This was really rather annoying. The real characters, described through the medium of magic realism, created a book in which nothing could be trusted. Which was probably part of the point, but if that was part of the point I’m not very interested; I picked it up to read about Madam Cheng, the famous lady pirate. Discarded it after her chapter was done. I’m more interested in facts, I think; high-faluting meandering, I can do myself.