The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

if you liked these, you'll like this: disney's mulan (1998), monstrous regiment by terry pratchett, and the legend of the condor heroes franchise (teenage me was mildly obsessed with one of the television adaptations and even accumulated most if not all of the manhua volumes, even though to this day i still haven't read either the wuxia novel or the manhua, oops). anything with a roving band of bantering adventurers in wartime, really, but especially if loyalties aren't straightforward.

this novella came up as a passing mention in book club a little while back, and now that i've read it, i'm compelled to hunt down more of zen cho's works. maybe spirits abroad, first, then black water sister? (after i make my way through my current library stack.)

stray thoughts:

• it baffles me how anyone could think this took place in tang dynasty china (per a zen cho interview in locus). even if it's got fantasy elements, it's very specifically southeast asian.
• i meant to write a bit about the english translation for the night of baba yaga and how i thought sam bett did a good job of deciding what to translate, what to put in romaji, and what to give footnotes for, but even though this wasn't translated, i had similar thoughts about the use of malay phrases (and some sentence structure quirks in dialogue) throughout. i had google in my pocket, but most meanings i could pick up from context. not all writers do this well, so i wanted to make note of it.
• it was a quick and relatively easy read, but i still kept going over the same paragraphs again and again, brain empty. not sure what to make of that.
• like my previous read, this is definitely queer but i really hesitate to drill down more or call any character this or that. i'm cringing at some goodreads reviews that assign identities to some of the cast; god forbid we have nuance or context?