![]() ![]() Will she be able to do her duty and protect these strangers from the barbaric horsemen who threaten the caravan routes? Does she want to live a life far from family and friends, forever among foreigners and their strange ways? Will she do the great deeds her aunt expects of her and attract the attention of the immortal Zhang Gua Lao? The dragon protecting her town of Bao Fang took her luck. Her teacher Master Wei considers her gifted, but she is shaken and unsure. Xiao Yen spent many hard and lonely years mastering her magic. Her aunt, the formidable Wang Tie-Tie, has arranged for this commission. Many years later, young Xiao Yen prepares to leave on a frightening journey to protect a caravan of strangers from the Far Western lands on their trek through the Middle Kingdom. She chooses to stay, but Zhang suggests she might have a second chance. She can eat his magic peach and pass beyond the circle of death and rebirth, or do her duty to her family and remain in the mortal world. She is tempted by the immortal Zhang Gua Lao, patron of the paper folding mages. Mei-Mei cannot bring additional disgrace on the family by following her sister's path, yet she has doubts about her own intended husband. Mei-Mei sees the poverty her sister lives in as well as the love that fills her life. In the village of Bao Fang, Mei-Mei, a beautiful girl, defies her family to bring food to her older sister, banished for marrying a man not of her father's choosing. The story begins before Xiao Yen is born. Paper Mage is enlivened with Chinese cultural detail - clothes, food, rituals, and the nature of relationships.Ĭutter's debut novel has many strengths: an adventurous plot, a vivid setting, believable characters, and a satisfying ending. She builds a story rich in Chinese myth - rampaging river and rat dragons, gods and immortals who walk the earth, and the particular magic used to bring folded paper creatures to life. Set in the Tang Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom (about the time of Charlemagne in Europe), the novel tells us of the adventures of Xiao Yen, a young woman training to become a paper mage, a sorceror with the power to endow folded creations with the semblance of life. Cutter takes us on a journey to a faraway place and time, a refreshing change from the traditional faux European medieval fantasies that glut bookstore shelves. This is the review I wrote for Paper Mage in Strange Horizons in August 2003 ![]()
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