Smorgasbord Fantasia

A richly woven tapestry of intoxicating Japanese Mythological elements (Iron Samurai with Chain-saw Katana? Golly yes! Thunder-Tigers? Never heard of those, but give me some more please!!) and elaborate Steampunk fantasy; featuring a precocious 16-year old coming into her own – Jay Kristoff's explosive much-talked about debut Stormdancer was well on its way to be a runaway success even before the book launched. The hype and explosive premise surrounding the book was higher than the lethal volcanic fumes from Mount Doom of Mordor. So imagine war and politics, love and magic colliding against a bewitchingly exotic backdrop of Japanese steam-punk where loyalties shift with the direction of the ever-howling winds and the reddish bloody skies are forever wreathed in clouds of betrayal. Stormdancer goes a step further than all of this. Love it or hate it, this book is in-your-face – World-building at a scale hitherto un-imagined. It’s perhaps YA – in its treatment of the heroine ...

If I actually pause and look over the past few books that I’ve been gung-ho about and have been devouring heartily, a common theme emerges:   JAPAN .  Yamada Monogatari was an indie piece based on Medieval Japan and Oni and rice-paper ghosts. Was more of a slow-burn – with a Japanese ronin Sherlock Holmes for a hero and the story being a kind of a delicious mystery drawing you in to a power struggle for the throne.  And then I got started on this - Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein - A noteworthy debut that came in 2012 –And is such an exquisitely written urban fantasy overlaid with detailed Japanese history that it begs to be finished in one sitting. And currently am reading a steampunk fantasy heavily inspired by Japanese mythology – a story called Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff – the end parts of this trilogy ( EndSinger ) should be hitting the stores right around the corner.  Exciting stuff. Mindblowing worldbuilding skills ever. So coming ...

I confess I’d no idea what I was getting into when I opened this book. Just that the cover looked, ah so inviting – the Bushi( Or Samurai) with his straw-hat pulled down and katana flashing standing beside the flowing rice-fields and the ominous darkness staining the sky behind him – trust me, any well-written book on Medieval Japan is irresistible. And the writing looked good and fresh. And I plunged in. On the whole, Yamada Monogatari: To Break the demon gate is a pretty well-written fictional account based on the Medieval Japanese settings. Filled with sinister court-intrigue, supernatural beings from the Japanese mythology and a whole lot of politicking, featuring Yamada Na Goji; A minor noble-lord now disgraced from the courts, relegated to being a supernatural detective owing to his excellent knowledge of the Japanese demons with a drinking problem. Further digging revealed that Richard Parks has already done a book that introduces the reader to Yamada Goji-san in ...