A review by siria
Fudoki by Kij Johnson

5.0

I cannot remember who it was who recommended this novel to me, so I will just have to thank the happy serendipity which caused my eye to fall upon it while I was pottering around in the Forbidden Planet in London, and made me pick it up. The prose is a delight--vivid and subtle and precise--full of insights which are sharp without ever being overstated. Johnson also manages to interweave the two main strands of the story incredibly well--of Princess Harueme, old and slowly dying, and of the cat-turned-woman, Kagaya-hime. They are never made truly distinct from one another, flowing from Harueme's story to Kagaya-hime's and back again. In the hands of a lesser writer, such a story-telling device would be confusing, but Johnson makes it work incredibly well for her. This is apparently the successor to a previous novel, which is definitely going on my to-look-for list.