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nebroadwe小野 不由美 [Ono Fuyumi], The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow (tr. Alexander O. Smith)
Reread. Youko Nakajima is everyone's idea of a good girl. Then the creatures of her nightmares erupt into her waking life; a strange man offers her his allegiance, protecting her from them, but abandons her in a world more like ancient China than modern Japan; and the people she looks to for help seem bent on betraying her. Everyone else's idea of a good girl hasn't got a chance, so who does Youko Nakajima think she is? I'd seen the anime adaptation of this story before I read it, but it's definitely worth a look for itself. Ono's world-building is surpassed only by her character-building -- Youko's journey of self-discovery is realistically handled, as she learns first to trust herself and then, more slowly and painfully, to trust others. The difficulty of being a stranger in a strange land is not undersold, either (hey, Fushigi Yuugi, look over here!). Excellent stuff, well-translated, and highly recommended.小野 不由美 [Ono Fuyumi], The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Wind (tr. Alexander O. Smith)
When he followed the hand that beckoned him away from punishment, Taiki had no idea that he was going home to the world of the Twelve Kingdoms -- or that he was not human, but kirin, a holy beast destined to choose the new King of Tai. The more he learns of his situation, the more unnerving he finds it: he has mastered none of a kirin's skills and the contenders for the throne have already begun assembling ... Shorter and less fraught than Sea of Shadow, Sea of Wind follows a similar path in having its unsuspecting protagonist struggle to fulfill a high destiny, though Taiki is more stranger-in-paradise than stranger-in-a-strange-land. The tyranny of expectations is just as problematic for him as for Youko, but the context is different: Taiki is a child thrust into an adult role, while Youko is an adolescent carving out an adult's sense of self. More good world-building and the characters stuff holds up; similar thematic concerns don't necessarily lead to repetitive plotting, thank goodness. I'm looking forward to the next volume in this milieu.宮部みゆき [Miyabe Miyuki], Brave Story (tr. Alexander O. Smith)
Middle-schooler Wataru Mitani's biggest worries were how to save enough of his small allowance to buy the video game Eldritch Saga III and how to avoid the attentions of the school bully -- until the day his father left his mother for another woman and his mother attempted suicide. Angry, frightened, sad and desperate to make everything right again, he follows mysterious fellow student Mitsuru to the land of Vision to petition its patron Goddess to change his destiny. But only one Traveler can earn the Goddess's favor, and Mitsuru has a big head start ... This book is broadly similar to Michael Ende's Neverending Story, except that Wataru gets his knowledge of archetypes from video games rather than books. It's an absolute doorstop at 816 pages, though, the first 277 of which are exposition and set-up. Miyabe develops both of Wataru's worlds in great detail, but much of that detail has no payoff. On the other hand, the characters are engaging and the hero's path to mature self-knowledge, though well-trodden, had enough twists to keep me reading. Not bad.Michael Ende, The Neverending Story (tr. Ralph Manheim)
Reread, but it's been so long that it might as well not be. Bastian Balthazar Bux has nothing but his his imagination to comfort him after his mother's death. Unable to face another day at school, he loses himself in a stolen copy of The Neverending Story -- literally. Called into the story's land of Fantastica to save it from dissolution and given the power to do whatever he wishes, he little understands that for each wish he makes, he trades a memory of his previous life. I like this story much more now than I did when I was twelve -- it's really written for adults, despite its child protagonist. Both more complex in its psychology and simpler in its storytelling than Brave Story, it carries the weight of its themes lightly, defending the imaginative impulse without becoming defensive or solipsistic. Classic stuff; required reading for friends of SF.Hillari Bell, The Prophecy
Clumsy, short-sighted, scholarly Prince Perryndon is a disappointment to his father, who insists he needs a warrior heir to defend his kingdom from the twin scourges of Norse raiders and a dragon lairing in the mountains. When Perryndon's investigations uncover a prophecy of the dragon's fall and a conspiracy against his house, his father refuses to believe him. Perryndon must set out on his own to find the sword, the bard and the unicorn which the prophecy calls for -- if, indeed, it is a true prophecy ... A middle-grades novel, so light-hearted, quick-worded and soon over, but it has Bell's trademark affinity for characters who think and suspicion of easy answers and conventionally "heroic" solutions. Well characterized and tightly plotted, though probably not as satisfying to the adult reader as The Goblin Wood.