A Snake Lies Waiting

The Definitive Edition

hardcover, 448 pages

Published Sept. 8, 2020 by St. Martin's Griffin.

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (7 reviews)

Guo Jing has confronted Apothecary Huang, his sweetheart Lotus' father, on Peach Blossom Island, and bested the villainous Gallant Ouyang in three trials to win her hand in marriage.

But now, along with his sworn brother, Zhou Botong of the Quanzhen Sect, and his shifu, Count Seven Hong, Chief of the Beggar Clan, he has walked into a trap. Tricked by Huang into boarding a unseaworthy barge, they will surely drown unless Lotus - who has overheard her father's plans - can find a way to save them.

Yet even if they are to survive the voyage, great dangers lie in wait on the mainland. The Jin Prince Wanyan Honglie has gathered a band of unscrupulous warriors to aid him in his search for the lost writings of the Great Song patriot General Yue Fei. If he is successful, the Jin armies will gain the key to total victory over …

5 editions

Review of 'A Snake Lies Waiting' on Goodreads

2 stars

Pretty much everything I said about the first two books in the series applies to this one: Charles Dickens lite...with kung fu fighting, excellent introduction to Chinese culture and geography, insightful look at Chinese values and norms, wonderful world-building around the different martial-arts schools and fighting techniques.

However, there are two glaring deficiencies with this novel when compared to the previous two. Number one, the setting is just too limited. The first 150 pages or so is spent on a ship--and not in the Patrick O'Brian way--and another 100 pages or so is spent in the great room of an inn. Number two, coincidences and contrivances abound, making this what I feel to be the novel with the most overheard conversations in the history of all literature. It's also interesting how, with China being such a vast country and the cast of characters being so large, almost all of …

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Subjects

  • wuxia
  • fantasy
  • historical fiction
  • adventure
  • war