Specializing in minimalist fiction and creative non-
Part 1: Morning Star
In the wakened world, life expands when you are young and shrinks when you are old. In dreamworld, life expands until the last dream. [Morning Star Chronicles]
Part 3: Black Jade
I stole the Mirror of Retribution from the King of Death, and he wants it back, and me. I needed it. Until I discovered how unimaginably useful it was, I intended returning it. The King’s attention forced me to search for immortality. The solution was absurdly simple: Replace another person’s dream avatar with your own. My luck was also absurd. My half sister was the perfect host, younger, rightful heir to the throne, and already captured. I will give myself a glorious funeral. [Queen Black Jade’s Diary]
The Little Chinese Dreammaster is set in the Qing Dynasty (~1790). In the first part (Morning Star), a young dreamer falls into the dream of a Dreammaster, who is also the Queen of the ancient Kingdom of Shu. It is a sentence of insanity or death. Morning Star escapes but returns to the dream past seeking medicine for a pandemic in her village. She learns of a cure but becomes entangled in a curse by Dreammaster Black Jade on her half sister, Princess Phoenix, the rightful heir to Shu. The Dreammaster entraps Princess Phoenix in a marble statue and transforms her sister’s fiance into an owl messenger. In the second part (Blue Cloud), Morning Star’s father fights kidnappers, corrupt officials, bandits, and mercenaries in attempts to free his wife and daughter from slavery instigated by Dreammaster Black Jade. With the help of an old Uyghur dreamseer, Morning Star learns to manipulate dreams to help her and her mother free themselves. In the last part (Black Jade), Morning Star’s knowledge of dreamworld explodes with the aid of a Butterfly Dreamlord, her warrior father, her musician mother, and a Daoist monk. She defeats Black Jade’s sorcery in the deepest dimension of dreamworld by becoming a new dream being.
Part 1: Morning Star
1. Terror in Two Worlds
2. Flowers That Can Fly
3. Ancient Medicine
4. A Sneaky Doctor
5. All Nightmares Are the Same Color
6. The Origins of Magic
7. A Village Meeting
8. The Law of Threes
9. “Blue Cloud is Coming”
10. Even Monks Cry
Part 2: Blue Cloud
11. Evening Star in Chengdu
12. Ghosts, Charms, Signs, and Oracles
13. Second-
14. The Dragon Gate Gang
15. Prisons within Prisons
16. Slave Girl
17. The Beckoning Light
18. Someone Else’s Dreams
19. Chasing Camels
20. Lady Khan’s Revenge
21. Dancing in the Desert
22. A Fat Monk
Part 3: Black Jade
23. Dreamcatchers
24. Dragon Family Chronicles
25. Golden Lily’s Dreams
26. Dream Demons
27. “Harder Than the Road to Heaven”
28. Full Glory’s Decision
29. Homecoming in Butterfly Village
30. Black Jade’s Realm
31. Even Dreamers Lie
32. The Ultimate Dimension of Dreams
33. Balance in Dreamworld
34. Memories That Might Have Been
Part 2: Blue Cloud
A martial artist can evaluate the ultimate value of his art only with life-