cha's Hong Kong newspaper. Writing for serialization does not necessarily harm a book (as in the case of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"), but it does cause a problem for Cha.
     The first 300 pages of the novel are very episodic and lack overall direction. The book introduces a great many kung fu masters, members of the Red Flower Society, a band of Chinese nationalist outlaws who oppose the Manchu government. In their adventures, they routinely outclass their opponents in terms of martial skill, but they suffer setbacks due to bad luck, trickery, or the sheer number and resources of the people pitted against them. Nevertheless, there are enough Red Flower Society heroes that they never really feel like the underdogs, and I found myself often rooting for the hapless Imperial guards and members of the security agency, all of whom were far more likely to suffer defeat and violent death at the hands of the Red Flower heroes than the reverse.

                          
     The abundance of heroes presents other problems for Cha. Only a handful are provided with real personality and rich characterization: most are flat presences who are most memorable only for their colorful nicknames, like "Crocodile Jiang" or "Melancholy Ghost Shi." Also, whenever one or two heroes are separated from the group and begin to face genuine challenges, other Red Flower heroes repeatedly swoop in and save the day, a Deus Ex Machina which denies the beleaguered heroes a chance to overcome their challenges through cleverness.
     The plot meanders from one event to the next, without exposing any sort of grand plan or design. There are a few elements introduced early on which are important later (such as a knife containing a "secret" which was given to one of the main characters), but it is not clear that Cha had any idea what these elements would ultimately be used for at the time he introduced them.
     The book begins to pick up around page 302, when the red flower society helmsman, Chen, meets a young Uighur woman on his travels toward the Uigher frontier lands. At this point, the problems with "too many heroes" largely vanish, and the characters are forced to be more self-sufficient. The book really hits its stride around page 380, which marks the start of a genuinely fun and interesting adventure involving a legendary, hidden city, a mountain made of jade, and incomprehensibly large and dangerous wolf packs. This adventure leads directly into the book's final scenes and major confrontations, which are the intellectual highlight of the book. The final scenes add depth and meaning to what had been a light adventure story, including weighty moral choices which may seem slightly askew from (but not completely alien to) the standard Western conception of morality.Want to buy a sword!
     The part of the book after page 300 is quite good and would earn 4 or 5 stars if rated on its own. As it is, I give the book 3 stars: a compromise between its shallow, episodic beginning and its strong, intriguing end.