The Magnolia sword was a great premise, marred by very questionable design decisions. Unfortunately, there is a lot to unpack, and not much to praise. The underlying premise is a retelling of the ballad of Mulan, and the trouble starts almost immediately. In the author’s note at the end of the book, the author talks about her decision to infuse the story with elements of Wuxia, a Chinese genre focusing on martial artist heroes with near-magical powers derived from duty, honour, and lots of practice. I think this is actually a fantastic decision and a wuxia-infused Mulan seems both natural and promising, unfortunately it was extremely poorly implemented here. In order to give the main character, Mulan, believable wuxia the author added a subplot revolving around a hereditary duel Mulan is being trained to fight, over a family dispute. I feel like this idea germinated as an excuse to have the main character start the book as a capable fighter, but it bloomed as a weed – getting in the way of the Mulan myth, and ultimately taking more from the story than it adds. The most important aspect it damages if Mulan’s character. In both the original, and the animated Disney version most people are familiar with, Mulan starts the story as a typical ancient Chinese woman, and decides to take up arms in place of her father *despite* her not being a trained soldier. That is the key that makes Mulan’s story heroic. In this version, Mulan starts the book a hyper-capable warrior, able to catch arrows mid-air blindfolded and knockout a man at 10 yards by throwing a walnut at him. As such, there is no sense of vulnerability or danger in her story – no sense of sacrifice or fear in her taking her father’s place. She has no real fears to face, and nothing to prove. This robs Mulan’s character of any possibility of character development and takes away the most important and endearing aspect of her character – that she was doing what she thought was right for her family, despite obscene personal danger. This problem is compounded further when the story goes on. As Mulan joins the company of a Princeling who commands a small band of highly-trained martial-artists who seek to find the enemy encampment, Mulan’s character falls to the wayside. Since the Princeling commands, Mulan’s character spends most of the book following in other people’s footsteps, and doing as she is told. A 2019 retelling of Mulan should be a feminist icon about the empowering of a woman, but with no character, no significant decision making, and little impact on the story, this is ironically a worse feminist telling of Mulan than 1998 Disney version. Closer to the end of the book Mulan is given the opportunity to make some decisions, but it still comes very hollow – the princeling flat out asks her what she thinks they should do, she answers, and he says ‘so it is decided.’ – It feels more as if Mulan is a mouth peace for the author to tell characters where she wants the story to go, than an outright character making decisions based on knowledge and emotions. In the Climax, Mulan finally gets the opportunity to set forth a plan and actually do something – but it happens ‘off-screen.’ It’s a baffling decision to exclude the first and only scene where the main character takes centre-stage in the development of the plot. Throughout the book is the building of a romance between Mulan and the princeling, which is just as strange. Neither character (nor any other character in the book) are well developed or feel like real people with complex emotions, and the romantic subplot – while, again, fine in premise – is incredibly poorly handled, verging on outright creepy. The major (only) point to the princelings character is that he is afraid of everything (why?), including Mulan, but somehow her presence makes him feel unafraid (Seems contradictory, but okay). His character seems to be the dark and mysterious brooding stranger with a softer side – but it’s all turned up to eleven. For the first part of the book he says so little and his dialogue is so stilted and strange it feels like a highschool drama classes’ first lesson at improv. The romantic subplot takes a creepy turn when the princeling sneaks into Mulan’s bed at night and watches her sleep. Aside from the unnecessary duel subplot and the poorly written romantic subplot – and the fact the main character has no real impact on the main plot – the main plot isn’t actually that bad. The nomadic Rouran, a hunnic tribe, are invading China. A group of highly trained martial-artists strike beyond the wall to find the main camp so the Chinese army will know where they are going to attack. They find the camp, sneak in, discover a traitor, and have to race back to the capital for a climax to unmask the traitor and save china. It’s a simple, but enjoyable plot and the only reason I finished the book. The combat in the book was ‘fine’ – unrealistic, but that is a staple of wuxia, and not an issue. It flowed well and was at parts exciting, but it never felt dangerous and not once did I feel like any character was in danger or like it might not end well, or even maybe have a bittersweet conclusion. The major flaw is that while the heroes have wuxia powers, none of the enemies do. It’s a bit like a superhero movie without a supervillain, so the victory of the heroes is never in doubt. When it’s already been established one character can intercept arrows mid-air by throwing marbles – while blindfolded – leap around as if able to ignore gravity, and avoid swords-strikes with superhuman speed – I’m not worried about them being outnumbered 4-to-1.