We're home!

spazzkat, solarbird, and I have made it safely home to the Murkworks after a long and tiring two-hop jaunt from Osaka to San Francisco and finally to home. I've got a boatload of handwritten journal posts to get transcribed and onto LJ--Internet access was already kind of chancy at the con, and it got more so once we went on the tour.

But a lot of neat things were seen and experienced, and everybody watch this space for details! It's good to be back. ^_^ I've really enjoyed a lot of aspects of Japan, but I have missed my computer. And the rest of my stuff!

Special note to technoshaman and fleetfootmike: you guys may be amused to know that at the dealer's room at the con, I picked up a Seanan McGuire CD and an Echo's Children one. These will be getting ripped onto the iPod tonight!

2007 Book Log #70: The Summer Country, by James A. Hetley

James Hetley's The Summer Country comes with some high praise in its review blurbs, breaking out names like Charles de Lint to sing its praises--which is, I must admit, impressive for a debut urban fantasy novel. With that kind of cred out of the gate, I had high hopes for a substantial and entertaining read. I am not, however, entirely convinced that I got it.

On the one hand, I must give Hetley props for a highly flawed and very human heroine, as well as a certain primal flavor to the Summer Country and its inhabitants, the Old Ones. On the other hand--and this may be the jaded palette of a reader of many, many fantasy novels talking, but still--I half-felt like the characters were never entirely real to me, and that several of the conflicts set up between them never quite properly paid off. For example, there's a subplot involving the heroine being angry at her sister for "stealing" the man she was trying to work up the courage the romance--while all the while, the man really liked the sister instead, and both he and the sister were aghast that Maureen had been "psychotic" about obsessing about him. Yet they never actually confront her about this. A similar lack of substance was displayed by the bad guys as well; all we are told about them is that the Old Ones as a rule have no conscience and that they are perfectly willing to mess with each other as well as mortals. All well and good, but without some rock-solid individual characteristics to back that up, most of the time Dougal and Sean and Fiona came across to me as evil just because "the Old Ones are like that", which wasn't satisfying.

And yet, I felt like I saw enough there that I'd like to check out the second book, so I'll give it a go. For this one, two and a half stars.

2007 Book Log #71: The Togakushi Legend Murders, by Yasuo Uchida

One of the biggest things I wanted to do during our Japan trip was get hold of some works by Japanese authors, translated into English. I really wanted to find something by Sakyo Komatsu, since he was after all the author GoH at Worldcon, but unfortunately it seems not many of his books have been translated. Instead, I wound up picking up several mystery/suspense type novels, and the first of these was The Togakushi Legend Murders.

The back cover of this thing says that "This novel will mesmerize mystery buffs as well as those interested in the culture and folklore of Japan." This was in fact the selling point of the book for me, since I wanted to get a feel for what Japanese authors do with supernatural things in their work. Turns out that this particular novel utilizes the legend of the Demoness Maple quite well for its plot, and while there isn't anything actually supernatural going on, the old legends of Maple are fascinating in their own right. So are the backstories Uchida sets up for all his characters, all centered upon a specific tragic event during World War II, and all the glimpses of daily Japanese life that took on added weight after two weeks' stay in the country.

There is a certain formal stiltedness to the language, but I don't know if that's due to the flavor of the original writing or to the influence of the translator. Either way, it oddly worked to set the flavor of the story, especially when dealing with the older events that form the core of the entire plot. And while the ending wasn't exactly surprising, watching everything fall into place was nevertheless quite satisfying. Three and a half stars.

2007 Book Log #72: Dark Water, by Koji Suzuki

American horror buffs may not know the name of Koji Suzuki, but the American version of his work Ring remains to date the creepiest horror flick I've ever had the pleasure to watch. So when I came across several translated books of his during our Japan stay, I naturally had to pick one up. I recognized the title Dark Water from another American adaptation of his work, and while I'm given to understand that the movie actually wasn't all that impressive, I hoped that by going to the source I'd get a clearer idea of Suzuki's style in words rather than in film.

This book was a bit of a surprise, though, because it turned out to be a short story collection rather than a novel, and the title story is only the first in a series of stories all loosely connected by the theme of water. Also, the tagline "terror reaches new depths" on the cover was for me a little deceptive, but only because it implies a hardcore creep-fest like what we got in the American version of The Ring. The flavor of this work, on the other hand, was subtler than that--though no less effective. And unlike Ring, there's actually a glimmer of light at the end of the plot, thanks to a framing plot around the stories that actually ends on an up note and cleanses the palette. So all in all, not nearly as creeptastic as Ring, but fun all the same. Three stars.