Showing results by narrator "Daniel York Loh" in All Categories

When a Navy vessel comes across a yacht in distress in the middle of the vast Indian Ocean, Captain Danial Tengku orders his ship to rush to its aid. On board the yacht is a British couple: a horribly injured man, Jake, and his traumatized wife, Virginie, who breathlessly confesses, “It’s all my fault. I killed them.” Trembling with fear, she reveals their shocking story to Danial.

Imagine the universe as a forest, patrolled by numberless and nameless predators. In this forest, stealth is survival – any civilisation that reveals its location is prey. Earth has. Now the predators are coming. Crossing light years, the Trisolarians will reach Earth in four centuries' time. But the sophons, their extra-dimensional agents and saboteurs, are already here. Only the individual human mind remains immune to their influence.

Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge and, with human science advancing and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations can co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But peace has made humanity complacent.

Penang, 1939. Sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton is a loner. Half English, half Chinese and feeling neither, he discovers a sense of belonging in an unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip shows his new friend around his adored island of Penang, and in return Endo trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such friendship comes at a terrible price.

The Song Empire has been invaded by its warlike Jurchen neighbours from the north. Half its territory and its historic capital lie in enemy hands; the peasants toil under the burden of the annual tribute demanded by the victors. Meanwhile, on the Mongolian steppe, a disparate nation of great warriors is about to be united by a warlord whose name will endure for eternity: Genghis Khan. Guo Jing, son of a murdered Song patriot, grew up with Genghis Khan's army.

The power, anger and fluency of Liang Qichao's writings make him one of the towering figures in modern Chinese literature. He saw his great, almost unmanageable task as an attempt to write China into the new era - to provide an ancient country, devastated by civil war and foreign predators, with the intellectual equipment to renew itself. This selection of pieces shows Liang's extraordinary range and the burning sense of mission which drove him on, attempting to galvanize and refresh an entire nation.

In this dispatch from exile, Hong Kong political activist Nathan Law explores the meaning of freedom - and shows how easily freedoms can be eroded or dismantled. Freedom is fragile - it is not a given, and each generation must fight to protect it, whether in emerging democracies or in the Western world, where freedom is too often taken for granted.

Charles Goh has always played by the rules. It’s how he survived his difficult childhood as the swotty foreigner at a posh English boarding school—and now, his high-pressure job at one of the biggest corporate law firms in London. His job is his life and he's happy that way … until she shows up.

Following the lives of military intelligence officer Jie and his wife Moon, The Book of Secrets weaves recently found material into a narrative that not only illuminates the shadowy world of intelligence in China, but also the emotional tragedies that political extremism inflicted on those working within. Drawing on Jie’s own vivid biography of his youth, Xinran pieces together his trajectory as he joins the great hope of the Chinese young – the Communist Party – and becomes a loyal cadre until the late 1970s.

China: 1200 AD. Guo Jing has confronted Apothecary Huang, his sweetheart Lotus' father, on Peach Blossom Island, and bested the villainous Gallant Ouyang in three trials to win her hand in marriage. But now, along with his sworn brother, Zhou Botong of the Quanzhen Sect, and his shifu, Count Seven Hong, chief of the Beggar Clan, he has walked into a trap. Tricked by Huang into boarding an unseaworthy barge, they will surely drown unless Lotus - who has overheard her father's plans - can find a way to save them.

China in the 19th century: a proud and ancient empire forbidden to foreigners. The West desires Chinese tea above all other things but lacks the silver to buy it. Instead, Western adventurers resort to smuggling opium in exchange. The Qing Emperor will not allow his people to sink into addiction. Viceroy Lin is sent to the epicentre of the opium trade, Canton, to stop it. The Opium Wars begin - heralding a period of bloody military defeats, reparations, and one-sided treaties which will become known as the Century of Humiliation.

In the fourth and final volume of Legends of the Condor Heroes, the first novel in the Condor Trilogy, Guo Jing is at last forced to make a choice between loyalty to the land of his birth and keeping faith with Genghis Khan, who has been like a father to him. As the Mongol armies descend on China, Jin Yong brings this most beloved of his novels to a thrilling conclusion, complete with vast battles, stirring heroism, heartbreak, triumph and loss.

In the Jin capital of Zhongdu, Guo Jing learns the truth of his father's death and finds he is now betrothed, against his will, to two women. Neither of them is his sweetheart, Lotus Huang. Torn between following his heart and fulfilling his filial duty, he journeys through the country of his parents with Lotus, encountering mysterious martial heroes and becoming drawn into the struggle for the supreme martial text, the Nine Yin Manual. But his past is catching up with him. The widow of an evil man he accidentally killed as a child has tracked him down, intent on revenge.

The boy grows up in a small village in south China listening to stories about the Colonel: some say he was a legendary army doctor during the war, some say he was a traitor to the Party, still others say he is a wicked sex machine. The stories are bawdy and mesmerizing, always larger than life. Yet in reality, the Colonel is just a middle-aged man who loves his cat. And why on earth does everyone call him 'the Eunuch'? From these disparate sources, the boy tries to piece together who the Colonel really is, just as he himself grows up in a rapidly changing China.

Jenny Lau always found herself sitting between cultures, connected to both east and west. Hungry to understand herself, she threw herself into researching the Chinese food of her heritage. The result is An A-Z of Chinese Food - a surprising, compelling and deliciously enriching anthology that uses food to explore who we are and how we relate to the world.

An apocalyptic cult member carries out a gas attack on a rush-hour metro, but what links him to a jazz buff in downtown Tokyo? Or to a Mongolian gangster, a woman on a holy mountain who talks to a tree and a late night New York DJ? Set at the fugitive edges of Asia and Europe, Ghostwritten weaves together a host of characters, their interconnected destinies determined by the inescapable forces of cause and effect.

After the death of 'Eumenides', a former police student who was sending 'death notices' to unpunished criminals before brutally murdering them, the Chengdu Police Department assumed that the killing spree would stop. But the murders continue, leading the 4/18 task force to the terrifying truth: Eumenides had a protégé. Captain Pei Tao and his task force redouble their efforts to catch this new opponent, but relationships become fraught. Can they trust each other?

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Nathan Law has experienced first-hand the shocking speed with which our freedom can be taken away from us, as an elected politician arrested simply for speaking his mind. He remembers what it is like to lack freedom - and his father's precarious three-day escape from China in a small rowing boat. In this passionate rallying cry, Law argues that we must defend our freedom now or face losing it for ever.

As Eiji Miyake's 20th birthday nears, he arrives in Tokyo with a mission - to locate the father he has never met. So begins a search that takes him into the seething city's underworld, its lost property offices and video arcades, and on a journey that zigzags from reality to the realm of dreams. But until Eiji has fallen in love and exorcised his childhood demons, the belonging he craves will remain, tantalizingly, just beyond his grasp.

When Kriya follows her boss and joins a new law firm, she’s looking for a fresh start after a messy break-up. Sharing an office with her work nemesis was not what she had in mind. Charles has always played by the rules, and had clear boundaries until Kriya crashed into his space. A few too many unfortunate professional encounters has him convinced this attractive girl can’t stand him, and things only get more awkward as they are forced to work so closely together . . .