Scan barcode
A review by jayme
Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara, Miho Satake, Cathy Hirano
5.0
It took me a while to get into this book, but it wasn't the story's fault, I think it was the translation. It felt very cold and didn't draw me into the amazing story that was unfolding right underneath the completely passionless words. But once I got used to that, the story was incredible.
While reading it I kept wondering if it was based on actual Japanese mythology. It had a real pagan, Greek or Celtic kind of saga feel to it, but Japanese instead. The afterword told me this was exactly what Ogiwara was trying to do. She said she's always had a love for the British style fantasy that draws its inspiration from Celtic myths and wanted to do the same but from a Japanese point of view.
I think my favourite thing about this was how different the story was the from usual British fantasy though. Having a new mythology to draw her story from really made this book stand out. The way it all centers around balance and the cyclical nature of life is fascinating. This was the most packed story I've read in a long time. It was really more like three 100 page books in one. I don't know how he put so much story into such a tiny book! I can't wait for book two, which is finally being published in English later this year.
While reading it I kept wondering if it was based on actual Japanese mythology. It had a real pagan, Greek or Celtic kind of saga feel to it, but Japanese instead. The afterword told me this was exactly what Ogiwara was trying to do. She said she's always had a love for the British style fantasy that draws its inspiration from Celtic myths and wanted to do the same but from a Japanese point of view.
I think my favourite thing about this was how different the story was the from usual British fantasy though. Having a new mythology to draw her story from really made this book stand out. The way it all centers around balance and the cyclical nature of life is fascinating. This was the most packed story I've read in a long time. It was really more like three 100 page books in one. I don't know how he put so much story into such a tiny book! I can't wait for book two, which is finally being published in English later this year.