Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, #1) by Lian Hearn

Aug 27, 2011

Mariel rated it

Recommends it for: the u in honor

Recommended to Mariel by: chinatown

Shelves: turningjapanese, asleepanddreaming

I was protesting the Chinese food place down the block today. It's ridiculous. None of their offered cuisine is truly Chinese. If I want to eat American I'll go to Pizza Hut, thank you very much. If that wasn't bad enough I later had lunch at the restaurant next door. They had these little cookies. If you break open the cookies there's a piece of paper that pops out with a message of something that might happen to you. This time I didn't eat the paper first and read what it said. "The Tales...moreI was protesting the Chinese food place down the block today. It's ridiculous. None of their offered cuisine is truly Chinese. If I want to eat American I'll go to Pizza Hut, thank you very much. If that wasn't bad enough I later had lunch at the restaurant next door. They had these little cookies. If you break open the cookies there's a piece of paper that pops out with a message of something that might happen to you. This time I didn't eat the paper first and read what it said. "The Tales of the Otori books are set in an imaginary country in a feudal period. Neither the setting nor the period is intended to correspond to any true historical era, though echoes of many Japanese customs and traditions will be found, and the landscape and seasons are those of Japan...."

Alternate reality and borrowing from life isn't anything new. Judging by other goodreads reviews it seemed to bug some readers quite a bit. One time I watched Darren Aronsky's The Fountain with an ex (a Spaniard) and he snottily asked me if I knew that none of the historical Spanish scenes really happened (I'll remember this when I've forgotten his name). C'mon, alternate history isn't new! I'm sorry, I can't focus on Star Wars because Yoda looks familiar. Where have I seen him before (this is going to bug me)? So, warning in fortune cookie book, I can handle it. If you don't overlap then you are living alone. Originality is valuable for the extra mile we can't walk alone.

There's a bug infestation. Let me get that... Oops. I think I just changed history when I squashed that bug. It turns out that Tom Cruise was not the very last samurai after all. What harm could that have done? I'm sure it's all right.
This is a fantasy novel from 2002. If it came out a little later it would have been published as a young adult novel (market trends and all that). There could be warnings about the odds of young adult fantasy novels being about a young hero who magically has all of the powers he's going to need inside of him? More annoyingly (to me), he also has all of the self righteous fuel he's going to need. One dead mama, coming up. Hey, I met these hot guys and they just gave me all my ideologies. Neat! I don't care if that '80s ya book ripped off the one child policy from China, if George Lucas liked Japanese films. Everything else with WWII. You can make a better dish out of the same recipe your grandma always used. But the odds are so very high it will taste much the same and I've had this meal before. I'm a little tired of it. I spit out honor. Where's the personal touch? The you that doesn't remind me of someone else (honor tastes like chicken). The other person in the same memory. What would you do today if you spent today alone? Set your story in any place you like. Please let me recognize your character from someone else.

Across the Nightingale Floor is good when young Takeo interacts with people he meets, be it villagers or the lords he fears or respects, as if he's feeling out how to behave. Unfortunately, the first person leaves a lot of time for rhetoric as well as doing. The relationships he doesn't know how to already play as if he were Good Will Hunting in front of a chalk board staring down a hard math problem are good. Just live, don't think about the end game of power, please. Then the honor! Groans.

People are kinda the same and different. Why can't worlds and lands be the same way? Kinda different and kinda the same. It's when you can't work with what you've got that I have a problem. Like if it is already finished (duh, the easy magic!). How about something alternative?

Step on another bug (sorry, bugs. I swear that I try not to kill bugs). Change the course again. You can do it if you're writing your own story. Kaede, the female lead and different perspective was pretty good. Maybe doesn't step far enough out of kinda the same stories of female quasi leads in hero quest fantasies (you know, I'm a woman. I have to get married, I love that guy, I want to marry for love). She has potential to offer a life that's not handed on borrowed fine china because it's not magical egotism. At least she wanted someone to trust and the end result wasn't defeating something.

There are two more books in the series. I'm probably not going to read them. Not unless I am hungry and don't know what else to read. The odds are better that I'll find something I couldn't have found on my own in someone else's day.

P.s. Hearn should have kept her real name. Rubenstein! How about taking Lafcadio (where the Hearn comes from)? Lafcadio Rubenstein! Pen names are mightier than swords. That's not my fault. I became lame when I changed history.

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Aug 23, 2011

Stephanie rated it

Shelves: young-adult, mainstream

Japanese author and Nobel Laureate Yasunari Kawabata is famous for his ‘palm of the hand’ stories, stories so small and taciturn that they could fit in the grasp of one’s curled fingers. These stories comprise mere moments: a meeting of gazes, a gesture, a brief downfall of rain, the arranging of flowers, the steeping of tea. They are like wells: despite having a small, hemmed in surface of finite dimensions, their depths are unknown, dark, requiring close examination, speculation on behalf of t...more

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Apr 13, 2011

± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ± rated it

Shelves: library-read, romantic, historical-fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, group-read

1 1/2

In my review for Graceling I stated that I was a bit of a sucker for romance elements in action type stories. I have, in the past, admitted to, probably, over-rating certain books because the romance element gave me the warm-squishies, even though other aspects of the book were lacking or, at times, downright annoying. (See 'Fire Study'.)

So it's a bit ironic that, for this book, I think the romance element between the two protagonists was the weaknest aspect of the...more

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Dec 11, 2008

Stephanie rated it

Shelves: fiction, fantasy

This book is nothing other than a flight-of-fancy on the part of the author. The main character, Takeo, is virtually without flaw, which makes for an uninteresting protagonist and a predictable story. The female protagonist, Kaede, had slightly more promise that never managed to materialise, leaving her as a two-dimensional love interest for Takeo.

I enjoy trashy fantasy, but this novel was just so predictable and so mundane that I couldn't get into it. It has nothing new to offer,...more

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Jan 21, 2010

Nicholas Armstrong rated it

Okay. I'll try to be as kind and heartfelt as possible. This book is insultingly bad. Normally a bad book is just that, but this book is actually infuriatingly bad.

Firstly, it's a fantasy book set in feudal Japan. That's fine. I would think that it being set in Japan, Hearn would have learned anything about the place, but she apparently did not. This book is written as if Hearn simply googled Japan and then decided to write a book on it. I'll go down the list of failings.

...more

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Marcus "If you don't like it, fine, that's your freedom, but don't force your opinion on me then tell me to keep mine to myself."
I didn't see...more
Jan 14, 2011 12:42pm

Mifalda See, my thing with your bashing of the fact that it isn't accurately Japanese is that it is fiction and not even technically historical fiction so tha...more
Mar 14, 2011 04:07pm

Feb 09, 2008

Chris rated it

Shelves: fantasy, japan

This is a weird book for anyone who has more than a passing knowledge of Japan.

The author is a great fan of Japan, its culture and its history. That's obvious just by looking at her name, Lian Hearn, which is a pseudonym. According to Wikipedia, it's a contraction of "heron," an important bird in the Tales of the Otori series, but it's also the surname of one of the most famous Western experts on Japan, Lafcadio Hearn. She's gone to great lengths to instill Japanese culture...moreThis is a weird book for anyone who has more than a passing knowledge of Japan.

The author is a great fan of Japan, its culture and its history. That's obvious just by looking at her name, Lian Hearn, which is a pseudonym. According to Wikipedia, it's a contraction of "heron," an important bird in the Tales of the Otori series, but it's also the surname of one of the most famous Western experts on Japan, Lafcadio Hearn. She's gone to great lengths to instill Japanese culture into every part of this book, from the names of people and places to social and political customs, even clothing and holidays. For all intents and purposes, this is a story about feudal Japan.

Except it isn't.

The Tales of the Otori takes place in a kind of alternate-universe Japan, a place where everything is the same except where it isn't. Once you get past that, the book becomes a lot of fun to read. And if you don't know much about the history and culture of Japan, that all shouldn't be a problem.

It's the story of a boy from an isolated town, one of the Hidden - a small religious sect that faces political and religious ostracism (see Christians in the Edo Period) from an isolationist and power-hungry warlord (see Tokugawa Ieyasu). Young Tomasu is the only survivor of a raid by that warlord - his family, his friend and his people were burned to the ground and he only lived thanks to the appearance of the Lord of the Otori, Shigeru.

Wracked with guilt over the death of his brother, Shigeru took Tomasu in as his son, renaming him Takeo. The boy found himself in a new land, with a new home... but that wasn't quite all. He soon discovered that he had a secret birthright, passed down through his father. Takeo was a member of The Tribe, a mysterious clan of spies and assassins who possessed near-mystical powers. They could move silently across nearly any floor, they could become invisible, or appear to be in two places at once. They were masters of the shadow and deliverers of death.

See Ninja.

It's a neat story, and the beginning of a series of books which are the author's first major foray into adult-ish fiction. It probably qualifies as Young Adult fiction, so if you're into that (as I know some of you are), it'll be a good read.

Thanks to Mom for sending me this....(less)

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Dec 27, 2011

Lila Gustavus rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book

I couldn't, I just couldn't stand this book. I have no idea what the people who gave this book five or four stars were thinking. I just have to wonder what kinds of books they read in general if they praise this dreadful story to high heavens. Across the Nightingale Floor is one of the most boring books I've read in a long, long time. The story was going absolutely nowhere, the plot was mundane and I felt as if my brain cells were slowly disappearing. And categorizing it as a fantasy is misleadi...more

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Jan 06, 2011

Belinda rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: action, fantasy, favourites, romance, reviews

Note: In this review, there may be some spoilers, depending on your opinion of a spoiler. But there's nothing big, which is why I'm not hiding this review.

At first I really really really liked this book. Okay, that was slightly exaggerated. But, yeah, I really liked the book especially the premise of it. I don't know why, but I think the word "assassin" sounds intriguing, as well as a floor that squeaks at the slightest pressure.
True, the fact that the main character, Ta...more

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Dec 29, 2010

Janina rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, books-i-own, lovestory-romance, read-in-2010, alternating-pov, atmospheric

Great epic/pseudo-historical fantasy with an amazing setting reminiscent of medieval Japan. This first installment of the Tales of thr Otori managed something epic fantasy rarely does for me: it captured me from the very first page.

When you take a look at the plotline, Across the Nightingale Floor has all the ingredients of an average epic fantasy: We have the orphaned hero, who is rescued by a noble stranger and discovers he has special abilities. We have the heroine, who is a pawn i...more

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Mar 09, 2010

Bert Edens rated it

· review of another edition

Being a fan of Japanese culture and history, as well as one of alternate history, I figured this was right down my alley. And it was. I really enjoyed the way it tied into Japanese culture, even though Hearn obviously took liberties with things she wanted to be different from reality. But hey, she is very clear that this is not set in Japan.

I really felt like Takeo could be better developed, and in the future Tales Of The Otori novels, he is. However, it's still not to the extent I w...more

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Jan 03, 2009

Anggia Retno rated it

Shelves: fantasy, japanese, translated, own

A beautiful story...
Dimana takeo bertemu dengan lord otori (shigeru), diangkat anak dan bagaimana takeo yang ternyata merupakan keturunan kikuta memiliki kemampuan untuk membalaskan dendam lord otori shigeru dengan membunuh lord iida... Ceritanya bagus menarik banget, dulu sampai ga sabar nunggu buku keduanya,, takeo jadi kayak kebagi antara dia seorang bangsawan pewaris shigeru dan seorang kikuta. Dan takeo jatuh cinta sama kaede gadis bangsawan yang cantik banget yang dijodohin sama lord...more

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Dec 05, 2011

Scott Gillespie rated it

Given the number reviewers who hated this book, I will begin with a caveat. I listened in audio format which was very enjoyable but I can see where some of the tedious elements (if reading) would be hard to take. However the audible version is performed in Takeo's voice as well as Kaide.

For those who refuse to see any of the wonders of Japan and Japanese culture in the book I can only encourage you to "get over yourself". I have met many who people who, having spent some ...more

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Nov 17, 2011

Shannon added it · review of another edition

This is actually a fantasy novel, but, for marketing purposes it's being sold as fiction. Perhaps it's because the magical elements in this tale are very light and it focuses more on a Japan that never existed.

Focus is on two character viewpoints only: a teenage boy in first person and a teenage girl in third person. The mix works and it's one of the first times I've seen such a viewpoint mix, though, I'm sure this author isn't the first to do it.

The boy, Tomasau/Taeko,...more

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Nov 17, 2011

Πέτρος rated it

Notice: I have made a review for every book of this series and they need to be read in order since they are supposed to feel like an on-going impression. So if you read the second without reading the first will feel rather off.

I am mostly focusing on the style of storytelling and a lot less on if it reads well or something sophisticated like that. For the same reason I tend to have lots of SPOILERS which means that if you read this text you will know THE OVERALL PLOT and how much I DI...more

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Sep 18, 2011

Sandy rated it

Shelves: adult, action-adventure, teen, romance

Much like in anime, you have to be willing to let a few things go when you read this book. But if you can get past the unlikelihood that (amongst other things) this kid would have leared all of these amazing skills so quickly, then this is a fairly interesting read. I especially liked Kaede's character - I can see her continuing to develop into an even more well-rounded character as this series progresses.

My one major complaint is in the narration. About half of the chapers are re...more

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Aug 28, 2011

Katarina rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Apparently this book has been receiving lots of praise (and even some rewards!). I honestly can’t understand why. The plot is every clichéd fantasy book rolled into one with only the setting changed: a teenager from a small village in the middle of nowhere witnesses the villain attacking said village. All his loved ones are dead and his life changes forever when the mentor character saves him and tells him about his special heritage and destiny and all the cool powers he’s got. They go against t...moreApparently this book has been receiving lots of praise (and even some rewards!). I honestly can’t understand why. The plot is every clichéd fantasy book rolled into one with only the setting changed: a teenager from a small village in the middle of nowhere witnesses the villain attacking said village. All his loved ones are dead and his life changes forever when the mentor character saves him and tells him about his special heritage and destiny and all the cool powers he’s got. They go against the villain, and in the meanwhile the mentor dies and the hero falls in love with a beautiful damsel in distress and gains a fancy sword. Across the Nightingale Floor is all this, IN FEUDAL JAPAN!

Well, not really in feudal Japan, but close enough. The novel is set in a fantasy counterpart to Japan, but unlike the real thing, this setting feels incredibly shallow even to a person like me who knows nothing of Japanese history and has read exactly one other Japan-related book and therefore can't compare it to anything. The clans are meant to be ancient, with long and proud histories, but the farthest back we go is to the battle of Yaegahara, ten years prior to the events of the novel, when the villain won and everything changed. Apparently the heroes want everything back to the way it used to be, but the reader can’t quite feel for them because s/he doesn’t have a goddamned clue about how anything used to be. In fact, it’s hard to imagine any of the characters existing as anything but blank slates before the battle of Yaegahara, since all of them are so defined by their relationship with the villain and the wrongdoings he did to them. For all the mourning Otori Shigeru does for his father and brother, we never get any insight into what kind of people they were, or what kind of relationship he had with them. He’d spent his entire life with them before they died, and we never get a glimpse of that life or a hint about how it helped Shigeru evolve into the person he is now. They’re just convenient props created to give him a plausible motivation for hating the villain for what he did to them. Tomasu/Takeo seems to forget his mother and sisters relatively easily, too. The mother gets little characterization, and the sisters get none, so they feel less like real humans and more like props, too. The moment he gets adopted he just forgets about them completely, except when he’s talking about revenging their deaths. And I can’t buy how completely clueless he is regarding his father -- didn’t it ever occur to him to ask his mother about him? The rest of the side characters only exist to rebel against the villain or try to recruit Takeo into the Tribe. It’s as if the whole world sprang into existence in the moment right before the battle of Yaegahara, and nothing has got any history beyond that.

Considering that the novel gives lots of attention to what are meant to be the power plays of great warlords, the relevant characters are surprisingly isolated from the rest of said warlords. There are four or five families involved in the infighting, and none other are ever mentioned. There’s absolutely no suspense in this infighting either since we already know who’s on the heroes’ side, and calling it intrigue or politics is the overstatement of the year. There’s also talk of an emperor in the capital, and we’re supposed to believe that he’s just sitting idly doing nothing while one of his lords is taking away territory from everyone else and amassing enough power to oppose him. It also never occurred to any of the clans attacked by the Tohan to seek help from the emperor regarding what seems to be a very disobedient noble. Now, I know next to nothing about Japanese history, so maybe they wouldn’t do it from some historical or cultural reason that I don’t know of, but it just seems like critical lack of common sense to me. Even if there was a plausible reason for it, I felt that it could have been explained, since this is a fictional country we’re talking about and not real-life Japan. Another thing that the author doesn’t seem to notice is that setting up a class system like the medieval Japanese one and then giving one group magic powers seriously upsets the balance between the classes. I couldn’t help but wonder throughout the entire book why the Tribe hadn’t just taken over the country centuries ago. They’re more powerful than anyone, and with their special talents there’d be basically no way of overthrowing them. I don’t see how the class system could have turned out the way it did in the first place with the Tribe existing since the beginning, it seems to me that such a powerful group of people should naturally lead the others. Oh, and another thing I found odd with the Tribe concept: at one point the Tribe’s best assassin is well-known enough that most people think that he did some killing that was actually done by the main character, and before that everyone seems mostly familiar with the concept of the Tribe, if not their inner workings, but later in the book Arai, an aristocrat and a fairly powerful individual, has no idea who they are, and it’s implied that most people don’t. So do they or don’t they? And if powerful people like Arai have never heard of them, who the hell hires them?

The world is also odd because it’s mostly made up, and yet there are locations and artists that exist in real-world Japan, so the reader is never sure how much of the setting is real and how much is made up. It’s just confusing and it sort of butchered my willing suspension of disbelief while I was reading -- I mean, why couldn’t the author have given a couple of locations and a painter new names, too? She gave paper-thin disguises to everything else, so why not this? I found it just jarring. I don’t mind historical fantasy (I love Kay’s Lions of Al-Rassan and Sarantine Mosaic books to death), but I think you need to set up the rules first: it’s either historical fantasy or alternate history, and the reader ought to know exactly how much of the real world applies to the fantasy world. Also, it's not okay to call samurai and ninja by their names, so she has to use "warrior" and "assassin" all the time even when it doesn't fit, but referencing a real-life artist is a-okay. Nice continuity there.

The characters are flat, and that’s putting it lightly. The POV characters are completely devoid of any realistic emotion, especially Takeo, who seems to hop from personality change to personality change with no hints on why or how it happened in between. One moment he isn’t interested in learning how to write, the next moment he adores it. He spends the whole book being too “soft” and repulsed by killing to be a Tribe member, then suddenly the repulsion is gone when he needs it gone, without any previous hint that it might happen. Kaede is only marginally better. She’s obviously being set up as the love interest from the start, but the way in which she falls in love with Takeo is laughable. That scene just took all the credulity the book had left and shot it in the head, point-blank. And trust me, it was a mercy kill. Iida is the typical pointlessly cruel villain corrupted by his own power. We don’t get any depth from the rest of the cast, either. Why is Captain Arai rebelling? Why is Lady Maruyama doing the same, aside from being in love with Shigeru? Why is Iida trying to conquer all this territory? What does he have against the Hidden? It’s plausible that the POV characters don’t know the answers to some of these questions, but real, three-dimensional people would at least have a theory. When the most logical motivation in the book comes from a pair of stereotypical evil uncles trying to kill their nephew because he’s got a better claim to the family lands, you know what sort of book you’re reading. However, I do have to acknowledge that there are some nice details that show us the sort of culture these characters have grown up in -- Takeo not only thinks of the pain that Shigeru is suffering being hung from the wall of Iida’s castle, but also of the humiliation of being treated as a common criminal. After Kaede’s marriage with Shigeru falls through, she’s worried about bringing shame to her family more than anything else, and she’s considering suicide as the most honourable option she’s got. These are all nice and refreshing touches since most fantasy authors seem to find it hard to shake off the twenty-first century westerner mentality when writing their characters. But then, of course, we get Kaede launching into endless talk of “oh, why have men made such a cruel world?” and it just goes back to standard bad fantasy.

There’s some really gratuitous violence throughout the book, which I usually don’t mind at all, but here it was obvious that the author included it to make the book “edgy” and “realistically medieval” when it wasn’t, so it just left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s all performed by the villain and his henchmen, of course, and all the heroes are rightly horrified upon seeing it. The Hidden (a clear analogy for Christians) are pacifists to a ridiculous level, and then there’s a scene in which, IIRC, Shigeru is horrified because Iida’s army is raiding the villages. It’s a medieval army setting off to conquer more territory. How do you expect Iida to feed them? Some sympathetic characters die in the end, yeah, but I couldn’t bring myself to care because none of them had any personality in the first place. The hero and his love interest survive, of course. The villain is killed in a ridiculously anti-climactic way, and not even by the hero, which was pretty much the only true surprise in the entire book. The titular nightingale floor barely appears.

The prose manages to be too terse and too slow at the same time. It’s concise and to-the-point, but it fails to pack an emotional punch or give a sense of urgency. Most of it seems to be the POV character retelling what he did in short summaries instead of the reader actually witnessing what’s going on, so we skip most of Takeo’s training (seriously, in one chapter he’s beginning his training and in the next one with his POV he can already project himself out of his own body and turn invisible) and on the characters developing relationships with each other. This makes it all fall a bit flat, since we’ve never been there to witness it firsthand, we’ve just been told about it in an offhand sentence, and even exciting action scenes seem a bit droll. The author always describes the setting in a good, non-intrusive way, though, so we always know what time of the year it is and what the local plantlife is like and what’s the weather like on that particular day. This was nice to read and really gave me a feel of the place.

Basically, this book is short, boring, uneventful and utterly flat and unrealistic, and I don’t recall reading anything worse in a long, long time. No characterization, no worldbuilding, no action, no anything. One star.

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Jun 09, 2011

Mystique rated it

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Recommends it for: peeps interested in Japan, or traditional cultural myths of Japan, fuedal Japan

Bloody awesome 1st book of the series.
I was feeling restless at work (library), having caught up on all my usual authors, I wanted to try something new and fresh, so hopped over to the sci-fi/fantasy section and came across this on the shelves by chance.

After seeing that it was another foreigner take on feudal/traditional Japan, I was weary but with an element of actual fantasy (and ninjas, how can we say no to ninjas) I took the entire series out and safe to say, this definit...more

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May 09, 2011

Cheeyee rated it

Shelves: fiction, historical, fantasy, 2011

Review At: I Read, I Think,

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Review Date: 26 Jan 2011

Review URL: http://littlemermybooks.blogspot.com/2011/01/across-nightingale-floor-from-tales-of.html
The story is told primarily in first-person narrative by Otori Takeo. At first, I thought I will get bored very quickly but on the contrary, the more I read the more I get fascinated. The characters are well developed and the story was alternate between Takeo and Kaede. Both of them have sad story but the...more

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Apr 02, 2011

Margaret Taylor added it

There’s an unwritten rule in the zombie flick genre that you’re not allowed to use the z-word. Call them anything else you like, revenants, unmentionables, the infected, the restless dead, but they are not – are not – zombies. Because to call them zombies would be to acknowledge that you’ve got zombies in your movie.

Something like that is going on in Across the Nightingale Floor: Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn. Takeo is a freaking ninja. Sure, in the context of the story, they sa...moreThere’s an unwritten rule in the zombie flick genre that you’re not allowed to use the z-word. Call them anything else you like, revenants, unmentionables, the infected, the restless dead, but they are not – are not – zombies. Because to call them zombies would be to acknowledge that you’ve got zombies in your movie.

Something like that is going on in Across the Nightingale Floor: Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn. Takeo is a freaking ninja. Sure, in the context of the story, they say he’s a member of the Tribe, a nomadic people who dress in black and perform political assassinations for people. Maybe Hearn wants to escape the stigma of writing a book about ninjas. But you know what? That’s okay. Takeo is so cool, and the book is so well written, that I don’t much care what he calls him.

Takeo grew up in a peaceful farming village with his mother and stepfather. When this village gets sacked by the evil bad guys, he’s taken in by a mysterious stranger, learns some surprising things about who his real father was, and goes into secret ninja training to defeat the evil overlord. This plot may sound a little familiar. But it’s spiced up with some delicious political machinations (you may find it helpful to take notes) and a writing style that sucks you into Takeo’s world. Just check out these lines from the opening page:

But when I did get back, muddy from sliding down the hillside, bruised from fighting, once bleeding great spouts of blood from a stone wound to the head (I still have the scar, like a silvered thumbnail), there would be the fire, and the smell of soup, and my mother’s arms not tearing me apart but trying to hold me, clean my face, or straighten my hair, while I twisted like a lizard to get away from her.

Across the Nightingale Floor is a vision of a Japan that never was. You can practically smell the persimmons and the frying eels. There’s an intense psychological realism, both for Takeo and his love interest, the lady Kaede. The end leaves several issues hanging, so now I want to get my hands on the other two books in the trilogy.

And did I mention that there are ninjas?(less)

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Mar 23, 2011

Zoltaire rated it

Set in imaginary feudal Japan, Across the Nightingale Floor is part YA fantasy and part romance with a bit of a poetic narrative. It opens with sixteen-year-old Takeo finding his entire village wiped out by a powerful warlord's men (the men actually were sent there to kill him). What better way to start for a novel? Orphaned but having escaped death, Takeo is taken in by Lord Shigeru of the opposing Otori Clan who has traveled far and wide to adopt him. Takeo has mystical powers (something of...more

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Feb 20, 2011

Lis Carey rated it

Shelves: f-sf

This is Book One of Tales of the Otori--the start of at least a trilogy. It's set in a fantasized mediaeval Japan, not overly constrained by anything like real history. Takeo is, through his mother and stepfather, a member of an outlawed religious sect called the Hidden, who strongly resemble a somewhat idealized early Christianity. Through his dead father, he's a member of the Tribe, a network of spies and assassins with supernatural gifts--the rarest and most prized of which Takeo has inherite...more

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Dec 30, 2010

Karissa Eckert rated it

This is the first book in the Tales of the Otori series by Lian Hearn. Originally I believe this was supposed to be a trilogy; with the addition of the Last Tale of the Otori and the First Tale of the Otori there are now 5 books that deal with the subject matter presented in this book.

This book tells the story of Takeo and Kaede. Takeo is a orphaned son of a tribe of the Hidden. After the decimation of his tribe he is found and taken into custody by the Lord of the Otori. Kaede is a yo...more

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Dec 12, 2010

Splash Of Our Worlds *Yiota* rated it

I bought the book in a hurry. It wasn't even at my TBR list. I'm still now sure why i got it...i could have find something else. And now after i finished it, i'm not sure if i liked it or not. Its genre is historical fantasy, if i'm not mistaken. I have try Japanese-myths-alike books two times before. One with Eon which i loved it and one with two sisters (don't even remember the name) which i hated it. And now this..which i don't know what to think of..

The summary is already too big ...moreI bought the book in a hurry. It wasn't even at my TBR list. I'm still now sure why i got it...i could have find something else. And now after i finished it, i'm not sure if i liked it or not. Its genre is historical fantasy, if i'm not mistaken. I have try Japanese-myths-alike books two times before. One with Eon which i loved it and one with two sisters (don't even remember the name) which i hated it. And now this..which i don't know what to think of..

The summary is already too big to say more. Only thing, that except Takeo there also chapters of a girl. While Takeo's story is written in first person, hers is mostly on second. So i had the feeling it was actually Takeo who were telling her story too.
The development of the characters and the characters themselves are pretty okay. You learn everything for Takeo, so you get to understand him and his actions. The rest characters are a bit of mystery on what they are thinking. And our main girl...well i find her annoying. I really disliked her parts. She is sometimes selfish, stupid and acts only when her life is threatened. The rest of the times she is as if she has no brain in her head.

The story has many many details of the environment. But it was ok for me. Takeo has some special powers and from those descriptions you get a better picture of what he can do. There is also a lot of action, of course. A lot of killing actually. And while the story is good and held your excitement up on what will happen, the last chapters destroy it. It's the first book of the series and it ends so..normally that really i don't care if i will go on with the reading. The main bad guy, was already killed. And Takeo decided what he will do with his life. The only you are questioning is if the love story with the girl will go on. But since i disliked her...not much of interest.

The book in general was a simple ok read. As i said, i still don't know if i like it. Surely, i will not re-read it and i highly doubt that i will continue with the rest books.
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Nov 02, 2010

Kurishiler rated it

Keep in mind I couldn’t finish the book, I didn’t have the heart and here is why.

When I read reviews of this book I expected something in the vein of The Wheel of Time. Where the author takes a culture and re-imagines it to something like the original Japanese culture but is rendered unique as well. This is not what I found. The book came across to me as, Feudal Japan plus some ninjas with magic powers. I think another problem with making a fantasy novel extremel...more
Keep in mind I couldn’t finish the book, I didn’t have the heart and here is why.

When I read reviews of this book I expected something in the vein of The Wheel of Time. Where the author takes a culture and re-imagines it to something like the original Japanese culture but is rendered unique as well. This is not what I found. The book came across to me as, Feudal Japan plus some ninjas with magic powers. I think another problem with making a fantasy novel extremely faithful to a foreign culture like the Japanese culture, is a lack of context. Without having a prior context for why people act and think the way they do there is the potential for misunderstandings. And while I can tell the author did her research this is no James Clavell book. His books, most notably Shogun presentes Asian culture for a Western audience and allows the reader to understand what this culture is about, provides interesting characters, and a way for the audience to at least connect with someone usually a white narrator facing the difficulties of trying to live in a foreign culture. This link of understanding between the contents of this book and the reader is lacking here. I found the characters in this book very cold and unlikable. And this possibly come from me not understanding how feudal Japanese people interact and the lack of any bridging character to make a gaijin like me understand and like the characters. Most of this comes from when Takeo and Lord Shigeru were first getting to know each other. I did not feel as if Lord Shigeru or Takeo talked about anything substantial. I could not see why they liked each other. It seemed to me all they did do, at least in the beginning of the book was sit by the garden, talk about the garden, and drink tea. This is not a substantial conversation and I just don't see how Lord Shigeru cares about Takeo as a person.

Another problem was with the narration style. It seemed the author choose to have Takeo tell the story in the first person after all the events had happened, so a lot of details I think I would find interesting are lost because of the narration style. For example we never have an opportunity to see who Takeo was before his village was destroyed. We only get to read about how he saw himself. We were told what the status quo was and could not experience it for ourselves. Everything just felt so far removed and distant like a bad translation of the Iliad. Any emotions I could have felt for the characters and their situation was gone.

And lastly the plot just seemed too tired and over used. I think this comes from me just watching anime with a similar plot. I have seen this done many times and better. For example

Bleach (a young boy who suddenly becomes a shinigami and is connected to their secret society), Death Note( young boy receives the power of the death note gets involved in a crazy cat and mouse game, not feudal politics but more interesting), Samurai Champloo (This one you have to squint to see it and while not Feudal Japan but the Edo period made interesting!), Full Metal Alchemist (again young boys get crazy cool powers and are involved in crazy politics/ adventures in a familiar but unique fantasy world), Yu-Yu Hakusho (young boy gets powers and gets involved with demon intrigue aka tournament style fighting and saving the human world)

I know there has to be more but I think you guys get it.

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Sep 18, 2010

Doreen rated it

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Very fast read, in part because it was so utterly gripping (I nearly missed my bus stop because of it, then accidentally whapped the guy sitting across the way from me with my cello case in my hurry to get out.) Everything is beautifully detailed, and for this Legend of the Five Rings fan, it was an excellent addition to the mystical samurai sub-genre. My only quibbles were with the shifting narrative, which is fine if you keep it all from the same kind of viewpoint (e.g. consistently third-pers...more

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Jul 17, 2010

Phi rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I read this book a while ago, I think I was 11/12 at the time and I loved the book.
I re-read it again yesterday (due to my friend raving about it) and also the fact that I initially forgot I had already read it!

This was an enjoyable read. It was easy to read and difficult to put down. The moment I turned over the first page, it gripped me. As the story unravelled, it becomes prominent that the author uses the protagonist Takeo to demonstrate different dimensions of loyalty and ...moreI read this book a while ago, I think I was 11/12 at the time and I loved the book.
I re-read it again yesterday (due to my friend raving about it) and also the fact that I initially forgot I had already read it!

This was an enjoyable read. It was easy to read and difficult to put down. The moment I turned over the first page, it gripped me. As the story unravelled, it becomes prominent that the author uses the protagonist Takeo to demonstrate different dimensions of loyalty and honour. The decisions the author made the protagonist choose makes one think about this character's loyalty based on biological ties or whether it was based upon birth. It was interesting how even when Takeo would change his loyalty from one clan to another and constantly tried to reinvent himself, he was never truly able to forget his roots. His past experiences and tragedies shaped him into a person who was unable to fit in or fully belong to anywhere.

Even when it would appear to the reader that Takeo had the independence and freedom to choose whom his loyalties lied with, his degree of control is not that simple as his decisions of loyalty would often be tainted with having to do what his society deemed to be the most honourable. At times, in order to belong or survive, Takeo is made as a character who has to be prepared to make sacrifices and conceal and disguise his true self, despite having to face the confusion of who he really was.

The pace of this book was fast but I felt near towards the middle-end, it descended into an anticlimax too quickly. Either that, or the author would get a bit lazy with writing and so rushed certain parts of the story in order to keep up with the pace of suspense. For instance, it annoyed me how quickly Takeo and Kaede supposedly fell 'in love' with each other. It was written too hurriedly for it to be believable and even though usually I enjoy reading romances, this romance seem to hinder the rest of the story. Perhaps the author was trying to show the more vulnerable and human side to the protagonist, reminding us that although Takeo was trained to kill, he was still young, vulnerable and wanted to fall in love (although I would call it more like lust). But it came across a bit too mushy for my liking- it just didn't flow with the rest of the story and at times it made the story appear very cliched.

The author tries to base the book during a time of feudal Japan. If it's historical accuracy and realistic details of the Japanese culture that you're looking for, expect to be very disappointed. Personally, I was not disappointed as I did not have these expectations. This is more a piece of imaginative writing that isn't that deep and a good read if you're looking to pass time.

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Jun 26, 2010

Crystal rated it

Shelves: favorites

Although there is nothing necessarily new that this book has brought to the table (it has a lot of the typical fantasy cliches such as the orphan with a greater purpose/destiny and those that brought them onto the path they were meant for dying), it still managed to be quite the gripping and surprising read throughout. I felt like this was also a bit of a coming of age story as well as provided some insight to some of the traditional Japanese values. The author does make the warning that this is...moreAlthough there is nothing necessarily new that this book has brought to the table (it has a lot of the typical fantasy cliches such as the orphan with a greater purpose/destiny and those that brought them onto the path they were meant for dying), it still managed to be quite the gripping and surprising read throughout. I felt like this was also a bit of a coming of age story as well as provided some insight to some of the traditional Japanese values. The author does make the warning that this is a work of fiction and not meant to be entirely accurate but I felt the core values were preserved nicely for his fictitious world.

The writing style, while I wish was more descriptive, was fluid and smooth. There were a few words here and there that I wish the author had not used so close together at times, there was enough variety in the diction for this to be ignored. As I said, however, sometimes the descriptions were a little too scant and it would have been nice to have just a little more specifics rather than generalizations.

What definitely made the story for me were the characters and their interactions with one another. Many of the characters, while resigned to their roles and fates, all had very unique ways in which they dealt with them that made them come alive to me. It was easy to sympathize with them when the need be present as well as feel their joy and pride at their accomplishments. I did not, however, approve of the main character's love interest as it felt incredibly rushed and very out of place. I think if the author had made it a progressive sort of romance throughout the series, I wouldn't have been as perturbed by it but simply seeing one another for maybe a grand total of 15-30 minutes and exchanging maybe a grand sum of 10 lines of dialogue does not inspire such life or death feelings in most people.

Overall it was an enjoyable, fast read and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in Japanese culture as well as fantasy fans who want something a little different yet very familiar.
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Apr 28, 2010

Margaret rated it

Shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, culled, authors-gh

When I finished Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori series (of which this is the first), I felt as though I'd been eating Hershey's chocolate when I expected Valrhona (or at least Lindt).

These much-heralded books are set in a fantasy version of medieval Japan, and on the face of it, the story is promising: Takeo is the lone survivor of the massacre of his village by an evil overlord. He is rescued by the mysterious Lord Otori Shigeru, who adopts Takeo and brings him into his plans to ov...more

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Apr 14, 2010

Jorge rated it

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Una historia predecible, pero muy bien contada y con giros inesperados dentro de lo típico. Hay personajes muy bien construidos e incluso los secundarios están bien delineados.

Como suele ocurrir en las historias en que el protagonista es un adolescente con quien (se supone) el lector debe sentirse identificado, el protagonista/narrador es algo plano y no es particularmente interesante... Salvo por un pequeño giro al final de la historia, [SPOILER:] cuando se ve enfrentado al dilema d...more

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Feb 17, 2010

Mike Brain rated it

‘Across the Nightingale Floor’ by Lian Hearn. Publisher: Picador (£6.99).

Did you enjoy ‘Shogun’ the book or the TV series, and did you like ‘The Last Samurai’ starring Tom Cruise? Well this might just be your cup of sake or green tea.
As with the above, this first novel (of a series of 3) is set in a country very like feudal Japan and is a story of passionate love, treachery, war, beauty, and power struggles.
Orphan Takeo has mysterious talents and is adopted by Lord Otori...more

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title link	preview: Across the Nightingale Floor
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77160.Across_the_Nightingale_Floor?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312502351m/77160.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77160.Across_the_Nightingale_Floor?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn[/url]

Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori #1)

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