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james_davis_nicollWhat is Haikasoru?
Space Opera. Dark Fantasy. Hard Science.
With a small, elite list of award-winners, classics, and new work by the hottest young writers, Haikasoru is the first imprint dedicated to bringing Japanese science fiction to America and beyond. Featuring the action of anime and the thoughtfulness of the best speculative fiction, Haikasoru aims to truly be the “high castle” of science fiction and fantasy.
Added note: these are not manga but novels.
[This is a reprint of a review I wrote in October 2010]
Yukikaze
Chohei Kambayashi (Trans. Neil Nadelman)
Haikasoru/VIZ Media LLC
316 pages
$14.99/$19.99/8.99 UK
ISBN 978142153255-4
Well, it had to happen.
This is the fifth Haikasoru book I've read and the first one that didn't grab me. Don't get me wrong; I don't think it's a bad book, just not a good fit for me. In a way this is a relief; I was beginning to think maybe the reason I liked the previous books wasn't because they were what I thought they were but because I was projecting on them what I wanted to find [1].
To a first approximation, this is a military SF novel (although it doesn't feel like an American MilSF novel and I might get back to why later or not). Decades earlier, a hyper-dimensional doorway opened in Antarctica. The alien JAM tried to invade; by the time Yukikaze opens, the war is being fought entirely on the world at the other end of the gateway, a world humans call Faery. By this point in history the war is seen at home as a curiosity and has almost been forgotten; the FAF draws from all of Earth's forces but they get people who will not be missed at home and the conflict on Faery has not ended inter-human conflicts on Earth.
The war is primarily an air war; while the JAM might have created the gate (or they might have just taken advantage of its formation), they don't seem to be much more advanced than humans are in this particular field. The viewpoint character, Rei Fukai, belongs to the Special Air Force, an elite squad of observers charged with returning information from the front at any cost; as a side effect, they have to be indifferent to the fates of their fellow aviators, who are as result not keen on the SAF. Rei's plane is the Yukikaze that provides the book with its title.
Nobody has ever knowingly seen a JAM or JAM remains and why the JAM invaded the Earth or what they hoped to accomplish by invading is a complete mystery. Why they fight the way they do is also a mystery; it's not really dwelt on but the JAM have nukes and will use them but they are content to transport them in bombers rather than just heaving an ICBM at the human bases. Nobody says this but it is almost like the JAM are deliberately limiting themselves to get a fair fight with their opponents.
Many people suspect the JAM are not aware of humans at all and are only interested in their machines.
The original version of Yukikaze came out in 1984 and in many ways the book reflects that. While there are some UAVs, almost everything in the air on the human side has a human in it and the need to keep the meat alive means that the planes cannot use their full potential. The avionics used in the planes are highly advanced and can learn, which raises the question of whether the pilots are really needed and if so, for how much longer. Being a pilot in the SAF isn't really good for the people in question (even leaving aside the possibility of being killed) but the pilots are determined to remain in their planes.
The book is a collection of short stories (not all focused on Rei), short episodes from one phase of the war. We get a few hints about the true nature of the JAM and we see the evolving relationship between the humans and their machines. We do get some answers but not all of them.
A problem I had with this book is that for my purposes, Rei is a terrible view point character. There are any number of questions I had about Faery but Rei is very focused on what he is interested in - the planes, the military situation and the endless skirmishing with the JAM - and so there's no point hoping that questions like "did anyone bother to use the stars to see where Faery is wrt the Solar System" and "how can a habitable planet exist in orbit around two stars in a Beta Lyrae-esque situation?" Rei isn't interested in that stuff and neither are the other characters we see.
I take back what I said at the beginning. I am not sure why this doesn't feel like MilSF to me. Also, I am not 100% sure why I didn't care for the book. There's nothing wrong with it that I can see and if I was not determined to read and review all of Haikasoru's books in short order, I'd probably have put aside for a reread in six months before talking about it.
1: Although I have had no trouble snarking about other books. On an unrelated note, it turns out to be better not to praise a book with "Untalented Kid and Mercenary Partner's new book XXX manages to be genuinely mediocre!" just as the person one is speaking takes a sip of pop.
Space Opera. Dark Fantasy. Hard Science.
With a small, elite list of award-winners, classics, and new work by the hottest young writers, Haikasoru is the first imprint dedicated to bringing Japanese science fiction to America and beyond. Featuring the action of anime and the thoughtfulness of the best speculative fiction, Haikasoru aims to truly be the “high castle” of science fiction and fantasy.
Added note: these are not manga but novels.
[This is a reprint of a review I wrote in October 2010]
Yukikaze
Chohei Kambayashi (Trans. Neil Nadelman)
Haikasoru/VIZ Media LLC
316 pages
$14.99/$19.99/8.99 UK
ISBN 978142153255-4
Well, it had to happen.
This is the fifth Haikasoru book I've read and the first one that didn't grab me. Don't get me wrong; I don't think it's a bad book, just not a good fit for me. In a way this is a relief; I was beginning to think maybe the reason I liked the previous books wasn't because they were what I thought they were but because I was projecting on them what I wanted to find [1].
To a first approximation, this is a military SF novel (although it doesn't feel like an American MilSF novel and I might get back to why later or not). Decades earlier, a hyper-dimensional doorway opened in Antarctica. The alien JAM tried to invade; by the time Yukikaze opens, the war is being fought entirely on the world at the other end of the gateway, a world humans call Faery. By this point in history the war is seen at home as a curiosity and has almost been forgotten; the FAF draws from all of Earth's forces but they get people who will not be missed at home and the conflict on Faery has not ended inter-human conflicts on Earth.
The war is primarily an air war; while the JAM might have created the gate (or they might have just taken advantage of its formation), they don't seem to be much more advanced than humans are in this particular field. The viewpoint character, Rei Fukai, belongs to the Special Air Force, an elite squad of observers charged with returning information from the front at any cost; as a side effect, they have to be indifferent to the fates of their fellow aviators, who are as result not keen on the SAF. Rei's plane is the Yukikaze that provides the book with its title.
Nobody has ever knowingly seen a JAM or JAM remains and why the JAM invaded the Earth or what they hoped to accomplish by invading is a complete mystery. Why they fight the way they do is also a mystery; it's not really dwelt on but the JAM have nukes and will use them but they are content to transport them in bombers rather than just heaving an ICBM at the human bases. Nobody says this but it is almost like the JAM are deliberately limiting themselves to get a fair fight with their opponents.
Many people suspect the JAM are not aware of humans at all and are only interested in their machines.
The original version of Yukikaze came out in 1984 and in many ways the book reflects that. While there are some UAVs, almost everything in the air on the human side has a human in it and the need to keep the meat alive means that the planes cannot use their full potential. The avionics used in the planes are highly advanced and can learn, which raises the question of whether the pilots are really needed and if so, for how much longer. Being a pilot in the SAF isn't really good for the people in question (even leaving aside the possibility of being killed) but the pilots are determined to remain in their planes.
The book is a collection of short stories (not all focused on Rei), short episodes from one phase of the war. We get a few hints about the true nature of the JAM and we see the evolving relationship between the humans and their machines. We do get some answers but not all of them.
A problem I had with this book is that for my purposes, Rei is a terrible view point character. There are any number of questions I had about Faery but Rei is very focused on what he is interested in - the planes, the military situation and the endless skirmishing with the JAM - and so there's no point hoping that questions like "did anyone bother to use the stars to see where Faery is wrt the Solar System" and "how can a habitable planet exist in orbit around two stars in a Beta Lyrae-esque situation?" Rei isn't interested in that stuff and neither are the other characters we see.
I take back what I said at the beginning. I am not sure why this doesn't feel like MilSF to me. Also, I am not 100% sure why I didn't care for the book. There's nothing wrong with it that I can see and if I was not determined to read and review all of Haikasoru's books in short order, I'd probably have put aside for a reread in six months before talking about it.
1: Although I have had no trouble snarking about other books. On an unrelated note, it turns out to be better not to praise a book with "Untalented Kid and Mercenary Partner's new book XXX manages to be genuinely mediocre!" just as the person one is speaking takes a sip of pop.
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Date: 2011-07-15 04:12 am (UTC)This depends ENTIRELY on your definition of "better".
--Dave, and on who is doing the laundry later that day
It's actually out so let me fix that
Date: 2011-07-15 04:42 am (UTC)"Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's new book Hellhole manages to be genuinely mediocre!" And I do mean it; in every way it was slightly preferable to the same quanity of blank paper.