Product Description

Dream of the Dragon Pool A Daoist Quest is a multifaceted novel woven around the historical fact of the death-sentence exile of China s best loved poet-adventurer, Li Bo (also Li Bai, 701-762 A.D.). This is an adventure story of magic, myth, and occult powers written as traditional Chinese-style wu-xia (heroic) fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #691707 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Released on: 2007-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 335 pages

From Publishers Weekly
At the start of this simplistic debut fantasy from Dalia, a Western scholar of China, the renowned poet Li Bo (based on the historical figure, Li Bai, A.D. 701-762) is drinking too much and writing too little since his exile from the emperor's court. Accompanied by his friend Ah Wu, a deadly crossbowman, Li Bo seeks guidance at the Dream Temple, where an immortal bequeaths him the magical Dragon Pool sword and assigns him a quest that will restore his literary powers. Li Bo must bring the sword to a rain goddess who inhabits a 12-peaked mountain in the Yangtze River's Three Gorges, but the sword attracts some dangerous characters: a blood dragon and his enslaved golden-haired ghost, as well as a ruthless albino swordsman. The beautiful Shamaness Luo, on a separate spiritual quest, is also headed to the 12-peaked mountain. While the story aspires to romantic chinoiserie, the bulk of it remains stubbornly earthbound.
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About the Author
Albert A. Dalia is a China scholar with four decades of study, research, and experience in medieval Chinese history and culture. Two decades ago, after earning two masters degrees and a Ph.D. in Chinese history and religion, he turned to fiction writing and produced a series of published short stories and, now, his first novel.

Customer Reviews

All this...and a drunken monkey!
The great poet, Li Bo, has been ordered into exile, but on his way out of the Empire he decides to stop at Dream Temple, "a place where dreams bring peace to troubled hearts." But, the dream vision he receives sends him and his friend Ah Wu on a quest to bring the magical Dragon Pool Sword to the Rain Goddess on Mount Wu. And so, Li Bo sets out on an epic quest that will lead him through life and death, and choices...and back again.

OK, Where do I start? I have read and enjoyed a few pieces of Chinese literature before, and found them interesting, if heavy, going (most notably Chang Hsi-kuo's city trilogy). This book was written by Albert A. Dalia, a Western scholar and traveler with two masters degrees and a Ph.D. in Chinese history and religion, and it ably succeeds in bringing a Chinese story home to a Western reader.

The story is set in eighth-century China, but it is the China of legend. Through his quest, Li Bo and the reader meet ghosts and dragons, magical assassins and potent shamanesses, magic swords and Immortals...oh yeah, and a drunken monkey. The story itself is quite excellent, being equal to any of the recent wuxia movies coming out (including House of Flying Daggers, which I highly enjoyed).

So, let me sum up by saying that this is an excellent fantasy story, a wonderful Chinese-style story that brings Chinese culture and religion within the grasp of a Western reader, and a very entertaining read. All this...and a drunken monkey. Come on, you know you *have* to read this book!

I loved this book, and give it my highest recommendations!

If Only More Historians Wrote Such Fine Stories
I have known Albert over thirty years, and Li Bo longer. And I've been waiting for this book for more moons than I have hairs left on my head. The wait was worth it, though I hope the next one won't take so long to reach me. I can't imagine anyone not enjoying this journey. But then again, I'm so out of touch with the times, sharing, as I do, Albert's love of the Tang. Meanwhile, I will be keeping an eye out for the glint of a sword blade, the next time I travel through the Yangtze Gorges.

An extraordinary and wondrous tale
Wine and dreams are at the heart of this remarkable novel. Frankly I have never read anything like it. Dalia who is a Chinese scholar has recreated a style and a world view long gone from this realm, a style that interprets the world as dream and mystery, a style that celebrates Dao as an occult religion.

The form of the novel is a quest. Li Bo, a celebrated poet from the eighth century of the current era, whose drunkenness has led to his banishment from the imperial court, is the central character. He has lost his power with words. He is a poet who can no longer rhyme, to whom metaphors no longer occur. He and his warrior companion, Ah Wu, are traveling west as the adventure begins. What will they find? Will they encounter the Daoist immortals? And what does it mean to acquire the Dragon Pool Sword? Is it a curse as Ah Wu believes or an instrument to bring about heavenly recognition to Li Bo and perhaps a return to the imperial court with his poetic powers restored?

Dalia's prose, like those of a fairy tale master, immerses the reader in the mists of the long ago, into a world in which ghosts and dragons, shamanesses and wondrous magicians, goddesses and monsters, exist in reality as they do in myth. He recalls a vision of this world in which there is no line drawn between the mysterious and the mundane, between the world of spirit and that of mortal flesh. The gods and the goddesses are real. Monkeys can catch ghosts and creatures such as the Albino Swordsman can enter your dreams and kill you while you lie sleeping. The dragon can assume horrific forms, terrible and awesome to the eyes. And mortals can mingle with immortals.

To write such a novel requires a child-like love of mystical adventure combined with a deep understanding of the subconscious of human beings. It requires a love for the legends and the mysteries of the past. Dalia's quest is to take us back to the supernatural world that existed for the people who lived during the time of the Tang dynasty and to allow that consciousness to invade our minds and envelop us in wonder and mystery. His is a splendid accomplishment, a fantasy rich in imagination and history, an atmospheric tale charged with the phantasmagoric.