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osprey_archerAfter I finished Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword, I begged skygiants and genarti to join me in reading the sequel. “It will be fun!” I assured them.
“Will it,” they said doubtfully.
“It will be an experience!” I insisted.
They could not argue with that, and so we embarked on the voyage of Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions.
This book picks up seconds after Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword picked up. Doi’s lookalike brother Hisashi has just returned from Shin, Peasprout is considering whether maybe she can transfer her affections from Doi-pretending-to-be-Hisashi to Hisashi himself, and also Hisashi brought along a girl who claims to be the Empress Dowager’s great-great-granddaughter.
Except that is ridiculous, because Wu Yinmei’s feet are unbound, and everyone knows that all the women in the Emperor’s family have bound feet! Clearly a spy, insists Peasprout. How can you insist that she’s a spy when everyone spent last year insisting YOU were a spy just because you come from Shin and also kept being accidentally in the vicinity of buildings that were being sabotaged? demand her friends. It’s DIFFERENT, insists Peasprout.
Well, maybe it’s different, or maybe Peasprout’s just jealous that her potential new love interest shows up with a potential girlfriend of his own in tow. Everyone else in Pearl is bowled over by Yinmei, a real live princess who is as beautifully tragic as the moon (as Peasprout herself grudgingly admits) and as sweet as a Disney princess, if Disney princesses sometimes took a break from warbling to the woodland creatures to say things like “If you attack an enemy city, the first thing you should do is capture the schools and take the children hostage.”
Yinmei/Peasprout MAY have overtaken Doi/Peasprout in my top shipping ranking, simply because Yinmei and Peasprout’s relationship may be even more deranged and emotionally fraught than Peasprout and Doi’s.
(Most boring relationship in the book: Peasprout and Hisashi. Relationship that seems most likely to be endgame: Peasprout/Hisashi. But book three isn’t out yet and if there’s one thing you can count on from Henry Lien, it’s bonkers plot twists, so I’m not losing hope.)
Anyway. In part because of Peasprout’s questionable life choices in book one, the city-state of Pearl and the empire of Shin are now on the brink of war. Thus, the Pearl Famous Academy of martial arts ice skating focuses its energy that year on discovering new defense strategies in case Shin attacks. The students divide into battle bands, which will battle each other for points to see which strategy works best.
After a hilarious scene where Peasprout and Doi both politely offer the other the leadership position, and then Doi politely offers again and Peasprout is like “THANK YOU absolutely I will take it,” Peasprout becomes leader of her battle band. As leading a battle band involves working with other people, Peasprout is not great at this job! As evidenced by the fact that her quarrel with her battle band members leads to the band naming itself “Nobody and the Fire Chickens.”
Other things that happen in this book:
If you magnetize sea water, you can ice skate on it because the magnetization will repel your skate blades.
Also, if you beat drums at the right frequency, you can hover above the Pearl and zoom around in little drum-powered hovercraft.
One of the battle bands goes into battle with all the members standing on each other’s shoulders or possibly on an armature to create a human kaiju? I don’t understand how this works.
Yinmei and Peasprout’s brother Cricket are both on the verge of DEATH because they have taken ivory yin salts, which depending on dosage delay male puberty or make it impossible for you to take more than five steps without your heart swelling like a balloon.
(Listen, this is a series where ice-skating martial arts is a serious war strategy, why would you expect “physics” or “biology” to work in a sensible way.)
GIANT CLIFFHANGER ENDING.
And unfortunately no sign of book three! Peasprout 1 came out in 2018, Peasprout 2 came out in 2019, and since then… there has been no Peasprout 3. It might still happen! But it also might not, in which case we’ll all be left on a massive cliffhanger. So in a sense it’s hard to recommend these books, but in another sense: my god, they are SUCH a wild ride. Simply an amazing time! Not always a good time exactly, but certainly an experience.
skygiants and genarti to join me in reading the sequel. “It will be fun!” I assured them.“Will it,” they said doubtfully.
“It will be an experience!” I insisted.
They could not argue with that, and so we embarked on the voyage of Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions.
This book picks up seconds after Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword picked up. Doi’s lookalike brother Hisashi has just returned from Shin, Peasprout is considering whether maybe she can transfer her affections from Doi-pretending-to-be-Hisashi to Hisashi himself, and also Hisashi brought along a girl who claims to be the Empress Dowager’s great-great-granddaughter.
Except that is ridiculous, because Wu Yinmei’s feet are unbound, and everyone knows that all the women in the Emperor’s family have bound feet! Clearly a spy, insists Peasprout. How can you insist that she’s a spy when everyone spent last year insisting YOU were a spy just because you come from Shin and also kept being accidentally in the vicinity of buildings that were being sabotaged? demand her friends. It’s DIFFERENT, insists Peasprout.
Well, maybe it’s different, or maybe Peasprout’s just jealous that her potential new love interest shows up with a potential girlfriend of his own in tow. Everyone else in Pearl is bowled over by Yinmei, a real live princess who is as beautifully tragic as the moon (as Peasprout herself grudgingly admits) and as sweet as a Disney princess, if Disney princesses sometimes took a break from warbling to the woodland creatures to say things like “If you attack an enemy city, the first thing you should do is capture the schools and take the children hostage.”
Yinmei/Peasprout MAY have overtaken Doi/Peasprout in my top shipping ranking, simply because Yinmei and Peasprout’s relationship may be even more deranged and emotionally fraught than Peasprout and Doi’s.
(Most boring relationship in the book: Peasprout and Hisashi. Relationship that seems most likely to be endgame: Peasprout/Hisashi. But book three isn’t out yet and if there’s one thing you can count on from Henry Lien, it’s bonkers plot twists, so I’m not losing hope.)
Anyway. In part because of Peasprout’s questionable life choices in book one, the city-state of Pearl and the empire of Shin are now on the brink of war. Thus, the Pearl Famous Academy of martial arts ice skating focuses its energy that year on discovering new defense strategies in case Shin attacks. The students divide into battle bands, which will battle each other for points to see which strategy works best.
After a hilarious scene where Peasprout and Doi both politely offer the other the leadership position, and then Doi politely offers again and Peasprout is like “THANK YOU absolutely I will take it,” Peasprout becomes leader of her battle band. As leading a battle band involves working with other people, Peasprout is not great at this job! As evidenced by the fact that her quarrel with her battle band members leads to the band naming itself “Nobody and the Fire Chickens.”
Other things that happen in this book:
If you magnetize sea water, you can ice skate on it because the magnetization will repel your skate blades.
Also, if you beat drums at the right frequency, you can hover above the Pearl and zoom around in little drum-powered hovercraft.
One of the battle bands goes into battle with all the members standing on each other’s shoulders or possibly on an armature to create a human kaiju? I don’t understand how this works.
Yinmei and Peasprout’s brother Cricket are both on the verge of DEATH because they have taken ivory yin salts, which depending on dosage delay male puberty or make it impossible for you to take more than five steps without your heart swelling like a balloon.
(Listen, this is a series where ice-skating martial arts is a serious war strategy, why would you expect “physics” or “biology” to work in a sensible way.)
GIANT CLIFFHANGER ENDING.
And unfortunately no sign of book three! Peasprout 1 came out in 2018, Peasprout 2 came out in 2019, and since then… there has been no Peasprout 3. It might still happen! But it also might not, in which case we’ll all be left on a massive cliffhanger. So in a sense it’s hard to recommend these books, but in another sense: my god, they are SUCH a wild ride. Simply an amazing time! Not always a good time exactly, but certainly an experience.
