Tales of the Otori

[bibliogramma]

Across the Nightingale Floor, Episode One: The Sword of the Warrior, Lian Hearn

Set in an alternate world that seems to have stepped out of the feudal Japan of legend and history entwined, this is a complex and fascinating story told with grace, beauty and simplicity.

A young boy survives the massacre of his family and village, to be taken into the household and family of the enemy of his family’s murderer. As he grows, he shows signs of special gifts found only among the tribe of assassins, and with the approval of his benefactor, he begins his training in the ways and skills that his own father had rejected.

A young girl, held hostage to enforce the loyalty of her family, is selected as a bride to a man she has never met in what appears to be a peace offering between warring factions, but she carries with her a history that is believed to promise death to any man she marries.

A man and a woman, secret lovers who have sworn to marry, are kept apart by war and political considerations, and face being forever separated by forced marriages to others.

And a man has built for himself a nightingale floor, so constructed that, it is said, no one can cross without making a sound.

Such are the beginnings of the Tales of Otori, and I have been captivated.

Note about editions: I am reading currently reading the Firebird editions of Hearn's Tales of the Otori, which are beautiful to the senses in all ways, but which divide each of the original books into two episodes each. This comment, then refers to the first half of the book Across the Nightingale Floor as originally published. The other available TPB editions I know of are the Riverbend editions, which contain the complete text of each book in one volume.

Comments

[indongcho.livejournal.com]

My list is only thirty books long, but I only started it a short while ago. Plus, I don't include books by favorite authors, since I'm guaranteed to remember them.

I generally only read stories with historical or pseudo-historical settings. I never look for books with modern settings, though if someone shoves a good one down my nose I'll certainly enjoy it.

Hmm. Do you know of any fantasy with Indian-like settings? Tamora Pierce has done a little bit, but I can't think of anyone else.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Indian-based fantasy settings - I think I've come across a couple of short stories, possibly by Vandana Singh.

If you like historical settings and also like vampires, I must recommend Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint Germain books. There are at least 20 of them by now, and several are set in China, Tibet and India at different points in time, and there are also a few set in Egypt - Saint Germain is 4000 years old, and he's travelled around a lot, although he has stayed mostly in Europe because he's of early European stock himself, and tends to stay where he either doesn't stand out or isn't the only visible foreigner around. I think Yarbro has the character say at one point that he's never travelled in sub-Saharan Africa for that reason.

Yarbro does exhaustive research and her settings are very detailed. I've been a fan of her work for a very long time now.

Both Guy Gavriel Kay and Judith Tarr have written fantasies set in the Middle East or in cultures derived from Middle Eastern cultures, but off hand I can't think of much that's been set in the Indian subcontinent.

People who in write in English can be so Eurocentric sometimes.