Book Review: The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho

 

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
by Zen Cho 176 pages
Published June 23rd 2020 by Tor.com Publishing
Locus Award Nominee for Best Novella (2021)

I have to apologize off the bat this review got away from me. I read this book almost two weeks ago so I am a little worried the book will not be as fresh in my mind as I normally like. As a huge Wuxia fan in movies and in prose, I was really excited about this book. From the start, I was super excited because it felt enough like a Wuxia story that I was envisioning. I was filling in the Shaw brothers style teahouse sets, heard the soundtrack and sound effects.

Opening in a teahouse The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water is a Wuxia story pure and simple. It has bandits and a monk traveling with them from a religious order. The thieves end up becoming the unlikely protectors of a sacred object. What follows are twists and turns but many of the most interesting moments are in the discoveries along the way for the characters and the slightly different set of Malaysia.

The story is an example of found family, and the characters come together nicely by the end. That is not a very subtle part of the story, more so is the anti-imperialist nature of the underground battle they fight. The Malaysia of this novel is in chaos after an imperialist invasion. All the bandits and rampant crime seem to be a result of that but it is not the most obvious of conflicts.

“Nobody talks about it. It’s not that kind of war.”

“What kind of war is it, then?” said Guet Imm. She looked like she wanted to hit Tet Sang. “A secret war? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“Yes,” said Tet Sang. “Open death, open atrocity, open persecution. But a silent war. It’s safer to be silent in these times.”

The story is not about bamboo walks or flying swordsmen (or women), at least those fantastical elements are subtle…

“Signs and portents; a sense of the world of seen things as shifting sands concealing a hidden core of marvels and terrors...."

Zen Cho is a Malaysian author living in Britain. I discovered her work through the Coode St. Podcast. I really enjoyed that interview and reserved this book from the library as I was listening to it.  

One of the best parts of the book comes when one of the main characters Guet Imm learns that the bandit she is most interested in is trans. This is handled well considering the classical era it was set in. That being said gender-swapping, passing as male, and the like is actually fairly common in Wuxia films and novels. None the less it is done very respectfully here. Guet Imm understands because she resented how the order boxed her in to gender roles.

I really liked this novella, well I consider it a short novel. I wanted to love it more but it was exciting and interesting enough that Zen Cho is now on my list of authors to follow.