The Dragon Gate Inn - A Writer's Home in the Jiang-hu

YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT THE DRAGON GATE INN

This is the home of the awarding winning English language wuxia novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool - A Daoist Quest.

*ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year, 2007 Award Finalist
*Online Review of Books & Current Affairs Fiction Book of the Year 2007
*National Best Book 2007 Awards, Award Winning Finalist, Fantasy/Science Fiction
*Numerous Amazon.com 5 Star Reviews - check out "REVIEWS" page on this website.

I made a one day trip to Hong Kong to meet with a number of people interested in future development of my novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool. One of them was Bey Logan, Vice President, Asian Acquisitions & Co-production for The Weinstein Company - yes, the same folks who are doing beautiful reissues of the Shaw Brothers classics under the "Dragon Dynasty" label. To find out more about Bey and what he's up to in Hong Kong, check out his blog at the "Bey's Blog" link below. A good time was had by all - stay tuned for future developments!

WEBSITE GOALS

1. To introduce my wuxia novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool - A Daoist Quest, published by Pleasure Boat Studio, a New York City literary press (http://pleasureboatstudio.com).

2. To use my four decades of China study to fully introduce this great wuxia (Chinese-style heroic fiction) genre to the literary world beyond East Asia. I would like to make wuxia an accepted English language story genre.

3. To chronicle this writer's life in the attempt to establish this exciting genre.

Oh, yeah. To explain what jiang-hu means in ten words or less. DONE! see the 12/10/06 installment of the Wandering Blades Blog where I do it in ONE word!

The Wandering Blades Blog discusses the background of the wuxia genre in Chinese literature and the youxia (wandering blades or swordsmen and swordswomen) who are at the core of this genre.

While my other blog, Wuxia Novelist: A Writer's Blog, will look at the contemporary writing aspect of this fascinating genre.

Rear Cover Text:

Dream of the Dragon Pool – A Daoist Quest is a multifaceted novel woven around the historical fact of the death-sentence exile of China’s best loved poet-adventurer, Li Bo (also Li Bai, 701-762 A.D.). This is an adventure story of magic, myth, and occult powers written as traditional Chinese-style heroic fiction.

Forced by the emperor’s exile order, Li Bo travels up the great Yangtze River toward certain death in distant Burma/Myanmar. Yet Li, not so concerned by his imminent death, regards his trip as a quest for his lost sense of poetic inspiration. Along the way, he unwittingly befriends the emperor’s most powerful shamaness who is trying to escape from the palace to Mount Wu and serve the mythical Rain Goddess, mistress of that sacred mountain. Li Bo accidentally awakens the dark forces of the Blood Dragon and its ghostly slaves. They are in pursuit of a magical sword, the legendary Dragon Pool Sword that Li Bo finds himself in possession of after a dream visit from a Daoist Immortal.

The cast is rounded out by Li’s traveling companion, a wandering blade veteran of the Tang dynasty’s Central Asian conquests, known as the “Iron Talon;” a mysterious swordsman-musician, who travels with a ghost-catching drunken monkey; a “dream assassin,” capable of killing people from within their dreams; and a blond, green-eyed, Central Asian female ghost, enslaved by the Blood Dragon’s powers. The characters, settings, and sensibilities are inspired by the romantic and flamboyant Tang dynasty “tales of wonder” and woven together by the author, a veteran medieval China scholar turned novelist.

Albert A. Dalia is a China scholar with four decades of study, research, and experience in medieval Chinese history and culture. Two decades ago, after earning two masters degrees and a Ph.D. in Chinese history and religion, he turned to fiction writing and produced a series of published short stories and, now, his first novel. For more information, please go to www.aadalia.com.

Revised ISBN: 978-1-929355-34-1

My Chinese-style Heroic Fiction Novel

Dream of the Dragon Pool is a multifaceted work. From one perspective it can be read as a Daoist ghost story. What happens in the opening chapter at the Dream Temple sets course for the rest of the story.

Yet, the novel is also a historical fiction. Historically, Li Bo, the protagonist of my novel, was known for his prodigious capacity for wine. It is said that his poetry was measured by the cupful - some say by the gallon full. He was also known as a wandering blade in his younger years, claiming to have killed a number of people in sword fights.

The novel mixes historical fact with the imagination of medieval Chinese thinkers, poets, and storytellers, thus it could also be labeled a historical fantasy. I have attempted to combine all of these genres into a Chinese-style heroic fiction novel. I leave it to my readers to see if this works for them.

CLICK on the Link Below to read from DREAM of the DRAGON POOL!

My Interests as a Writer

My fiction is focused on 7th through 8th century China, the early decades of the great Tang dynasty (618-907 CE). This era of Chinese history was my academic major as a historian, and as a fiction writer it remains the time and place that I am most in love with.

Exploring the Idea of the Hero

As for the theme of my fiction, I am most interested in the concept of the hero - please note that whenever I refer to the "hero," I am referring to both male and female; much as the word "actor" is coming to refer to both male and female performers - the use of "actress" seems to be in decline.

Further, that while most will call the Chinese genre that my fiction has adopted wuxia xiaoshuo, frequently translated as "martial arts fiction," I translate it as “heroic fiction.” The translation “martial arts” too strongly implies the contemporary style of Chinese action/adventure movies and thus is too easily dismissed by some as “chopsocky” or some other disparaging reference. While this might be understandable given some of the movies produced in Asia, these disparaging references are unfortunate and quite incorrect when referring to the traditional literary genre that is the basis of Asian action/adventure cinema.

My fiction writing is aimed at exploring the concept of the hero as defined in traditional Chinese literature. Thus, I will avoid the term “martial arts” when referring to my fiction and instead refer to it as “Chinese-style heroic fiction.” I intend to further develop these ideas in the “Wandering Blades Blog,” that is linked to this site.

I have already published a number of short stories in the Chinese heroic fiction style that I’ve combined with the traditional Chinese “strange story” genre or in more a Western appreciation, the Chinese ghost story. Those stories are in the process of being rewritten and will gradually be available for sale on the Amazon Shorts program on Amazon.com. However, in the meantime, I'll be placing some of them on both this website and my blog, Wuxia Novelist.

Man-zou!

I hope you have a good time visiting the Inn. After your visit, I'd enjoy having your comments, ideas, and/or questions. The form below is provided for your thoughts. The Innkeeper.