Bridge of Birds is a 1980s fantasy fiction novel set in the ‘Ancient China that never was’ and narrated by the charmingly straight-faced Number Ten Ox. When the children of his village fall sick, he seeks a sage to save them: he ends up with Li Kao, the scholar with a ‘slight flaw in his character’. Master Li soon works out the necessary cure - a certain ginseng root - and they set out to find it. The ensuring quest is entangled with the legend of the bridge of birds of the title.

This book is such a welcome break from the stock-medieval setting of many fantasy novels, and is funny and sweet to boot. It plays on the myths, traditions and gods of old China to create a tightly-woven mystery-adventure. It rightly deserved the awards it won at the time, and should be a classic of the genre.

Hughart wrote two sequels, The Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen. While still clever and well-written, neither quite match the first book for charm and originality. Saying that, I would have happily read all seven novels Hughart says he would have written in an interview conducted in 2000 (under Features at this site; you can also read the original draft of Bridge of Birds there).

The interview actually raises some interesting points about writing for publication which I’ll discuss at some future unspecified point.