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A review by niakantorka
The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
This story takes place in some sort of futuristic but also old school Japanese-inspired fantasy setting. For example there are planes, bombs and wireless communication devices in this empire Kaigen is a part of and yet time seems to have stood still in this village where the Matsuda family lives. They are a family of gentry warriors and part of ‘The Sword of Kaigen’ the most eastern defense line against the Ranganese, people of Ranga, who split from the empire some time ago.
The strongest Matsudas are able to create so called Whispering Blades with their jiya, some magical blood power, swords formed from ice but able to cut through nearly anything. Our protagonists are Misaki, the wife of the second son of the family in her mid thirties and Mamoru, the 14 year old son of Misaki. The story is told from both of their povs and as the reader I fell in love with them almost immediately. From the beginning it is clear that another Ranganese invasion will take place and let’s just say once it starts it’s nearly impossible to put the book down.
The thing which was hard for me was that those gentry warriors are terribly misogynistic, you know the rubbish about women being weak and that they should be docile and blah blah blah, and Misaki is nothing like that deep down and yet she has decided to make do. That was hard to bear. It changes with time and with that invasion but the price for her showing her true nature was (too) high. She was a wonderful character, not without flaws but absolutely loveable and admirable.
Mamoru was Great too. He had this ingrained sunshine as part of his personality (other than him only his aunt had) and yet he put way too much pressure on himself. The author definitely took a chance by making him a protagonist. His fate had me reeling, it worked nonetheless for me.
As you can see from all my blabbering to explain just the set up of this book it has a rich and vast world building, close to a high fantasy book. There are languages, countries and different magical powers and I loved to read about it all. What I didn’t know and what took a bit of the joy out of it was the fact that The Sword of Kaigen was supposed to be the first of different books set in this universe.
The author has stopped working on them though which is absolutely her prerogative but was still sad to see. Because in the end (last 50 or so pages) a new plot line was set up which is now going nowhere. That’s why I have decided to lower my rating slightly. Other than that it was sort of a perfect fantasy book and I’m definitely going to check out M.L. Wang’s other works.
The strongest Matsudas are able to create so called Whispering Blades with their jiya, some magical blood power, swords formed from ice but able to cut through nearly anything. Our protagonists are Misaki, the wife of the second son of the family in her mid thirties and Mamoru, the 14 year old son of Misaki. The story is told from both of their povs and as the reader I fell in love with them almost immediately. From the beginning it is clear that another Ranganese invasion will take place and let’s just say once it starts it’s nearly impossible to put the book down.
The thing which was hard for me was that those gentry warriors are terribly misogynistic, you know the rubbish about women being weak and that they should be docile and blah blah blah, and Misaki is nothing like that deep down and yet she has decided to make do. That was hard to bear. It changes with time and with that invasion but the price for her showing her true nature was (too) high. She was a wonderful character, not without flaws but absolutely loveable and admirable.
Mamoru was Great too. He had this ingrained sunshine as part of his personality (other than him only his aunt had) and yet he put way too much pressure on himself. The author definitely took a chance by making him a protagonist. His fate had me reeling, it worked nonetheless for me.
As you can see from all my blabbering to explain just the set up of this book it has a rich and vast world building, close to a high fantasy book. There are languages, countries and different magical powers and I loved to read about it all. What I didn’t know and what took a bit of the joy out of it was the fact that The Sword of Kaigen was supposed to be the first of different books set in this universe.
The author has stopped working on them though which is absolutely her prerogative but was still sad to see. Because in the end (last 50 or so pages) a new plot line was set up which is now going nowhere. That’s why I have decided to lower my rating slightly. Other than that it was sort of a perfect fantasy book and I’m definitely going to check out M.L. Wang’s other works.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and War
Moderate: Suicide and Rape