Chinese Myths

The World's Greatest Myths and Legends

by Jake Jackson (Editor)

River Gods, snake spirits, mountain and Immortals, Chinese mythology is alive with ancient passions. China’s unique set of mythological tales are derived from its vast expanse, diverse culture and the endless wars between tribes and dynasties. The result is a rich landscape of humanity, gods and spirits battling for survival and supremacy. This brilliant new book introduces the key themes and characters of Chinese legend before plunging into the fascinating stories themselves.

FLAME TREE 451: From mystery to crime, supernatural to horror and myth, fantasy and science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic.

Genres: Mythology, Nonfiction, History, Classics, Collections, Folklore, Research

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 15, 2018

About the author

SF and dark fantasy author but also a writer/creator of practical music books - Beginner's Guide to Reading Music, Guitar Chords, Piano Chords, Songwriter’s Rhyming Dictionary and How to Play Guitar. Other publications include Advanced Guitar Chords, Advanced Piano Chords, Chords for Kids, How to Play the Electric Guitar, Piano & Keyboard Chords, Scales and Modes and Play Flamenco. Also editor of Mythology books 

Released EP Jakesongs on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, LastFM, etc and on CDBaby. Lifelong passion for fantastic worlds of any kind, from movies to fiction, art to music, posters, album and paperback book covers.

Jake Jackson is the artist name for Nick Wells, Publisher of Flame Tree Press / Flame Tree Publishing.

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am very thankful that I only paid a dollar for this book at a warehouse sale; the only reason I gave it two stars instead of one is that it does, in fact, contain the basic outlines of stories from Chinese mythology. The book is poorly organized, desperately needs the services of a competent copy editor, and lacks an index that would have at least rendered it minimally useful as a reference book.

I have read Chinese literature from many eras, and thus was expecting the lyrical storytelling that is a feature thereof. Of lyricism, or even competent storytelling, this book has none. Each myth is retold as a list of events, with very few exceptions. Frankly, I considered just setting it aside in the donations box about halfway through, but finished it out of a combination of spite and a faint hope that at some point, the quality of the writing would improve.

Don't waste your dollar or your time. Find the Langs' compendium instead.

[Linda Reed · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for more discussion of how the myths integrated with society. As it is, they seem random and rather disconnected from reality. Perhaps my anglo heritage is getting in the way of understanding, but that is what I wanted from the author - a connection and a path to understanding. Alas, that was lacking.

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you skip a few it's a good read.

[madeline]

jake jackson never ceases to amaze me in his ability to take what should be interesting and engaging books of myths and make them into the most boring stories i’ve ever read in my life

[Amy Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

It must be noted that a good translation can make or break a story.

Not saying these were bad translations because I certainly am not a linguist or familiar with original texts or oral telling of these tales. However, it felt disjointed or like viewing a painting in a museum behind a dozen other tourists in front of a velvet rope and through two layers of plexi-glass. Still fun to learn about, but feels distracting.

Favorite myths:
-Yi and Chang'E; I still think its whack that Yi-an archer-was told to fix the nine Suns problem and was stripped of power/status for doing what an archer does. Also, I prefer the version where Chang'E does what she does to prevent robbers from attaining immortality; or I just hate it when ladies in myths are always doing the selfish things and getting comeuppance while men are able to be just as selfish or underhanded and get rewarded more often.

-Miao Shan; Did not like the stories; I just find it interesting how religion and attaining enlightenment is a part of the mythology. Also, let your kid become a buddha if she says she wants to go to a nunnery? Why not.

-DRAGONS; maybe the chill dragon king's daughter story is a favorite, but I mainly like this interpretation of Eastern dragons. Also, dragons as mythological beings hold a soft spot for me since I was teased once when I was a kid for knowing and letting others know the basic differences between Eastern dragons and Western dragons. But that was when I talked more, so no worries now.

-Foxes are cool and deserve trickster tales. Foxes and dragons team-ups AUs have to exist. Bet. Loved the one story where the guy just likes drinking alcohol and he befriends a fox who also likes drinking and becomes a drinking magical help pal. Though the one when the witch neighbor rebuffs a guys marriage offer but still kills an ill-intentions fox for him was so random in a good way too.

-How Monkey Became Immortal; I should really step up and read a proper telling of the Journey to the West. Of course it was not going to be a comprehensive telling of the Monkey King I vaguely know from pop culture myth osmosis.

-The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl; It is definitely analogous to the Selkie bride myth. Bros need honesty rather than thievery for a basis for a solid marriage. Still, I like this sappy romantic one. It has magpies building a celestial bridge-the Milky Way Galaxy-to help these lovers meet during some part of the lunar cycle.

-May have seen the Red String of Fate/Yue something or my mind imagined it due to my pop culture osmosis? Either way some random immortal dude under the moon is playing matchmaker, so gods help us all. Hope the rabbit on the moon gets head pats at least since Chang'E may or may not be a selfish gal.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

A real mix of 4-5 star and 1-2 star content here. Despite the fact that it was published relatively recently, Jackson decides to keep the antiquated Chinese spelling, which can be *painful* for those of us who are used to the updated versions.

Additionally, a lot of the stories (maybe all of them, tbh) are virtually copied and pasted from older story collections, which if find, but I would like for those authors to have been credited.

As it stands, the less the stories rely on historical context the stronger they are. Because the ones that do, expect waaaaay too much from the reader (how can you mention Guan Yu without even mentioning the 3 kingdoms legend, ditto for Sun Wukong and Journey to the West.

The stories that do not rely on such context are quite good (minus the cringe spellings) and genuinely taught me some of the cooler stories of Chinese mythology. Mixed bag, but hope this helps you make the most of it.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ll start with why this book gets two stars, rather than one. It did increase my knowledge of Chinese mythology (which admittedly was rather small to start with), some of the tales in the last quarter of the book were pretty enjoyable, and the book was honest from the get go about this variety of myths being different compared to those many of the European myths. All that being said, this book suffered some n structure. Like the Greek and Roman of the same series, the order in which events were presented wasn’t the most clear. Phrasing and sentence structure was also a bit frustrating. Sometimes it felt like sentences had been put through Google Translate multiple times and some felt more like bulleted lists crammed into paragraphs. This was a chore for me to get through and I would suggest looking elsewhere to learn more about the myths of China.

[AltLovesBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the start of this book, with the informational prologue concerning Chinese mythology in general. I also liked that the author grouped the different myths up by subject, which is something I don't see often in books in this genre.

What I didn't like much, and maybe this is a quirk of mine, was the translation and editing. It felt a little janky in places, where it would be incredibly descriptive of a certain scene, and then completely breeze over another interesting aspect. I don't know if it's a product of the source material or what, but the pacing and flow of the writing just wasn't there for me.

[Kathy Duffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seems a pretty comprehensive overview of many Chinese Myths, with an introduction that explains how the Chinese Myth cycle differs from Western Myth cultures. Their Gods, the tales of the five emperors are all included along with stories from the Fox Legends and many of their fables. I think the thing that stood out to me was how their celestial myths were organized around the ministries that were the hallmark of their empires.... so a god as the Minister of Thunder and Lightning.... I think I enjoyed the fables the most with the Silkworm being my favorite.

[PurpleStar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was kind of confused with this book. The stories were interesting, but some didn’t make much sense (I’m not sure if this was because of the myth itself, or just the author’s writing style) and the name-dropping didn’t help. It was sometimes hard to track who was who, and what was going on in the tale. Overall I think the book was ok, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

[Jay Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is no hierarchy of the gods of China. Unlike Bulfinch, this is merely a collection of Chinese fairy tales. They are interesting in that they are an amalgamation of Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucius. You gain a great deal of insight in looking at a culture’s fairy tales. Not hard to read and somewhat interesting.

[Conrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a fan of the shorter stories and by not knowing much of the culture, I tend to get lost in what is a person's name, surname, city, or province. But I did enjoy the stories of No-Cha and of Miao Shan. The big issue is, with some stories, they are explained rather than told.

[felicialowj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Awkward phrasing and disjointed storytelling made it hard to enjoy the stories.

[Sargun Saddhar · Rating 3 out of 5]

kinda fun to learn about different cultures. writing style could be better

[Diego]

lots of things to learn.

[Alan Bach · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw a review saying this editor's writing style is very odd, but still picked uo this and the Native American version because the small excerpt I read seemed to be written fine, and a wide variety of Chinese and Native American mythological tales are hard to come by. It turns out Jackson's style is sometimes okay, especially for the folk tales, but in many other places it feels very inconsistent. He often switches between high level synopsis to a very personal level and inconsequential dialogue, rambles in some places and doesn't give enough detail in another (though this part may be due to the fragmented nature of the myth he is drawing from). There were also a few instances where it was very apparent he was viewing it from the lens of the Chinese myths through the framework of European myths, rather than letting them be their own thing, e.g. calling an underworld river the "River Styx". Overall not a bad source in terms of just dipping your toes into what general Chinese mythologies are out there, but not a fun read.