Aldin's Wish is a fast-paced paranormal romance with the Immortals being the guardians of the human race. Well, most of them. There's always a baddie in the bunch. Aldin is such an endearing character, watching over his family in secret and helping out when needed. Of course, his world is turned upside down when he sees Wren. What follows is a steamy love story and plenty of action with our bad guy creating chaos.

There were a few repetitive phrases that should've been caught by a proof-reader, but that aside, it was still an exciting read and an engaging romance. It is the first book in the Enchanted Immortals Trilogy and while the ending is a little open-ended, there are no earth shattering cliffys, so it could be read as a standalone. Overall, Aldin's Wish is a solid start to the series, introducing a world of God's, Vampires, and Shifters. 

This won't make much sense without reading Part One. Also everything in quote marks is again directly from the Zipes translation.

Last episode was mostly sex farce. This stays at that level for a bit and then goes into further...well, extreme joking? I guess? Frankly it's a great example of how Old Jokes Sometimes Don't Translate/Hold Up Well. Also this goes into many more WTF areas than I'd thought it would.

The Tale of Nur al-Din Ali and His Son, Part Two

Quotes from Arabian Nights, adapted from Richard F. Burton's Unexpurgated Translation by Jack Zipes

We last left Hasan at the gates of Damascus wearing only half the normal amount of clothing and the people in the street admiring his...legs. And pretty much the same thing happens to him as happened to his father (in the early part of the story I didn't go into in Part One) - Hasan wanders around a new town, bumps into a nice guy who takes him in and makes him family.

Which is how Hasan ends up owning a cooking shop in Damascus.

I was going to add this to the review, but since I seem to have become more and more pokey about actually writing up full reviews and also because I MUST share this wackiness with someone, I'm going to tell you about just this one story in this edition. Because, wow. I'll write more about this, but this is an example of Differences in Translations. The Arabian Nights has been notorious for having Stories Too Frisky For Victorians, but I always thought meh, Victorians were easily shocked. However I'd also not made it far enough through this edition to read this story - the stories go on and on and it's a bit much to chug through all at one sitting.

Anyway, this is a wonderful example of a story that yes, I could see how those mamas then (and now) might think this is not the fairy tale to read aloud to your kids at bedtime. But oh is it...well, I'll just show you.

All of the tales involve one story that leads into another which leads into another, so I'm going to hop over a bit to get to the part that made me realize "nope, this is not like the edited versions I've read." Also chopping out other characters here and there. So this is not anything like the complete story. As will be obvious, I'm retelling it in my own way, while giggling a lot. The book's translation is not anything near this tone - but it is still very amused with itself and it's clear we're supposed to laugh at a lot of it. Anything in quotes is taken directly from the text - so look to that for a better idea of the book's writing style.

I did take out endless references to good looking people being "like the full moon" because that was on every single page, to the point where I started imagining them all as strange, spherical moon-aliens.

The sections that have more quotes are to insure you don't think I'm making any of this up. And because the Zipes translation is hysterical.

So here we go, and do let me know your response to this. I'll write more on the full book elsewhere. (I should add up here at the start that I don't at all like the trope of the sultan's using marriage to the hunchback as a punishment. I know it's an ancient comedy setup, but still.)