About:
The Art of Legend by Wesley Chu is the end of The War Arts Saga high-fantasy series. Mr. Chu is a best-selling, award-winning, author, as well as an accomplished martial artist, actor, and stuntman.
- 704 pages
- Publisher : Del Rey
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 0593237692
My rating for The Art of Legend – 4
Buy The Art of Legend from Amazon.com*
More Books by Wesley Chu*
Thoughts:
The books follow several characters but mainly follows the three who have been with us throughout the trilogy, Jian, the chosen one, destined to kill the Eternal Khan and end the war. Taishi, one of the greatest war artists in the world before losing the use of one arm in a fight with the Khan, who finds herself hiding and aging. Sali a protector of the Khan’s soul, and is sworn to serve the Khan, but has been disillusioned, yet still wants to kill Jian.
The main draw, for me in the War Arts Saga is the world building, an interesting story and travel, combined with Jian’s coming of age. Jian is no longer a spoiled brat but takes his role as a symbol very seriously.
The whole War Arts Saga is very clever, and sweeping epic of tradition, faith and its disillusionment, as well as a good dose of humor and banter.
While I appreciate the writing and clever names for martial arts moves, it gets a bit old after 500 pages or so. I was looking forward to reading the book since I finished the second in the series, The Art of Destiny, but this book didn’t seem as polished and lacked focus with side missions which, like in a video game, were fun but didn’t move the story forward.
The ending was… disappointing, after such a stellar start and closely following the characters, it seemed almost lazy, anticlimactic, or simply didn’t want to be controversial (even though I don’t know how any ending could have been controversial, no matter what it was).
Nevertheless, this series is still phenomenal, atmospheric and lots of fun to read.
Synopsis:
Jian, that destined hero, didn’t quite get to finish his job the first time around. Now, the Eternal Khan is back, and war is brewing again. So, Jian has to get the old band back together: his friends, his wise-cracking mentors, his grandmasters, and a handful of other unlikely folks to help him out.
Meanwhile, Sali, a cranky old warrior, is aging and finding her own way in the world. And Quisami, another old-timer, is also getting on in years and finally realizing she’s been used for a good long time. It’s a proper mess, but a fun one to read about, I’ll tell you what.
Buy The Art of Legend from Amazon.com*
More Books by Wesley Chu*
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I got this book for free.
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account, the money is usually spent on books
