There seem to be more recorded slurs against Empress then Emperor Wu than facts, though there are some facts - who her family was, when she went to be a concubine of the Emperor, that she did not stay in a nunnery after the Emperor's death but was returned to serve in the palace and eventually became Empress against the custom of not serving both father and son. A lot of people died who stood between her and power which was totally normal palace intrigue except that a woman was at the center this one time. Oh, and while the multitude of women thought necessary to maintain the vitality of an Emperor where essentially palace servants whose reward was to be sent out of the way upon the Emperor's death, the men she kept around her were given political power and were a pretty much in constant conflict. Otherwise she seems to have been as good a ruler as most of the men who inherited the position before or after her. The book is interesting without being very involving as it threads it's way through facts, rumors current during the life of Empress/Emperor Wu, and rumors and tales which appeared in the decades and centuries after her death. An interesting appendix covers other biographies and fictionalizations of her life. ( )