10 Books Like Journey To The West
The Journey to the West book is the first long chapter novel of the gods and demons in ancient China, written by Wu Chengen in the Ming Dynasty. The book mainly describes that after the birth of the Monkey King and a big trouble in the Palace of Heaven, he met the Tang monk, Pig, Sha monk and White dragon horse, five people go west together to get scriptures. They went through hardships and difficulties along the way, subduing demons and eliminating devils, experiencing 81 difficulties, and finally reached the Western Paradise to see the Buddha, and finally the five saints became true! The Journey to the West book is based on the historical event “Xuanzang Takes the Scriptures”, but with the author’s artistic processing, it can more deeply depict the social life of the people in ancient China.
The Journey to the West book‘s story clearly shows the idea that to achieve a good ideal and to accomplish a great cause, one must encounter many difficulties and must overcome them. The story itself also includes forty-one short stories. Most of them have monstrous goblins in them. These goblins come from different origins but have one common characteristic, that they obstruct the cause of taking the scriptures. Many of them are actually illusions of natural disasters, but when they take on the form of demons and emerge as the side of evil forces in battle, they have acquired a significance in the reality.
A Novel of gods and demons mainly describe the fantasy stories of gods, demons, monsters and humans. The novel’s language style is unconventional and imaginative, the story settings are either imaginary or fictitious in some overseas places, and they combine religion, mythology and other popular forms, so they are widely celebrated. Many authors have written a large number of masterpieces based on historical events or popular stories of gods and monsters. If you want to read more books like The Journey to the West, just read on.
1. Feng Shen Yan Yi (Tales of the Teahouse Retold)
Feng Shen Yan Yi is a long novel written by Xu Zhonglin in the Ming Dynasty. It was edited into a book during the Longqing and Wanli years of the Qing Dynasty in ancient China. The whole book of Feng Shen Yan Yi is written in 100 rounds, which is the story of King Wu’s conquest of King Zhou.
The first thirty books of Feng Shen Yan Yi focus on the tyranny of King Zhou, Jiang Ziya returned to seclusion, King Wen visited the sage, and got the assistance of Jiang Ziya before King Wu completed the great task of conquering King Zhou. The last 70 books of Feng Shen Yan Yi are mainly about the war between Shang and Zhou, and mixed with the religious struggle. Both sides show their Taoist skills and kill each other, resulting in King Zhou of Shang burning himself and King Wu of Zhou seizing the world and dividing the kingdoms. Finally, Jiang Ziya returned to his country and was honored as a god, so that the meritorious people and ghosts in the country have a return.
From the perspective of historical drama, the novel of Feng Shen Yan Yi reflects more realistically the struggle between the two dynasties of Shang and Zhou in the ancient china, especially the historical aspect of the defeat of King Zhou, the fall of the Shang Dynasty and the rise of the Zhou Dynasty. The novel also vividly depicts the story of Nezha picking the bones and returning the flesh to seek revenge on his father, and Yin Jiao and Yin Hong being escaped to take revenge on King Zhou.
All these stories show the author’s attempt to transform the feudal loyalty and filial piety ethics of unconditional absolute obedience with a conditional and relative relationship between ruler, subject, father and son. This is the valuable ideological light in Feng Shen Yan Yi. The novel uses historical and political ideas as the intellectual framework that underpins the book. The book is also mixed with a lot of grand imagination, and express the author’s support and praise for the benevolent and wise ruler as well as his dissatisfaction and rebellion against the unethical and faint ruler.
2. Classic of Mountains and Rivers
Classic of Mountains and Rivers was written between the Warring States period and the early Han Dynasty in ancient China. It is known as one of the Three Great Books of the Ancient World, along with the I Ching and the Huang Di Nei Jing. Classic of Mountains and Rivers is an encyclopedia of the life of ancient society, containing many contents about ancient geography, history, mythology, astronomy, animals, plants, medicine, religion, anthropology, ethnology, oceanography and history of science and technology. The Classic of Mountains and Rivers shows the ancient chinese culture, records the living conditions and people’s thought activities during the great wilderness period, outlines the state of civilization and culture in the ancient china, and provides many useful information for future generations.
Ancient Chinese mythology is disorganized and unsystematic, unlike ancient Greek mythology, which is clearly organized. The Classic of Mountains and Rivers embodies this characteristic. When reading the Classic of Mountains and Rivers, I always feel that the mythological stories are just embellishments, a passing reference, merely incidental to the narrative. The ancient ancestors seemed to be more concerned with the utility of exotic objects and the methods of sacrificing to the mountain gods.
The merit of ancient Chinese mythology is obviously stronger than that of Western mythology, which is really related to the environment inhabited by the ancient Chinese ancestors. The civilization of the Yellow River basin is not easy to originate, and simply can not be compared with other ancient civilizations. Ancient Babylon had fertile Mesopotamian plains, ancient Egypt’s Nile floods could bring people fertile soil, and ancient India’s Ganges River banks were also fertile for thousands of miles. The Yellow River basin, on the other hand, was barren since not to mention the years of flooding that threatened the ancestors. The Chinese ancestors were always struggling with the harsh natural environment, and nature’s mythology is more about resistance and utility.
3. Flowers in the Mirror
Flowers in the Mirror is a long novel written by Li Ruzhen, a literary figure of the Qing Dynasty in ancient China. The first half of the novel describes the story of Tang Ao, Duo Jiugong and others who traveled overseas by boat, including their history in the country of the daughter, the country of the gentleman, the country without intestines, etc. The second half of the story is about the selection of talented girls by Wu Zetian in the imperial examinations. The story of Tang Xiaoshan, who was born by the Fairy of the Hundred Flowers, and a hundred other talented girls born by the Fairy of the Flowers, who won the examination and made a difference in the court. The story is written in a fantastical and witty way and wonderfully draws out a splendid and colorful scene.
What Li Ruzhen saw was a women’s issue that had been neglected for thousands of years in ancient China. He was the first person in China to raise this women’s issue, and his answer to it was that men and women should be treated equally, with equal education and an equal election system. According to reviews, the most exciting part of The Mirror and the Flower is the section on the daughter’s country. The purpose of this part is simply to depict the unequal, cruel and inhuman treatment of women with literary techniques and witty flavor. It is even said that the country of the daughters is Li Ruzhen’s ideal utopia for the women of the world to seek redress for their grievances.
4. The Lord of The Rings
The Lord of the Rings tells the story of the Dark Lord Sauron in thousands of years ago cast a supreme power of the Ring. Then the Ring fell into the hands of the innocent boy Frodo, Frodo resisted the temptation of the Ring. And with the help of his friends, he finally went to the Mountains of Doom to destroy the Ring.
It has the most complex and detailed settings: every mountain, every water, every grass and every tree can be meticulously and painstakingly portrayed to be lifelike. Each language is not improvised, but has its own origin, laws and evolution. And each race has its own origin, culture and heritage. The simple and witty countryside anecdotes inadvertently reveal the tip of the iceberg of the past, the vicissitudes and weight of the past, the upper and lower ten thousand years. A seemingly careless stroke may echo the ancient legends of a thousand words elsewhere. Yet, it has the most concise and simple kernel: fate and times are not always swayed by the strong, but often by the hands of the weak. It is not the all-powerful gods and goddesses, not the superheroes, not the powerful magic, but the love, friendship, loyalty and compassion that ordinary people insist on, that has successfully curbed the darkness.
In the 1950s, The Lord of the Rings swept through Europe and the United States, becoming the cultural imprint of an era. The Lord of the Rings book series has been selling for more than half a century and has spawned illustrations, music, movies, television series, radio dramas and computer games. The Lord of the Rings has been translated into more than sixty languages and has been read by approximately 100 million people worldwide, and the number continues to grow.
5. The Hobbit
The Hobbit is a full-length novel written by British author John Ronald Riel Tolkien and first published in 1937. The Hobbit tells the story of a dwarf named Bilbo, who finds a magical ring that makes him invisible while he go out on an adventure, which allows him to successfully steal the rare treasures that were plundered and dominated by the dragon in his subsequent expedition. In The Hobbit book, Tolkien creates numerous races of life forms – hobbits, dwarves, wizards and elves – as well as natural beings who can communicate with humans. They work together to defeat evil forces such as ogres, orcs, wolves, poisonous spiders, and fire dragons.
The Hobbit covers a wide range of topics, including society, morality, education, technology, religion, war, and almost every other important aspect of the modern world. Tolkien’s main line of adventure extends vertically through time while also laying out these issues horizontally and coincidentally, integrating his feelings about these prominent issues into the larger context of the times. In particular, he is able to reflect on the situation of human beings in society through the lens of war, inspiring people to see the origins of their predicament, while at the same time, not forgetting to envision a better habitat for human beings and to promote efforts to improve this situation, reflecting the trend of the times and the hearts of people in England after the war in the early 20th century.
6. A Song of Ice and Fire
The story of A Song of Ice and Fire takes place in a fictional medieval world, focusing on the western “Sunset Kingdom” – the continent of Westeros, and the experiences of the people there in the political context of the time. The story of A Song of Ice and Fire revolves around three main lines of development.
The first line revolves around the story of the Game of Thrones dynastic struggle between the lords who intend to claim the Iron Throne, the center of power of the entire kingdom. The second main line revolves around the town of the seven kingdoms in the northern fortress of the Great Wall of Despair in the fight against the wildlings and stay out of the southern politics, while trying to resist the threat of the ghosts that have returned after 8,000 years of obscurity, intending to use the Long Winter invasion to kill all humans. The third main line is set in another continent east of Westeros – Ursus, the only remaining member of the Targaryen family Daenerys Targaryen in the re-hatching of the dragon after the intention to take back the power of Westeros experience.
Ice and fire are used to highlight the meaning of human struggle. The book portrays a myriad of characters, but not in isolation, highlighting heroism, dedication, or treacherous intrigue, but from a “mimetic” perspective, using the point-of-view method to depict the different situations and choices of the characters in the whirlwind of that particular era, including heroes and underdogs. Each chapter allows the reader to follow the thoughts and motivations of a particular character, to experience his story, and to savor what he sees and hears in the world.
7. The Lightning Thief
Teenager Percy is a 12-year-old student who goes to school in New York and has severe dyslexia. He is not perfect, but has a good heart. A strange encounter at a museum changes his fate, and he discovers that he is actually the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea.
He arrives at the Olympus world via the elevator in the Empire State Building in New York, where Zeus, the god of gods, accuses him of stealing the lightning scepter and restricts him to return it within 10 days or he will have to go to war with Poseidon, the god of the sea. And at that moment Hades, the king of the underworld, kidnaps Percy’s mother and threatens him with a lightning scepter in exchange, and the god of war arrives on a motorcycle to provide them with clues. In order to save his mother and stop the war of the gods, Ballad decided to find the real thief, he took the daughter of the goddess Athena and the half-goat man through a video studio in Los Angeles into the underworld, they can stop the war from happening.
The Lightning Thief is the first book in the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series. Some people will consider this series is very similar to Harry Potter, but in fact there are many differences between these two. Percy is just a book to assume the role of the savior of the protagonist, but from him I see my shadow – a never admit defeat and more or less rebellious people. In a society of all kinds, we need not an unattainable hero but a protagonist who sometimes makes a little mistake, because what we need is not only the pleasure of reading but a real, not so perfect protagonist, because this is the most real.
8. The Lost Hero
A mysterious boy, Iason, appears on a bus to Wilderness High School. Miraculously, when he wakes up, he finds himself holding the hand of a girl he does not know. Just when he was suspicious, the classmates around him suddenly turned into magical beasts, and the cute name Heiyang-Haiji coach is actually a half-sheep man. Iasong and Reo were besieged by the storm elves, the coach fell into the abyss to protect them, and they were rescued by the half-bloods reinforcements to the half-blood camp.
The three men gradually come to understand their origins, and it turns out that each of them is a demigod. However, Iason is unable to retrieve his memories, and even more strangely, when his teacher Kharoon sees him, he thinks he has been dead for a thousand years. From time to time, the trapped Queen of Heaven, Hera, entrusts dreams to Iason to give him guidance. When Odi’s movie star father is suddenly kidnapped, can they quickly rescue one man and one god and stop the resurrection of Gaia, the Mother Earth?
Percy Jackson Olympus Heroes Series: The Lost Hero is a story that follows the Percy Jackson series, with The Lost Hero by Lake Lydon as the first book in the Percy Jackson Olympus Heroes Series. The Lost Hero skillfully blends ancient Greek mythology with the social life of modern teenagers in the 21st century, with gripping stories and fanciful imagery. It creates a new fantasy world for readers. The main character, Percy, has a different and bizarre birth, and he and his friends, each with their own skills, travel between the two worlds of mortals and gods to save the divine and earthly worlds in the process of self-identification.
9. The Hidden Oracle
The story of this series is closely linked to the Percy Jackson series and Percy Jackson Olympus Hero series and comes after the end of the Great War, as the culprit of the war, the sun god Apollo was relegated to a mortal. He was no longer a perfect god, and began to experience the taste of defects and failures, but also had to assume their own responsibilities.
The Hidden Oracle is the first book in the series. After the fall from Olympus, Apollo fell into a dirty, rotten garbage can in the mortal world, he did not have time to lament the loss of his eight pack abs, trouble followed: the Oracle of Delphi continued to fail, the hybrid camp kept disappearing demigods, and lost the power of the gods Apollo, can no longer be arbitrary designate a demigod to solve the trouble for themselves, this time, he must learn to clean up their own mess. The old rival, Pi Tong, is perched on top of the oracle, cutting off the source of the prophecy. The mysterious man named “The Beast” is whispering in the shadows, plotting to take everything from Apollo. The new master, Meg, is uncultured, sloppy and stubborn. Apollo himself has lost his divine power, even shooting arrows with great effort. In front of this heavy test, where should Apollo go?
The series, like its predecessors, cleverly blends Greek mythology with modern adventure, leading readers to experience adventures with the Greek heroic protagonist Percy, just like participating in a teenage bar mitzvah with a tumultuous plot and deep background. The series echoes reality and history, and is praised as a teenage version of Homer’s Odyssey, with responsibility and growth. In the creation of Percy Jackson and other series, Lake Lydon will be God’s ancient, immortal mythical characters into the framework of teenage adventure stories, a series of novels into a huge and amazing art world, and thus won the global youth readership and love. The series has been on the world’s bestseller lists and has won numerous awards. Leyton travels extensively to share his writing and life experiences with readers of all sizes.
10. The Golden Compass
This is an extraordinary world. Here, the human soul is a spirit that exists in some animal form, and man is inseparable from the spirit, otherwise, life would cease to exist. A peep in the closet, completely changed the fate of a girl or even the entire universe. Laila, who has no father or mother, grew up in the ancient Jordan College in Oxford, knowing nothing of her noble and mysterious origins, not to mention the world-shaking curse she bears.
The Golden Compass, together with The Magic Blade and The Amber Spyglass, is a Black Mass Trilogy, which overturns the traditional perception of the Western world of the legend of the creation of Adam and Eve through a cosmic mythology. From Oxford University to the polar ice field, from the real world to the parallel space, a pair of teenagers carrying the prophecy of salvation face many crises and temptations in an amazing adventure. The novel not only carries the ideas of theology, religion and original sin, but also incorporates scientific elements that are lacking in ordinary magical works, which is what makes this work so unusual.
The Black Mass Trilogy is a set of fantasy literature with an epic quality that is extremely rich in spirituality, very different from the popular magic novels, it is not only passionate about the thrill, but also shows a firm anti-authoritarian stance, describing the need for ultimate spirituality. It is this spirituality that takes it beyond the realm of children’s literature and is considered by Western critics to be of sufficient depth and literary quality to be ranked in literary history.
Enjoyed these 10 books like The Journey To The West? Then be sure to check out our other book review of 8 Books like The Poppy War.