Faraway Wanderers (Word of Honor) 天涯客 (山河令) by Priest (HE)

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• I'm sure many of you who follow C-Ent would have heard of one of the surprise hit dramas of the year thus far - Word of Honor. And, once again, I was in an extended reading rut when I picked up the drama, Word of Honor, which, in turn, inspired me to pick up the novel Faraway Wanderers. Now, it is not the first time I'm reading a Priest novel, but Priest's novels tend to have complexities which a casual reader undertaking a light read may fail to appreciate, which is why I tend to reserve Priest's novels for when I'm in the proper mood to settle down with a novel.

  Now, those who watched Word of Honor is, in all likelihood, going to realise rather quickly going in, that the two main leads in Word of Honor are rather different from the two main leads in Faraway Wanderers. The two main leads in Faraway Wanderers are arguably more complex, less righteous and less white-washed than their drama counterparts. Indeed, in Faraway Wanderers, our first male lead, Zhou Zi Shu, is the former leader of an organization of spies and assassins whose only loyalty lay with the Emperor - and the novel (and not even Zhou Zi Shu himself) makes excuses for his acts during his time of service; in his attempt to stabilise the power of the Emperor (then Crown Prince), he has murdered, wronged, and turned a blind eye to many innocent people. But Zhou Zi Shu has never regretted any of his actions; he believed in the 'greater good', that in stablising the power of the Emperor (and preventing the Empire from engaging in self-destructive power snatches), the majority of the population would benefit, and accordingly, the sacrifices made by the innocent people who were wronged are justifiable. We are therefore introduced to Zhou Zi Shu at the start of the novel as an (arguably) morally grey, mature and complex character whose main motivation is to retire from the Imperial Court (since the power of the Emperor has been successfully stabilised). To that end, Zhou Zi Shu willingly pierces seven nails into his body - a torture which all persons intending to leave the special organization is required to undergo (and which would result in such persons living no more than three years after the nails have been pierced into their bodies) - and finally embarks on his short journey of freedom.

  It is during his journey of whiling away his three years that Zhou Zi Shu meets our other main lead - Wen Ke Xing. Being the leader of the Ghost Valley (being a valley which evil people congregate), Wen Ke Xing is no stranger to brutal murders and constantly changing loyalties. And, unlike the drama, there is little to no redemption arc for Wen Ke Xing here; he never regrets turning the pugilist world topsy-turvy (and indirectly contributes to a lot of bloodshed in the process), and he never ever forgave (explicitly) the endless greed and hypocrisy of the majority of the people in the pugilist world. All in all, if one is looking for further detail / exposition of the lives and motivations of the characters in the drama, it will be futile to read the novel, as the two sets of characters are intrinsically, very different people at heart.

• I loved the drama, but refused to read the novel until I forget the plot of the story. Except for the Harry Potter series in which I liked both the novel and movie adaptations, I have always been disappointed by either one or the other.