Review: The wonderfully gripping, very well-told tale of Haoyou, a lad living in China under the Song Dynasty. The story begins with a harrowing description of the death of Gou Pei, Haoyou's father, at the hands of the mean and merciless first mate of the ship he is a sailor on. Di Chou forces Pei to drink large amounts of rice wine and then ties him to a kite, which is flown high in the sky as the ship's wind tester. This apparently is a superstitious custom observed before any voyage sets sail. When Pei does not survive the flight, the horrified Haoyou runs to tell his mother; he is further shocked and enraged when Di Chou attends the funeral, and offers to become his mother's new husband. The tale continues in a series of unexpected twists and turns as Haoyou and his duty-defying cousin, Mipeng, seek to evade first Di Chou and subsequently an escalating series of unpleasant people and events, culminating in a stand-off with Kublai Khan himself. Full of emotion, sometimes harrowing, and with moments of hilarity, this is a masterful tale of duty and destiny, superstition and belief, weather and luck, elephants and Mongols and kites. Definitely the best book so far! Read it!
Audiobook: I also really enjoyed Anton Lesser's excellent narration.
Time: Seven hours, six minutes and 58 seconds! Although my listening was spread over several days; it mainly occurred in the car on the way to and back from my trip down to Harpenden, where I spent two days in my new school, met my class, spoke to the parents, did a cover lesson, and got to know my way around.
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