Mount Zion Ryan

I hate to disappoint my 4 loyal readers, but dang if I am still suffering bloggers-block.

In light of that here some of my current mental detritus.

After getting recharged about the St. Moses project I have let it slide a little. Basically I will need to do some reading about Late Antique Egypt before I feel comfortable doing much work on the story. There is a book cleverly titled Egypt in Late Antiquity that looks like a good intro to the topic. So I’ll be getting that as soon as I can.

In the meantime, I’ve been reviving an idea I have for a fantasy epic. As an admirer of Sengoku Jidai (Warring States period) and Edo Period Japan as well as Norse/Viking culture, I am trying to develop a setting which blends these two without being obvious or silly. What I am working with is seeing if I can take cultural elements from each and synthesize them into something new. A warrior culture with frequent sea raids, but that has a highly developed aesthetic; a stratified society ordered by lord/vassal relationships.

Anyway, here are a few good books about Edo Period Japan:

• Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. The historical/fictional biography/novel about the very real, very skilled Miyamoto Musashi. Excellent book. After reading this I could not read Clavell’s Shogun anymore, it just seemed too Western.
• The Tokaido Road by Lucia St. Clair Robson. Not as epic as Musashi. Probably not as historically accurate either. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this book.
• Chushingura is a Puppet Play based on a real event. This is the slightly famous 47 Ronin story. This is the version my Asian History teacher had us read, so this is the one I’ve stuck to. Reads like a play, but man is it good.
• Musui’s Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai is a great book. Musui is a kind of loveable scamp, a scaramouche samarai and a good antedote to the opinion that samurai were all honorable warrior-philosophers. (One of the things I learned in studying history: if there is a rule or code writen forbidding some behavior you can be sure someone, probably many someones, was engaging in the forbidden behavior. And there are numerous “House Codes” writen to instil the proper Bushido–way of the Warrior–into the soldiers of a house or castle.)
• Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, Book One) is not really Japan, but a close facsimile thereof. Nice change of pace from Middle Earth influenced fantasy. I’ve only read the first one, but plan to read the others.
• Has anyone read the Sano Ichiro novels by Laura Joh Rowland? I will have to check these out. Yay! new reading material.
• Death at the Crossroads by Dale Furutani is one I have read and it turns out there are more. I’ll have to see if Inter Library Loan can get these.

Well, there you go. Some good books to introduce you to Edo (sometimes called Tokugawa) period Japan.

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