Book Review: Dynasty Killers by Baptiste Pinson Wu

The third entry in the Three Kingdoms Chronicles

Review of Dynasty Killers (Three Kingdoms Chronicles #3) by Baptiste Pinson Wu

eARC kindly provided by author. OUT NOW! The series can be found on Amazon Kindle and in paperback. Amazon links: UK USA

*Spoilers Ahead*

Dynasty Killers accelerates the pace set in the previous books without losing any of the character or historical development. This book may contain the most intense period of the Three Kingdoms era where a great deal of events all occur and overlap within the same four years, starting in 196AD and finishing in 200AD. Lü Bu rises and falls in Xu province along with Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei moving around the central plains a great deal. Yuan Shao and Cao Cao clash at Guandu. Yuan Shu declares himself Emperor and perishes. Sun Ce, independent of Yuan Shu, conquers lands that later become the southern kingdom of Wu. And Zhang Xiu in Wan rebels against Cao Cao. It would have been easy to show some of this through letters or speeches but a great deal is shown on the page as our hero Liao Chun fights for his life time and time again.

This review will be shorter than previous ones as I don’t want to repeat myself. I have written more about characters and setting in my previous reviews for Yellow Sky Revolt (Book 1) and Heroes of Chaos (Book 2).

Plot

This is purposefully brief as a great deal happens all intertwined and my summary of it would be a disservice to Pinson Wu’s writing and the history itself.

Baptiste Pinson Wu creatively entwines Chun’s Scorpions, a special forces unit of Cao Cao’s army, into the history of the Three Kingdoms. He starts off spiking Zhang Fei’s wine to cause havoc in Xu, travelling south to attempt alliance talks with Sun Ce (and infiltrating another city in the process), to destroying Yuan Shao’s supply depot at Wuchao, and more all the while developing his relationship with Tian Guli, the other Scorpions, and Guan Yu amongst others. There’s a whole lot more in the book than that and it’s all fitted into a rather modest 398 pages.

There are many deaths within the book both of fictional characters and historical. The strong definition the characters have makes certain that each one has an emotional hit to Liao Chun and the reader.

Characters

The cast remains similar to the previous instalment with a few additions and changing dynamics. There is a growing tension throughout the novel between Liao Chun and basically everyone else. His fiery personality and all-encompassing commitment to Cao Cao places a great deal of strain on him and those around him as he is sent far afield alone or with a small group, experiences the death of close comrades, and more. Cao Cao, historically and in the book, becomes more determined and, from a certain point of view, more ruthless in his actions to reunite China. He is often portrayed as the villain for his colder and more distant approach to waging war and governing than his main rivals Liu Bei and Sun Ce, and later Sun Quan. Pinson Wu plays on this and uses it to create the divide between Chun and Cao so that Chun chooses to follow Guan Yu, and thus Liu Bei. An event multiple books in the making. This is historically who Liao Chun (aka Liao Hua) fought for until the end of the Three Kingdoms period and the time from his birth to joining Guan Yu is almost entirely unknown. Pinson Wu has taken great advantage of this blank page of history to craft an entertaining and historically grounded story of Chun’s early years.

The Scorpions, Chun’s band of highly skilled but misfit killers, has all the banter and thick bonds you’d expect of a group risking life and limb for each other as routinely as they do. At times echoing the dynamic of the Bridgeburners in Malazan. Entertaining to read and easy to root for.

Sun Ce and Zhou Yu, along with a plethora of Southlanders, make their appearance in Dynasty Killers. Fleeting though it is Sun Ce is well presented as the brash, short fused, warrior-king he is known for being in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Pinson Wu has turned this up to 11 for Ce as his personality is similar to Liao Chun’s but circumstance has placed them in disparate positions. This similarity creates abrasive and tense scenes between two characters still in the early days of proving themselves. Zhou Yu, on the other hand, is the mild-mannered and considerate strategist that serves as the counterbalance to Sun Ce.

Pinson Wu navigates the difficulty in working with well known figures of history whose characterisations are established making them instantly recognisable yet unique to his own take on the Three Kingdoms period.

Writing

Clean, concise, and precise. Written with a rhythm that makes reading a pleasure, and generally in a casual manner. Pinson Wu has developed his style well over the three books, a good sign for future novels in what promises to be a rich, lively, and long series.

Dynasty Killers finishes, what I would say is, the first arc of Liao Hua’s life. He has grown up, learned to fight, to take orders and give them, travelled the land, and chosen who he will swear fealty to till his dying breath.

The three current books can be found on Amazon Kindle for less than $10/£8 for the set.