Today's post is The Grave Robbers Chronicles Vol 1- Cavern of the Blood Zombies by Xu Lei and translated by Kathy Mok. It is 233 pages long excluding author's notes, publishers information and a sample of the second volume in the series. It is brought to English readers by Things Asian Press. This is a horror/adventure story with I think men being the intended audience and I think that is because men are the important ones in China but that is just the feeling like I get from the book.
It is about a family of grave robbers in China. It is told in first person so I don't remember nor can I find the main character's first name but his family name is Wu. In fact only some of the side character names I know/can find easily. The main character is a young man who deals in rare books and the like from the different times of China's history. The translation is odd but you are willing to stick with it you will find a very interesting story. It is odd because the translator is going from being literal to spirit of the words which are the two main camps of translator. There are zombies (like the title promises), powerful ghosts, magic from mysterious characters. The only thing that I don't like about the book is the language. It has some very foul language and descriptions but I wish that the author/translator had chosen to use different words but the words are understandable in the story I'm just funny about language. I will be reading the next novel because I did enjoy this one. The author is now super famous in China and this series is a very big deal there. I didn't find it scary but if zombies are your thing then will not disappoint.
Rating I give it three stars because of the language.
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