• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Comment Policy
    • Disclosures & Disclaimers
  • Resources
    • Links, Essays & Articles
    • Fandomology!
    • CLAMP Directory
    • BlogRoll
  • Features & Columns
    • 3 Things Thursday
    • Adventures in the Key of Shoujo
    • Bit & Blips (game reviews)
    • BL BOOKRACK
    • Bookshelf Briefs
    • Bringing the Drama
    • Comic Conversion
    • Fanservice Friday
    • Going Digital
    • It Came From the Sinosphere
    • License This!
    • Magazine no Mori
    • My Week in Manga
    • OFF THE SHELF
    • Not By Manga Alone
    • PICK OF THE WEEK
    • Subtitles & Sensibility
    • Weekly Shonen Jump Recaps
  • Manga Moveable Feast
    • MMF Full Archive
    • Yun Kouga
    • CLAMP
    • Shojo Beat
    • Osamu Tezuka
    • Sailor Moon
    • Fruits Basket
    • Takehiko Inoue
    • Wild Adapter
    • One Piece
    • After School Nightmare
    • Karakuri Odette
    • Paradise Kiss
    • The Color Trilogy
    • To Terra…
    • Sexy Voice & Robo
  • Browse by Author
    • Sean Gaffney
    • Anna Neatrour
    • Michelle Smith
    • Katherine Dacey
    • MJ
    • Brigid Alverson
    • Travis Anderson
    • Phillip Anthony
    • Derek Bown
    • Jaci Dahlvang
    • Angela Eastman
    • Erica Friedman
    • Sara K.
    • Megan Purdy
    • Emily Snodgrass
    • Nancy Thistlethwaite
    • Eva Volin
    • David Welsh
  • MB Blogs
    • A Case Suitable For Treatment
    • Experiments in Manga
    • MangaBlog
    • The Manga Critic
    • Manga Report
    • Soliloquy in Blue
    • Manga Curmudgeon (archive)

Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

December 10, 2009 by MJ 4 Comments

One Thousand and One Nights, Vol. 9

One Thousand and One Nights, Vol. 9
By Han SeungHee & Jeon JinSeok
Published by Yen Press

1001nights9
Buy This Book

With the disgraced sultan Shahryar on the run and brother Shazaman hot on his trail, the Caliph names Emir Jafar as temporary sultan of Baghdad, passing on to him the task of taking back Jerusalem from the western invaders. Though he has no choice but to comply, Jafar has other matters on his mind such as uncovering the truth about Shazaman and Fatima. Thankfully, with a bit of luck and a bit more stealth, Jafar stumbles upon a horrifying secret which reveals that Shahryar is, stunningly, the sane brother, despite his history as a misogynistic serial murderer. Meanwhile, Shahryar and Shazaman face off in the desert as raging storms turn the terrain into a flash flood zone. Over in the western camp, King MacLeod is putting the moves on Sehera, by which I mean giving him books, namely 14th-century Chinese historical novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms which becomes this volume’s story-within-a-story.

Like volume eight, this volume suffers a bit from the affliction I like to call “Lack of Sehera,” but there is plenty of plotty goodness to fill the void, particularly concerning the history of Shahryar and Shazaman’s relationship with each other and with their childhood friend Jafar. With current events juxtaposed against scenes from their childhood, it’s hard not to feel pain for both brothers and impossible to avoid the question of just how both of them became so irretrievably twisted as adults. Though, thanks to Sehera’s influence, Shahryar has begun to seek a kind of personal redemption, Shazaman’s emotional wounds remain open and untreated, infecting him to the core.

Aside from this volume’s drama between brothers, a real highlight is Sehera’s retelling of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which ends the volume with a painful lesson for MacLeod who may be about to learn that despite Sehera’s devotion to duty, his loyalty ultimately belongs to another. Though what appears here is obviously just a tiny fragment of the original Chinese epic (which stands at 800,000 words and 120 chapters) it is more than enough to entice readers to seek out the source material for more. This was, apparently, a strong motivation for its inclusion in the story, as the volume’s endnotes reveal writer Jeon JinSeok’s desire to introduce the testosterone-heavy novel to a new generation of female readers who may not have been otherwise encouraged to check it out. Though I’m unable to speak for the young women of South Korea, I can certainly confirm that his plan has worked on me.

With several characters’ lives hanging in the balance (really) by the end of the volume, the tension in this series shows no sign of letting up anytime soon, and with only two volumes remaining, readers face a single burning question: how to survive the wait until the next volume.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: manhwa, one thousand and one nights

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sara K. says

    December 12, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    “… readers face a single burning question: how to survive the wait until the next volume.”

    I’m waiting for the whole series to be in English before I read more. It’s more than six months, but if I don’t whet my appetite by reading the intermediate volumes, I forget what I’m missing.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. A reporter goes to Bishie Con, a publisher reviews the nook « MangaBlog says:
    December 11, 2009 at 11:04 am

    […] (Slightly Biased Manga) Connie on vol. 27 of One Piece (Slightly Biased Manga) Melinda Beasi on vol. 9 of One Thousand and One Nights (Manga Bookshelf) Derik Badman on vol. 1 of Ooku: The Inner Chambers (Madinkbeard) Andre on vol. 1 […]

    Reply
  2. Tweets that mention One Thousand and One Nights, Volume 9 | Manga Bookshelf — Topsy.com says:
    December 11, 2009 at 11:05 am

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Melinda Beasi, Melinda Beasi. Melinda Beasi said: New blog post: One Thousand and One Nights, Volume 9 http://bit.ly/5oQDFD […]

    Reply
  3. The Manga Critic » Blog Archive » The Shipping News, 12/30/09 says:
    December 29, 2009 at 11:58 am

    […] my brief appraisal doesn’t persuade you, why not check out Melinda Beasi’s review of volume nine? Melinda is an unapologetic fan of the series, and has been one of the few reviewers to regularly […]

    Reply


Before leaving a comment at Manga Bookshelf, please read our Comment Policy.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 | Log in
Copyright © 2010 Manga Bookshelf | Powered by WordPress & the Genesis Framework
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.