Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: "My family name is Li and my given name is Kao and there is a slight flaw in my character." Thus does Master Li, who lives under the sign of the half-closed eye, introduce himself to Number Ten Ox, a peasant lad every bit as strong as his name suggests, but not nearly as dumb.Ox has come to Peking to hire a Master to solve the mysterious ailment that has all of the children of his home village in its grasp, lying in a coma, apparently slowly dieing. But all of the Masters who reside in the Street of the All-Seeing Eye want too much for his village to pay before they will even consider taking the case... and then he finds the aged Master Li, dead drunk in his tiny ramshackle shack in an alley, with that half-closed eye over the door. Master Li agres to take the case, and, after many hair-raising, often hilarious, sometimes touching, adventures, he and Ox manage to solve the case, answer ancient riddles, destroy a rapacious tyrant, and re-unite immortal lovers who have been seperated for centuries. The pace is fast, and never a moment's rest for the weary. All is resolved more-or-less tidily and quite satisfactorily, leaving this reader somewhat the feeling of having just completed a ride on a particularly good roller-coaster. Ox and Master Li are wonderful characters, complementing each other admirably. Ox, the narrator of their adventures, is actually quite bright and quick of mind, for all his peasant background; and that peasant upbringing has left him with a charming lack of what many would consider proper morals or scruples. In this he is perfectly suited to be Master Li's assistant, as Master Li has no morals at all -- well, he has a fairly strict moral code of his own by which he lives, but it's not even nearly that of Society. Most people would probably describe Master Li as a Bad Man -- he drinks like a fish when he's not actually on a case and steals almost anything that isn't nailed down (and anything he can pry loose, in his opinion, isn't nailed down...) and quite willing to commit casual murders if that's what it takes to solve his cases. Incredibly ancient (he gets older between this book and the next, at that), tiny and so wrinkled that sometimes his eyes disappear among the wrinkles, he is still brilliant, devious and fast with a knife when needed. Master Li goes into action riding on Ox's shoulders -- between them, there are very few foes natural or supernatural that they can't defeat. And the ones they can't defeat outright, Master Li swindles. In the course of this book, Ox and Master Li find themselves in and out of danger with a bewildering frequency, and have to solve a number of apparenly irrelevant riddles and mysteries before they can arrive at the ultimate cure for the children of Ox's village. A wonderful book, highly recommended, as are the two sequels, "The Story of the Stone" and "Eight Skilled Gentlemen" (Ox, being an orphan, decides to relocate to the city as Master Li's permanent assistant and biographer). Master Li and Ox live in "an ancient China that never was", as the book's subtitle explains; a China that is a wonderful place, with actual gods and demons and dragons and what not wandering around and fantastic magic at every hand. (And thereby hangs a recommendation: if you enjoy the adventures of Master Li and Ox, i cannot recommend too highly the similarly-themed but even-more-elegantly-written adventures of Kai Lung, Ernest Bramah's itinerant story teller in a similarly fabulous ancient-China-that-never-was; "Kai Lung's Golden Hours" would probably be a good place to start, and i believe it's currently available...)
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely Not 'Confucius Say...'
Review: This is a fairy tale built for the Orient - or more precisely, a fairy tale with an Oriental flavor written for the enjoyment of poor, deprived Occidentals who have never had the benefit of hearing some of these Chinese legends. Starting with Number Ten Ox (whose name is appropriately descriptive) and his village of Ku-fu, we are dropped into a China of ancient history. The village children, stricken with a strange malady that leaves them comatose and rigid, force Number Ten Ox to seek a scholar to unravel the mystery of their affliction. What he ends up contracting for is ancient Master Li Kao, who has a 'slight flaw in his character', which is all Ox can afford. Master Li determines that the only thing to save the children is the Great Root of Power, and Li and Ox proceed directly to attempt to obtain this Great Root. Thus begins an extraordinary set of tales that leads from the Imperial Palace to brothels to an enchanted destroyed city. Along the way we meet quite a cast of characters: Ma the Grub, Henpecked Ho, the gross (in multiple ways) Ancestress, the greedy Duke of Ch'in, Doctor Death, and the jade-loving Lotus Cloud. Each is unique, though often specifically drawn as semi-caricatures; each adds their bit to this tapestry that includes the secret of immortality, the link between Heaven and Earth, invisible monsters, maze-filled dungeons that guard incredible treasure, where one's heart should be carefully hidden away. Some of the tales herein are real Chinese legends, some are products of Hughart's own fertile imagination, but all are told with a large dollop of humor sketched in broad strokes and a not-so-obvious underlying morality that is quite relevant to every reader. The style may bother some people, as it is written to deliberately evoke that sense of 'Chinese' that many Americans have as a background image of that land and people, but I felt it was an excellent method of evoking that sense of 'different' and 'fairy' at the same time. A few of the tales fell a little flat with me, and at times I thought that Hughart went a little too 'over-the-top' with his outrageous situations and characters, but the overall level of writing kept me nicely adsorbed and grinning quite a bit. There is an overlying mystery, a puzzle to be solved, that connects all these tales, and leads to the final resolution of the story. In the course of working our way through these stories, there seems to be a large amount of coincidence in play, a definite sense of deux-ex-machina to each tale's resolution, but the end of the book proves that all these 'coincidences' are really part of a carefully thought-out overall plot design. I figured out the puzzle quite a bit before the end, but that did not lessen the final emotional impact of the ending, which presents a gorgeous image, an image which is eminently fitting with the rest of the book, and made me wish for a few more tales from this land of not-quite-real ancient China. ---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Rating:
Summary: Whoa! This is a really good book
Review: I read this book in fifth grade. I read it again in the eighth grade (I'm 13 now) and was laughing out loud the entire time. Master Li is such a character and I love Master Ten Ox. Their adventures are so hilarious and the characters they encounter are so... so interesting. I think everyone should read this book. Normally I don't read fantasy but this book was truly remarkable!
Rating:
Summary: So smart, so funny.
Review: Hughart is an oriental Terry Pratchett. Nuff said?
Rating:
Summary: Utterly fabulous and incredible!!!! Blows my mind!!!
Review: This wonderful book really opened my mind to the heart and magic of seeing the true spirit of the people around us, appreciating the beauty of people's lovingness and soul. Although he can be quite cynical, the author really communicates sincerity and compassion through characters who somewhat mystically and magically (albeit accidentally on the narrrator's part) resolve bewildering situations to everyone's satisfaction... a beautifully written book to make one laugh uproariously and cry... although this is fiction, this book depicts such love and humanity... I'm so grateful to my friend who gave this book to me for my birthday....!!!!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful story
Review: This is a wonderful first story in a great series. I really wish Mr. Hughart would finish the set, because I really miss Master Li and Number Ten Ox. This magical story has enough plot twists and action to satisfy any fantasy fan, with enough actual references to make you almost wonder if the story might be history rather than fantasy. The characters are memorable, the plot is wonderful, there's lots of emotion, and the book is waaaaaay too short. There's a bit more blood and gore than Harry Potter, so it's not appropriate for the under-10 set, but if you're over 13, you should read this series. It's getting harder to find now that they author is no longer writing but if you can get your hands on a used copy, pick it up. You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Add fantasy and slapstick. Throw in a pinch of history.
Review: The children of the small village of Ku-fu fall into a deathly coma. It's up to Number Ten Ox to save them. He enlists the help of Li Kao and the two travel all over China in an adventure that turns into much more than either bargained for. I honestly can't really find any faults with this book. Perhaps it's because I've never read anything quite like it before. It's 70% fantasy, 25% slapstick and 5% historical fiction. The main focus is on the plot and in this regard, Hughart has done a bang up job weaving a bizarrely entertaining tale. The quirky characters add spice to the already zesty story and the plot elements (gods, eternal life, ghosts, treasure, labyrinthine castles, flying machines, invisible monsters) have a wonderful ancient Chinese spin on them. My only regret is that I don't know more about ancient China to find out how much of the book is based on real customs and places.
Rating:
Summary: Makes your heart ache that this book is merely fiction
Review: I still remember reading this book in one sitting, unable to put it down due to not wanting to leave the feeling of wonder it generated. I bought it when it first came out, and read it about 6 times over the space of 2 years. Between that and forcing everyone I know to read it, it had pretty much disintregated, but I had held onto it until my parents lost it in a move. I just bought it again and made my wife read it for the first time, and she's buying copies for her book club to read. Trust me on this. This book is one of those rare places magic lives.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: I've read this book at least three times in quick succession just in the past few weeks, and I could still go for more! A lovely, enchanting adventure story, filled with tons of hilarious laugh-out-loud bits (learn how to kill your enemies using only a pornographic novel and arsenic!), mysteries to unravel, and tragic legends. Number Ten Ox is a great protagonist, and he and Master Li make an unstoppable team! I can't wait to read their other stories. Too bad that Barry Hughart didn't complete all 7 novels about them...
Rating:
Summary: Good book!
Review: This book really surprised me in how good it turned out to be. The first couple chapters went kind of slow so I thought the book was going to be mediocre or just barely worth a read. I was so wrong! Don't let the boring title and front cover fool you!The book gets so much better! I love how everything in the book ties in together! I mean all the characters you meet, you see again later when they pop up in surprising ways. The book is like a masterful puzzle that in the end all the pieces fit together and you get to see the whole great wonderful picture. I couldn't put this book down!
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