Beautiful description and interesting setting

books:


	• Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, Book 1) Lian Hearn Riverhead Trade, 2003 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 172 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A good start to a decent series

Hearn builds an interesting world, a feudal Japan with just enough elements of magic to make it a fantasy novel. The characters are interesting and I found myself ready to read the second book immediately after I finished Nightingale Floor. The plot moves quickly and there is little filler. These books are quick and easy reads so don't expect something overly complex and challenging. Otherwise, you will probably enjoy it.

I am hoping the series gets better...

A teenage boy named Takeo is chased out of his peaceful village as it is attacked by a local warlord. He escapes pursuit with the help of a strange man, who then takes him in and adopts him as his son. As they get to know each other the man tells Takeo more and more and soon he realizes that their meeting was not random, nor was the attack on his village. Takeo, unbeknownst to him, is from a long line of assassins. They are a race of people with extraordinary abilities, and his father was the best of them all. And now Takeo's fate has come to meet him as he is asked to do that for which he was born to do.

I picked this book up off the shelf having never heard of it, but I read the synopsis on the back and became very interested. I love feudal Japan and the idea of a young man born with specially-heightened senses to facilitate his fate as the world's next great assassin sounded great. And the book was good, I just believe it missed it's mark.

It had everything I described above, but what I didn't like was the disparity between the assassin race and everyone else. I was hoping that the advantages wouldn't be so extraordinary. I afford sci-fi/fantasy authors a lot of creative license, but at some point it goes too far. And I felt like that happened, to an extent, in Across the Nightingale Floor.

But, at least for now, I am not so turned off that I am unwilling to give this series another shot. I do plan to read Grass for His Pillow, which is the second book in the Tales of the Otori series, but I'm not sure when I will get to it.

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Beautiful description and interesting setting

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 young girl who has been held as a hostage at a lord's estate for many years as assurance for her father's cooperation. Their stories start out separately and are expertly woven in and out of each other throughout the book.

This is the second time I have read this book. The book is full of beautiful descriptions and the action scenes are fun to read. The world of the Otori is complex and dangerous, as well as full of intrigue.

While this is a well-written book I found that at times it got a little slow to read. At the end of the book there are many plotlines left unresolved. I remember being irritated with that the first time I read this book. The second time through I am just glad that I have the other books in the series on hand.

Overall this is a good book, well-written, and interesting. I am not sure how accurate it is to Japanese culture and history but some effort appears to have been made to make that as accurate as possible. I look forward to reading the second book.

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Fantastic

After reading this novel, I was hooked. I then went and purchased all books in the series. This series is fantastic and very addictive. The writing is artistic and sensitive. Very very good!

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

This is the first book in a new epic trilogy that has already become a bestselling sensation in England and Australia, earning comparisons to The Lord of the Rings. It begins with the legend of a nightingale floor in a black-walled fortress-a floor that sings in alarm at the step of an assassin. It will take true courage and all the skills of an ancient Tribe for one orphaned youth named Takeo to discover the magical destiny that awaits him...across the nightingale floor.

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