Wesley Chu is acclaimed for his Tao Series and the Eldest Curses Series (with Cassandra Clare). He was born in Taiwan and claims that a “steady diet of wuxia” martial arts movies informed both his childhood and this new series, called the War Arts Saga. I read the book because Chu was announced as the Guest of Honor for Minicon 59, next Easter.

The Art of Prophecy introduces Wen Jian, the Hero of Prophecy, Champion of the Five Under Heaven and Savior of the Juun People. Someday, the Hero will defeat the Eternal Khan, the immortal leader of the enemy Katia People. But for now, Jian is merely a clueless, badly-trained young man. He has just begun training under a new and very opinionated Master, an old woman named Ling Taishi, when the Eternal Khan is defeated by accident. This pretty much invalidates the prophecy and renders the Hero, at best, an embarrassment.

Ling Taishi rescues young Jian from his former masters and the rulers of the Five Enlightened States, which begins an exciting voyage of escape, hardship, and martial arts battles. The entire world seems to be united against the Hero and his now-disgraced Master. And it is an enormous, wonderfully well-developed world; full of treacherous terrain, interesting cultures and schools where the magical secrets of martial arts techniques are passed on to the worthy.

The story is told from multiple points of view. In addition to Jian and Taishi, there is Qisami, a young highly-trained assassin, and Sali, who was a loyal friend to the no-longer-quite-so-Eternal Khan. I am not sure why a male author chose to tell the story of a boy Hero mostly through female characters, but it worked fine for me. Perhaps the Eastern traditions of wuxia—insanely badass, magical martial arts—are no more unrealistic for women than they are for men.

This is an exciting and engaging book, full of adventure framed by loyalty, honor and betrayal. One suspects that the Hero will eventually be needed after all, but likely not in any expected way. But first he has to get through the rest of his training, atop the requisite inaccessible cloudy summit, in the second book, The Art of Destiny, now available in hardcover.