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In the opening pages of the action-packed Book One of Lian Hearn's epic Tale of Shikanoko series--all of which will be published in 2016--a future lord is dispossessed of his birthright by a scheming uncle, a mountain sorcerer imbues a mask with the spirit of a great stag for a lost young man, a stubborn father forces his son to give up his wife to his older brother, and a powerful priest meddles in the succession to the Lotus Throne, the child who is the rightful heir to the emperor barely escaping the capital in the arms of his sister. And that is just the beginning.
As destiny weaves its rich tapestry, a compelling drama plays out against a background of wild forests, elegant castles, hidden temples, and savage battlefields. This is the medieval Japan of Lian Hearn's imagination, where animal spirits clash with warriors and children navigate a landscape as serene as it is deadly.
The Tale of Shikanoko, Book One: Emperor of the Eight Islands (April 2016)
The Tale of Shikanoko, Book Two: Autumn Princess, Dragon Child (June 2016)
The Tale of Shikanoko, Book Three: Lord of the Darkwood (August 2016)
The Tale of Shikanoko, Book Four: The Tengu's Game of Go (September 2016)
- Sales Rank: #72541 in Books
- Published on: 2016-04-26
- Released on: 2016-04-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 190.75" h x 17.78" w x 5.05" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
From Publishers Weekly
In this series opener, Hearn (Heaven's Net Is Wide) takes inspiration from Japanese classics to tell a tale of warring clans and unusual magic. There has been friction between the Kakizuki and Miboshi clans for years, and now it is all coming to a head. The emperor's life is failing and each clan supports a different son as his successor. Into these grand events steps the young man Kumayama no Kazumaru, once heir of his clan but now dispossessed by his uncle and left for dead in the Darkwood. He is rescued there by the mountain sorcerer, Shisoku, but also transformed by strange rituals. Now called Shikanoko, "the deer's child," and possessing a magical stag mask, he struggles to direct his fate. Shikanoko is captured, released, instructed, and controlled by a series of lords and wise men, coming ever closer to mastery of his forest power. Eventually, his own destiny becomes entwined with that of the empire. This fast-paced tale of dynastic change intriguingly sets up the remaining three books in the series. (May)\n
Review
“[Emperor of the Eight Islands is] a thrilling, fast-paced fantasy with plot twists, political intrigue, romance, and a richly detailed setting that will appeal to a variety of readers, especially those with an interest in Japanese mythology and otherworldly influences."―Karin Thogersen, Library Journal
"Hearn’s new series is off to an exciting and promising start.” ―Kristine Huntley, ALA Booklist
"Hearn begins her new series, The Tale of Shikanoko, by introducing the primary characters while setting up conflicts and relationships that will evolve in the three volumes to follow, all to be published this year . . . he fluid prose and morally ambiguous characters are magically seductive." ―Kirkus Reviews
"With meticulous attention to detail for the period, along with a bone-deep appreciation of Japanese culture, Hearn's homage to those masterpieces is as close as we're going to get for the moment and tremendously entertaining in its own right. 'The Tale Of Shikanoko' has romance, intrigue, fantasy, passion, betrayal, sacrifice and the old-fashioned pleasure of truly having no idea what will happen next. Now where the heck are Volumes 3 and 4?” ―Michael Giltz, BookFilter
About the Author
Lian Hearn is the pseudonym of a writer--born in England, educated at Oxford, currently living in Australia--who has a lifelong interest in Japan, has lived there, and studies Japanese. She is the author of the bestselling series Tales of the Otori.
Most helpful customer reviews
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful.
Promising, but also unpleasant, and persistently uncomfortable.
By Foxof
I hate writing negative reviews. Writing a book consumes an enormous amount of time and (usually) passion, so I typically only feel the need to review a book when I am especially impressed by it, or feel the need to address some disconcerting flaw or another that fellow reviewers may have overlooked.
And, sadly, it is the latter case that brings me here today: Emperor of the Eight Islands is a sparsely-written, fast-paced novel in the woefully underappreciated "Japanese Fantasy" subgenre--and unlike its predecessors (Hearn's magnificent Tales of the Otori series) the Tale of Shikanoko is deeply problematic in two key areas.
First, the content. Do you like flacid prose describing sexual intercourse? Well, then this may be the book for you. Shikanoko's tale begins with rape and ends with rape, and nearly every chapter involves a very uncomfortably written scene either about rape or the possibility of rape. Hearn, for whatever reason, seems absolutely obsessed with sex in this book, and for the life of me I can't fathom why. This kind of fixation feels like it would be more at home in a pubsecent teenager's fanfiction than an honest-to-goodness mass-market novel.
As I sloughed through the book I kept thinking that surely, certainly this line would be the last, and the story might move to focus on the plot or characters or, god forbid, setting... but no. It keeps coming back. This cheap titillation seems to come at the expense of the story proper, as very little time is spent on characterization, dialog, or the movements of the plot--which is meandering at best, and prematurely concluded at worst.
Which brings me to my second point: the content. Or, rather, the lack thereof.
Emperor of the Eight Islands is a fast read. Not because the prose is especially fluid, mind, but because there simply isn't much there *to* read. It's always hard to judge page counts on an ebook, but it took me approximately two hours to read the book from end to end. And when I use the word "end," I am being very charitable, as this novel only sets up the basic plot threads and characters, but staunchly refuses to do anything with them. An especially decisive editor might even have decided to cut out every single chapter and replace it with a single page or two of exposition--and nothing of significance or merit would have been lost.
And, to be honest, an inability to advance a story is something many writers have difficulty with. But then there's the simple fact that all four books of this series are being published within months of each other, and are all priced well above the average market price for ebooks. Obviously I can only speculate, but it very much seems to me that Hearn or her publisher decided to take a single novel, arbitrarily divide it into four parts, and inflate the price of each. I can only imagine they were betting on people like myself who would buy the books without a second thought, purely out of affection and fond recollection for the far better-written Tales of the Otori series (five novels, I should mention, that each feel entirely complete in and of themselves, that never resort to cheap perversion).
The story that is present in this first book of the "Tales of Shikanoko" is... interesting, I suppose, though it's hard to say for certain one way or another given how little we have in the way of actual narrative momentum. A great deal of it is clearly inspired by Japanese literature, history and myth, and the setting itself is basically a faux-medieval Japan, populated with magic and monsters aplenty, and more than enough faux-Japanese nouns and names to go around. Hearn's take on animalist magic and intersections with the afterlife (and potentially other worlds) are certainly promising enough to send me forward into the next book, so I suppose ultimately I *am* giving this book a recommendation.
But it is a very, very qualified--and cautionary--recommendation. Be forewarned: there story is brief, unfinished, and possesses an increasingly uncomfortable approach to sexual violence. If things like selling children into prostitution or someone enthusiastically opining for a Hikari Genji plan (where a man adopts a child in order to mold the ideal wife from birth on through) raise your heckles, you might want to seriously consider looking elsewhere--you're only going to find a 2-star book here. I don't enjoying reading about menstrual blood and semen being used to conduct magic, and I fully admit that's more a problem with *me* than with the text itself, but it's something I feel I could have overlooked had it been confined to a single, or perhaps even a small handful, scene. For those who don't share my problems with the hiccupping rape and consistent, repeating instances of passages I can only describe as being "gross," you may very well find a much better book, especially if your unfamiliar with its peers. There's not a whole lot to choose from in this subgenre, but I would strongly urge you to consider reading Hearn's prior five Otori books, as well as Takashi Matsuoka's two novels, Cloud of Sparrows and Autumn Bridge.
As it is, Emperor of the Eight Islands is very much an unfinished story of some 200-odd pages, being sold in four parts for $10 each, that feels more concerned with "shocking" the reader through gross or grotesque imagery than telling its story, crafting its characters, or building its setting. This is a book I must very unfortunately NOT recommend, and if you really want to check it out, I strongly suggest doing so via a used bookstore or local library.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
For fantasy fans only
By zsuzsanna22
I am fascinated by ancient Japan and loved the Tales of the Otori series so was very excited when these books came out. However, this was a disappointment and I won't continue with the series. Not because of the reasons pointed out by other reviewers. I thought it was well written, moved fluidly through the story and was engaging throughout. One interesting aspect is that my allegiance to characters kept shifting, I was never sure who I should root for; characters are heroic and then not, villains are evil and then not. Some may find this frustrating but people are not one dimensional and the only part of the story that draws me to the other books is to see how the characters evolve.
What I did have a problem with is the content, the type of book and story this is. Tales of the Otori is about warlords and stories in ancient Japan with a touch of the magical and fantasy that imbues Japanese culture. In Tales, legends about the almost super human skills of Ninja-like characters are a reality but mostly the story is grounded in the real world - an imagined reality based on history but still believable. In this new series, Hearn has almost completely abandoned the historical and anything that could be considered real. From the start we have magic, sorcerer's, fantasy and most of it not particularly pleasant, rather quite violent and definitely of the dark side.
If you like this type of story then there is nothing negative I can say about it, except that it is short and without resolution as it is clearly intended to be quickly followed by book 2 in the series (I imagine they are all like this or else why put them out so close to each other?). If pure fantasy fiction is not your thing but do like reading about ancient Japan, then try Cloud of Sparrow and the Autumn Bridge by Takashi Matsuoka. Or the wonderful series of detective novels by Laura Joh Rowland.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
The Underdog Shikanoko and Hina the Courageous
By Carmen Sterba
I have been drawn to so many of Lian Hearn’s characters. Just when I thought I had met all of them in Book 2 of The Tale of Shikanoko, she kept inserting new characters that pull at my heart. Such favorites are Hina (Yayoi), Shikanoko, the Autumn Princess, Yoshimori, Gen, Mu, Kinpoge, and Tadashi.
Instead of revealing the plot to readers, I will introduce Hina. She was full of grief for the death of her father, Lord Kiyomori, but she had a gift of discernment so she knew what to do to escape her father’s enemies and save baby Yoshimori, who was meant to be Emperor. When her family’s enemies came closer, she tried to jump in a boat with the baby in one arm and a magical book in the other.
Her heroics remind Japanese history buffs of an amazing story in the medieval classic, Tales of Heike, which has a chapter on how an eight-year-old emperor drowned while his grandmother Tokiko held on to him with one hand and the other the sacred imperial jewel. Were Hina and Yoshimori were saved? And what will happen to the very individualist underdog Shikanoko, who has lost his strength and hope?
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