About the Audiobook:
Title: A TEMPLE OF FORGOTTEN SPIRITS
Author: William F. Wu
Narrator: Anthony Lee
Length: 7 hours 41 minutes
Publisher: Moira Nelligar
Genre: Fantasy
Release date: July 6, 2018
Synopsis:
A young guy named Jack Hong hitchhikes throughout America following the
keilin, a mystical unicorn outof Chinese mythology.
The keilin leads him to ten adventures with ghosts and other supernatural figures. These experiences reveal to him not only parts of American history he never knew, but also his own identity and the role he will
choose for his life.
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MY REVIEW:
“The moonlight was still strong, and Lo Man Gong still sat up on the overhead window, where few people and no old men could ever get.
“Feel better, Chinaman?” he asked mildly.
The night before, my resistance had been low, and his presence had somehow seemed tolerable, if not rational. Now I was more clear-headed … yet he was still here. I didn’t like him as much.
I let my eyes drop closed again. Once I was cured of malaria, I’d be free of him. I had eaten twice today; now, if I slept well, I’d be in sound shape pretty soon.
“You know the keilin, Chinaman Jack?”
That was the Chinese unicorn, a mystical animal whose rare appearances were highly auspicious. In the Cantonese I normally heard, it was pronounced “keilun.” It wasn’t like European ones, though. This unicorn had the body of a deer, the hooves of a horse, the tail of an ox, and a fleshy horn. I knew that much.
“The unicorn?” I opened my eyes and looked at him. As before, the moonlight glowed through his shape.
“Ah, you know the keilin. He smiled and nodded thoughtfully. “The keilin means good things happen. It’s very powerful.”
I watched him silently.
After a while, he looked into my eyes again. “Nobody remember me, Jack. Some people remember, some of my frien’. A few of them. Most, nobody remember at all. No children, no relative. You, Jack. You like me. Unless you change.”
Yes, I knew that. I had already come to understand that. And I knew that he had come for me, here in the middle of the country, away from his home as longtime Californ’. But I didn’t know why.”
This is a collection of short stories that when put together as they are in this audiobook, make up an entire novel.
This was my first experience reading any of William F. Wu’s work and I found it both interesting and informative.
Prior to listening to this audiobook, I had never heard of the word “keilin.” What the heck is a keilin? Well, it is the Asian version of a unicorn, but it is miles away from what most people envision a unicorn to look like. Instead of looking like a horse with a single horn on its head, the keilin had the body of a deer, the hooves of a horse, the tail of an ox, and a fleshy horn.
Narrator Anthony Lee has done a good job of keeping the pacing just right and is able to provide just the right accent for this collection.
I rate both the audiobook and the narration as 4 out of 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
**I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Anthony Lee. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.**
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
William F. Wu may be best known for his contemporary fantasy short stories, such as
“Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium,” a multiple award nominee that was adapted into an episode of the Twilight Zone in 1985.
When he started his career, he decided that he would write some stories on universal issues and some about Chinese American ethnic matters. All of his novels and short stories have a character of East Asian descent, usually the protagonist.
When he was young, he did some long-distance hitchhiking throughout the nation, though he makes no claim to experiencing the supernatural.
He has had thirteen novels, one short story collection, one book of literary criticism, and over sixty short stories published by traditional publishers and is in the process of bringing
out much of his backlog through Boruma Publishing.
Wu has spoken for over thirty years on panels at science fiction conventions, and he has also been guest of honor and toastmaster.
He has participated in and hosted writers’ workshops frequently over the years and taught fiction at the college level.
A 5-time finalist (and a sixth time as part of the group of Wild Cards authors) for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, Wu is also a finalist for the Sidewise Award for alternate history and for Canada’s Aurora award.
He’s the author of the six-volume young adult science fiction series titled Isaac Asimov’s Robots in Time, the first series in Asimov’s universe licensed by his estate after his death.
His novel Hong on the Range was based on another Hugo and Nebula Award nominee, the short story “Hong’s Bluff.” Hong on the
Range was chosen for the Wilson Library Bulletin’s list of science fiction “Books Too Good to Miss, 1980 – 1989,” and was a 1990 selection for the American Library Association list of Best Books for Young People, for the New York Public Library’s recommended Books for the Teen Age, and was a Young Adult Editor’s Choice by Booklist Magazine.
Wu adapted the novel for a three-issue comic book series brought out by Image Comics and Flypaper Press in 1996.
He has upcoming stories in Texas Hold’em: A Wild Cards Novel, edited by George R.R.
Martin, due out in the fall, and in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.
Wu was born and raised in the Kansas City area, and educated at the University of
Michigan, where as a student he represented the third generation in his family. He has an A.B. in East Asian Studies and an A.M. and Ph.D. in American Culture; his dissertation was
published as The Yellow Peril: Chinese Americans in American Fiction, 1850 – 1940.
He and his wife live in Southern California.
To learn more about this author, visit the following links:
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ABOUT THE NARRATOR:
Anthony Lee has been told that his voice is deep, resonant, smooth, and clear. Yet, it would be years before he would finally embrace that gift and start using it artistically.
A native of California, Anthony grew up with an equal fascination for knowledge and leisure. He would enjoy studying various subjects in school as well as doing fun things in his spare time. His motivation for success and happiness helped him achieve a solid education, a successful job, and a new life to live as his reward for years of hard work.
His decision to try voice acting came after receiving plenty of compliments about his vocal quality over a short amount of time. Whether those words came from friends or strangers, he could no longer deny the possibility that there may be something special about his voice. Hence, from October 2015 to June 2016, Anthony enrolled in night and weekend classes at Elaine Clark’s Voice One Academyin San Francisco, where he trained in the art of voiceover for narrations, commercials, and characters. He thoroughly enjoyed honing his voice for things like audiobooks, technical materials, corporate narrations, e-learning modules, documentaries, commercials, promos, animations, video games, and talking products. Overall, he considers his journey into voiceover to be very rewarding, not just for what he learned but also for the great instructors and classmates he met along the way.
Now with professional voice training, Anthony is stepping out into the world to lend his voice. He loves to take virtually any kind of script and work to deliver the message in a suitable way. His enthusiasm for voiceover makes him strive to be a versatile actor in the craft. Every time he is given an opportunity to provide a voice, he hopes to leave a lasting positive impact.
When he is not doing voice work, Anthony enjoys playing chess, ice hockey, pool, Sudoku, and video games, as well as watching movies, reading about random topics on the Internet, and traveling. He lives in Northern California.
To learn more about this Narrator, visit the following links:
ACX -Listen to his voice samplesHERE
*** To read my review of another Audiobook narrated by Anthony Lee, click HERE.
*** A Special Thank You goes to AudioBookWorm Promotions for providing me with a free copy of this Audiobook.***
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