After listening to hundreds of hours and all 3 podcasts I am finally writing a review to say I absolutely love this series. As a Canadian who had never heard of these stories I am very thankful for the work John Zhu has put in to bring these classics to the western audience. His narrating is incredibly enjoyable, and the passion and background knowledge he brings to every episode really improves the experience.
Now to ramble a bit…
All stories were great but, my personal ranking would have to be:
1. Romance of the Three Kingdoms
2. The water margin
3. Investiture of the gods
For me, RotTK had the most engaging, lesson-packed story with the most memorable characters. Also the fact that it was based largely on real events added a level of excitement and made most amazing feats feel like the characters actually did the impossible instead of just “the author wanted it that way”. The Water Margin comes in second, for me the highs were not as high as RotTK but there were still many characters you could easily root for and the way the plot lines all start tying together is very enjoyable, it also gives you the best insight for what life was actually like in those times. As for Investiture, the novel was really a roller coaster for me. There were parts and plot lines I absolutely loved, especially any of the downfall within the capitol, and some of the more fleshed out characters like Nezha, Grand Tutor Wen, Jiang Ziya etc… but I felt there was a large portion of the novel that felt repetitive and cluttered, and without serious stakes.
With that being said they have all become comfort to me and now that I’m done them I don’t even want to go listen to other audio books! So I am currently re-listening to RotTK as the episodes of Journey to the west come out. As of Episode 5 so far I am loving Journey! If I had to rate it so far it would be a close second.
Thank you John for making these!
