seen from China
seen from Canada
seen from Azerbaijan
seen from Spain
seen from Russia
seen from Canada
seen from Moldova
seen from Türkiye
seen from Spain
seen from China
seen from Mexico
seen from Mexico
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Mexico
seen from South Korea
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from United States
Me: *revealing all my tiles* 13 Orphans baby read it and weep
Player opposite me: Dude you only have 10 tiles that work for that what are you-
*Everyone else's phones start ringing*
Me: *smirking* You should probably check on your parents ',:)
Would the mahjong hand "Thirteen Orphans" pay child support?
Would Mahjong Hand “Thirteen Orphans” pay Child Support?
Yes
No
cucked by a tanyao
Thirteen Orphans; Nine Gates; Five Odd Honors - Jane Lindskold
Read: Feb 2017
I really admire Lindskold’s ingenuity in these books. I always enjoy someone who dreams up and executes a novel system of magic use (novel to me at least). These three books follow the real world descendants of people who came from another world. This other world came into existence when an Emperor in China burned all these books and purged scholars - I feel like this was an actual historical event, but I don’t have the books with me and I can’t recall the details. Anyways the characters’ ancestors were banished from this other world - the titular Thirteen Orphans - but took their magic with them to pass on to their descendants so they may one day return to their homeworld. The books follow the descendants who know no other home than this world, but become entangled in happenings of the other world.
So as you might imagine the magic system used is based on Chinese mythology/magical traditions. I was drawn in by its association with the Chinese zodiac (which prompted me to look into Chinese astrology, which I have quite enjoyed). The holders of the magic power are each associated with one of the Twelve Earthly Branches, or basically one of the twelve zodiac signs. Of course over time, internal fractions and migration and people being like “okay dad I’m learning the magic to go ‘home’” not everyone who holds the magic of a branch knows it. So that keeps the cast down, but also sets up plot for introducing characters (and thus the readers into the magic) and future troubles. Another pretty cool thing about the magic system is that it utilizes mah-jong. This was explained as a being an easy and available aid to teaching and using the specific kind of magic the characters inherit. It’s kind of like a stand in for a magically language, instead of incantations or written spells (as is often the case in Chinese magical practices) the users envision sequences of mah-jong tiles. They even have special mah-jong sets tuned to them to help. I like the tie in pointing to ancient games having magical roots or being used for magic. I feel suspect much the same regarding playing cards.
Another think I enjoy about the books is that while the main characters derive magic form Chinese traditions they admit and talk about there being other traditions with other methods for magic. This becomes more of a plot point in Nine Gates and Five Odd Honors. I especially like in Five Odd Honors the talk about descendants from two different traditions. Although I feel Lindskold didn’t take that quite as far as I would have liked, I can’t fault Lindskold for wanting to stay on topic as it were. After all the books are about the Thirteen Orphans and not the other magical traditions on Earth.
I really enjoyed these books. It has made me wonder about Lindskold’s other books. That I feel is fairly high praise from me considering I rarely pay attention to specific authors/artists, and in fact have a hard time remembering their names. I rarely use their names to look at what might be equally as good work as the original piece I encountered them with. So I might and I might not. But regardless of this strange tangent, I liked this series and I felt that I ended up learning a lot from it. And now I want to learn to play mah-jong.
Info: TOR, 2008; 2009; 2010.
Thirteen Orphans - Tsutomu Yamagata
In Tokyo we visited Zen Foto Gallery which holds small photographic exhibitions throughout the year. It also had a small corner selling photo books from local and well known photographers. This book caught my eye instantly as I am very interested in portraits and documentary photography. At a closer look I noticed the title was ‘Thirteen Orphans’ which intrigued me further.
The book consists of portraits taken in a park in Japan with a caption underneath telling you something about that person. The book is fascinating as it gives you an insight into strangers lives making you think differently about them. This book definitely encourages the ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ motto as many of these stories attached to the portraits are quite tragic, making you realise these people may have been through a lot. The portraits are very true to the person being photographed as nothing appears staged, their expressions are very natural.
She was not pretty, no would she ever be so, but she was something far better -- she was exotic and interesting.
Jane Lindksold, Thirteen Orphans
Last month, he found out he has prostate cancer but he hasn't told his wife yet.
Okay, so I loved the book Thirteen Orphans and I've been meaning to find the second one, but every time I run across the character Honey Dream, I can't help but think of That One Precure OC...
