Journal Entry 1 by LastEdition on Tuesday, August 18, 2009

A fantasy novel set in Tang China, Silk Road follows a young girl, daughter of the commander of the military post at Khotan in Western China, who is kidnapped by Tibetan raiders and sold into slavery. Parrot, as she is known, ends up as a courtesan first in Don-Huang and then in the capital of Chang-An; her quest to find her mother will take her across China and down the Yangzi to Cavegarden Lake.
Parrot's story is interleaved with largely comic episodes involving the immortals who follow her progress and manipulate her life: an Undersecretary in the Taoist Celestial Administration, King of the Dead Yama, the Good Lady Guan-yin, the Western Motherqueen, and an assortment of other figures. Much of the story is told from Parrot's perspective in the first person, but much is in the third person, with many sections modelled on Ming short stories (complete with interjections by the storyteller) or other Chinese genres. Larsen draws on Chinese sources not just for content but for structure and form, though heavily reworked for a Western audience. (And she sensitively negotiates the dangers involved in cultural appropriation of this kind.)

The earlier part of Silk Road is slower and closer to historical fiction, with the supernatural action largely epiphenomenal, but it becomes both more eventful and more fantastic as it progresses. There are enough of the cliches of modern fantasy to keep most readers of the genre happy — perhaps too many for some of us — but there is also much that is refreshingly original.

It forms part of a trilogy, with Bronze Mirror and Manchu Palaces, but is a self-contained novel. 

Journal Entry 2 by LastEdition at RABCK - OBCZ CafeEinstein in -- Per Post geschickt/ Persönlich weitergegeben --, Wien Austria on Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Released 2 yrs ago (8/18/2009 UTC) at RABCK - OBCZ CafeEinstein in -- Per Post geschickt/ Persönlich weitergegeben --, Wien Austria

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WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Sending to OBCZ Manager Rianonne for release in early September 2009. 

Journal Entry 3 by CafeEinstein from Wien Bezirk 01 - Innere Stadt, Wien Austria on Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Arrived safe and sound in Vienna.

Thanks so much for sending LastEdition!! 

Journal Entry 4 by CafeEinstein at Café Einstein (OBCZ) in Wien Bezirk 01 - Innere Stadt, Wien Austria on Thursday, September 17, 2009

Released 2 yrs ago (9/18/2009 UTC) at Café Einstein (OBCZ) in Wien Bezirk 01 - Innere Stadt, Wien Austria

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

OBCZ Café Einstein - am shelf

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