News!!!

The writer's path is always full of surprises!

 

  • 11/29/2025

    Just completed the Amazon audio book edit of The China Virus: A 20th Century China Mystery Novel. This was a difficult edit because Amazon’s beta virtual voice is very inconsistent with foreign word pronunciation; in my case it is Chinese. Actually, it is terrible, even if I manage to get it close to something sounding like Chinese (I have to sound out the words in English alphabet), it will randomly change the pronunciation. I’m sorry about that, but it is beyond my control. ALSO, the novel is sent in 1986, so it has NOTHING to do with the covid virus. The main issue in the novel is a totally different kind of virus. The title was picked way before that whole dreadful disease arose.

  • 11/23/2025

    Back again! Dream of the Dragon Pool, as just been published as an audio version. I haven’t looked at it in years and forgot, if I do so say myself, how much fun that book is! I’m wrestling with Amazon’s beta AI voice system to try and get it close to Chinese pronunciation for the various Chinese names and terms that appear in my novels. It is very inconsistent. I might get it close to some vague form of Chinese pronunciation (forget any sense of tones!) and then several pages later it goes off on its own “pronunciation.” I’m sorry how it came out, but I gave it my best shot and hope it doesn’t ruin your “listening pleasure.”

    I’m now working on the China Virus, my 1980’s Beijing murder mystery, with the same nutty AI voice. I would really like to do Strange Tales from the Dragon Gate Inn, but Amazon is not being very helpful in guiding me through setting up the book’s table of contents which is a requirement for their audio publications. Anyway, hope you enjoy these audio versions!

  • 11/17/2025
    Hello!     Yes, I’m still here!!! I’m winding down my Boston University teaching so as to devote more time to my fiction writing. I have been working on a new novel for a number (too many) years now - lots of historical research, as it is set in my beloved Tang dynasty China. The main character is, perhaps, China’s most famous female assassin. At the same time, there has been some enthusiasm for Scroll 2 of the Tanzong adventure. There is a partial manuscript, so I have to get my “ducks in a row” so to speak with these various projects.

    However, a few days ago, Amazon has made me an offer that I’ve been excited to accept: audio versions of all my Amazon fiction! I’ve just gone through Listening to Rain - The Adventures of the Shaolin Blade Tanzong, Scroll 1 and it’s now published as an audio book on Amazon! Please understand that the AI voice is not very good at Chinese pronunciation. I spent two days “massaging” its pronunciation and apologize to Chinese speakers for the results. Maybe in the future, we can get it to learn tones…ha, ha. Anyway, hope you get to sample it. I’m moving ahead to publish all my Amazon publications in audiobook form and will announce on this website as each one is published. Thanks for your support and hope you enjoy these new versions.

  • 4/04/2020

    I’m continuing to add to the Cloud Immortal Movie Review section, but thought since many of us are at home, you might want more suggestions for East Asian films to watch. Here is a site that I love that does the whole range of genres in East Asian film. I highly recommend: https://www.easternkicks.com/

    I’m also continuing on with my reading of the third volume of Jin Yong’s classic Legends of the Condor Heroes in translation, which is available on Amazon. Plenty of things to keep busy with. In the future, I will add a new section to the Cloud Immortal Movie Review section that just recommends various East Asian genre films outside of my Boston University classes.

  • 3/19/2020 - I’m continuing to add new content to the Cloud Immortal Movie Reviews section on Teaching East Asian Film at Boston University. Who knows you might find a movie or several movies to help pass your time at home. I’m very much hooked into a Hong Kong TV series of Jin Yong’s novel The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, which can be conveniently found on Amazon Prime Video. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heaven_Sword_and_Dragon_Saber

  • 3/2020 - I’ve started a “series” of posts on the Cloud Immortal Movie Reviews section on Teaching East Asian Film at Boston University. I’m going through my ten years at Boston University basically listing and briefly commenting on the films I’ve show across my classes there. I’ll add more over the coming weeks.

  • 02/09/2020 - I’m back! Has it really been that long since I updated this website? I’m very sorry about that. Life has gotten in the way of my life - thus the hiatus in my writing. Four years ago, I lost someone very close to me and after that really didn’t feel like doing anything. But I’m back at it again, working on a new novel. No not Scroll 2 of Listening to Rain. That is in outline form, but became so complicated that I decided to put it down for the time being to turn to something else. For now, I’m going to work at updating the website, making some changes and some additions. For those of you who have stuck with the site, thank you so much. And I hope we will have new friends joining the site.

  • 2/19/2016 - Coming soon, installments of Scroll 2 of The Adventures of the Shaolin Blade Tanzong! Further news in a few days or so.

  • 3/13/2014 - If you would like to read one of my movie scripts, you can find it on http://studios. amazon.com/projects/40569. "Empire of Light" is a combination of ScFi time travel and wuxia genres. To read the script as a PDF, look to the bottom left side of the page: Script 1 - "Albert's Original Draft" and hit the PDF key. While Amazon Studios have passed on it, I have two other feature-length projects that will be considered by them.

  • 3/2014 - The Director of the Penn State Asian Studies Program tells me he is once again using my novel, Dream of the Dragon Pool: A Daoist Quest in his RLST181 "Introduction to the Religions of China and Japan" course. He says, "Students do enjoy the book, a nice change from dry academic reading. For a survey class, the book works really quite well."

  • 12/01/2013 - The Wandering Blade website begins!