Review: Emperor of the Eight Islands by Lian Hearn

Lian Hearn returns to a world of medieval Japan with a new series, The Tale of Shikanoko, set in the world of her earlier Otori series. Emperor of the Eight Islands introduces this new series, as it explores the great warrior tales of ancient Japan.

I have not read any of Lian Hearn’s previous books, though the Otori series has been on my shelf for years waiting for me to come around. During my recent trip to Japan, I spent some time in Northern Honshu in the region of the Great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which is the same region in Japan where Hearn drew inspiration for this series in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami. This in combination with my having wanted to read Hearn’s books for years, made it an easy choice for me to begin with this book.

The Tale of Shikanoko is told in what feels like a very Japanese writing style – elegant, poetic, and minimalist. Which is to say, a style that I am not very used to. At first it felt very wooden, more like a ledger account than a story, lacking emotion and intimacy. However, as I grew used to the style I realized that this wasn’t the case. The minimalism of the story doesn’t lack the intimacy that I was looking for – it was just more subtle and shown a bit differently. By the end of book I had not only learned to appreciate the style of the story, but I can see how the approach makes emotional punches that much more effective.

This is a story of an older time – a feudal Japanese world, a time of divine emperors, magic and mysticism where the spirits of the land and those of people are much closer. A time when the world was a smaller place, and humans were a smaller presence. It is a time before (perhaps just before?) the arrival of temples of Buddhism and where the politics and rivals of the elite dominate everything.

In this, The Tale of Shikanoko is not just a great example of Asian-inspired medieval fantasy, but it’s a bridge for those deeply attached to fantasy inspired by medieval Britain and surrounding environs. The parallels are rather striking – a deep mystical tradition of living close the spirits of the land that is threatened by the arrival of a religion from abroad, and a feudal society dominated by the elite where rivals backed by traditions from abroad are at war. At the heart of this tale is a young man connected to the spirit of a great stag. It’s still early in the series to know just where it will end, but I think it’s not a stretch to believe that this young man is bound for some form of greatness, and quite likely, a tragic end. Before reading this book, I had never realized how the Arthurian traditions of Britain so closely parallel the warrior tales of Japan. This of course will lead to the inevitable decrees that The Tale of Shikanoko is the Japanese King Arthur, which is a disservice to both in spite of the very real parallels.

But it really misses the point for me to frame this story in terms of similarities to ‘Western’ traditions and that is not my intent. Merely an observation that I came to time and again while reading.

These are human tales – universal tales of power and love, betrayal and victory, loss and change. It’s a coming of age story, I believe it will become a story of revenge. A story of love, hate, betrayal, and everything in between.

Emperor of the Eight Islands is the first book in this series of four, all of which will be published in 2016. It is the opening, the origin story, the telling of how the stones are placed before the real game begins. It is the first quarter of a whole rather than an independent work, and as appropriate for the minimalist prose, it weighs in at only 270 pages. In many ways I’ve reviewed this book as if I know what’s ahead, which is untrue. I have not read the others in this series, though I now look forward to doing so. It is a universal tale, one that we’ve heard before, though the details are different. Of course most universal tales are tales of change, so what changes are in store?

As I said above, I look forward to finding out.

Tales of Shikanoko

Emperor of the Eight Islands: Amazon

Autumn Princess Dragon Child: Amazon

Lord of the Darkwood: Amazon

The Tengu’s Game of Go: Amazon

Mini-Review: MM9 by Hiroshi Yamamoto

Last November I visited Asia for the first time, specifically Japan. From the moment that I learned I would be going to Japan, I began to look more and more forward to it. One of the things I wanted to do in preparation was read a couple of SFF books from Japan. Not just the big stuff by the likes of Murakami but something that was maybe a bit more authentic, and even pulp-ish. So I turned to the specialty publishing house of Haikasoru and browsed their catalog for interesting sounding books. Of course I found many, but had to limit to a couple of choices.

One of those choices was MM9 (Monster Magnitude 9) by Hiroshi Yamamoto. I chose it because it’s more or less contemporary, plus obviously from the same lineage as Godzilla and just sounded fun. MM9 tells a series of related stories (think pulp fiction here) of a special unit called the Meteorological Agency Monsterological Measures Department (MMD) as they protect Japan from the growing threat of natural disasters in the form of giant monsters, or kaiju. Of course there’s a grand conspiracy at foot.

As I said above, this is pulp fiction – it feels as if it were a series of episodic short stories that were brought together. It also feels snarky – this may be a translation issue, but I really think that these stories don’t take themselves entirely seriously. It’s especially interesting (or funny) how so much emphasis is given to ‘rating’ the size of the monsters and then gifting them with a name (nice and corny – names like ‘Princess’, ‘Megadrake’, and ‘Seacloud’). And it really does fascinate me to wonder if it’s something lost in translation, that the book is truly snarky, or if like the first, this is an aspect of Japanese pop culture that just feels snarky to us in the USA.

MM9 has all of the campy fun of good pulp fiction and it provided exactly what I was looking for. Something a bit different than I usually read as well as a different sort of perspective of Japan in advance of my trip. And yes, it did give me some interesting perspective that I wasn’t going to find in the Lonely Planet guides. Specifically some ideas on the general economic malaise of a country that has been in one recession or another for almost 20 years, and a bit of hint on just how much the pop culture in Japan leans in its unique direction (in addition to the snarky fascination I mention above). I will not even try to describe that uniqueness of the pop culture in Japan beyond an image I saw on my first evening – a man of around 40 dressed in his every day suit (much nicer than the one I own), reading a graphic novel on a bullet train while eating a quick meal and drinking a beer, with a very loud, cartoonish advertisement on the wall above him.

Anyway, MM9 was a fun book to read and just what I wanted. I certainly recommend the books of Haikasoruas a source of some great Japanese SFF.

MM9 by Hiroshi Yamamoto: Amazon

Review: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Sometimes a novel moves through and beyond such trite descriptions as gripping narrative, talented writing, and beautiful prose. Sometimes a novel becomes important. Kafka on the Shore, while encompassing any number of canned descriptions such as those above, is important. I feel that I could read this novel a dozen times and come away with a different understanding each time.

Kafka on the Shore tells the story of 15-year old Kafka Tamura as he runs away from his home in Tokyo and a cold, distant father. Kafka is that silent brooding guy in the back of the class who never says anything, never smiles, and has no friends. He is mature beyond his 15 years, intelligent, conflicted, yet naïve as the typical adolescent male.

Kafka travels to the southerly city of Takamatsu where he searches for something – perhaps the mother who abandoned him at a young age, perhaps the sister lost to him with the mother, perhaps a way out of the world. He discovers a private library and its eccentric staff (or maybe the library discovers him); they take him in.

Mr. Nakata suffered mysterious and terrible accident as a child during World War II. He is now a harmless old man who enjoys conversations cats and predicts unexplainable events – such as fish falling from a cloudless sky. A meeting with a strange entity in the guise of Johnny Walker sets him on a journey to set things right in the world and its relation to other worlds.

For those that love labels, magical realism generally describes the atmosphere created by Murakami. For readers like myself who have limited exposure ‘non-Western’ literature, Kafka on the Shore is a great gateway to the East. This Japanese story cuts across cultures and reminds that humanity has more in common than we often realize.

Kafka on the Shore will speak to different people in different ways, and I’m still working out what was ‘said’ to me. It is a beautiful and meaningful novel that I certainly recommend. On my 10-point rating scale (described here), Kafka on the Shore rates a solid 8.