Heaven's Net is Wide by Lian Hearn

Most fantasy novels are deeply entrenched in western culture; if they have oriental elements it's usually a transplant to introduce something new, exciting and/or mysterious. These transplants are more than likely half-assed and never manage to do real justice to eastern traditions or history. In much the same way, most anime and manga that take place in a western setting are similarly inauthentic. Its like putting my blonde and blue-eyed self in a kimono, or a Japanese lady in an Elizabethan gown--the juxtaposition is interesting and a refreshing change, but nobody's fooled.

With these thoughts in mind, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across a fantasy series called "Tales of the Otori" which takes place in feudal Japan. (well, not really Japan in the same way that most fantasy novels aren't technically in England or Europe, but you get the idea) The author is a westerner (Hearn was born in Britain and currently lives in Australia) but she's studied Japanese history and culture extensively, and it shows in her writing. Heaven's Net is Wide is a wonderful read, not just because of its story and characters, but also because of the beauty of their world, which Hearn describes in loving and convincing detail.

Overview (Spoiler Threat: Low)
Heaven's Net is Wide is the prequel to the series, (the first book, Across the Nightingale Floor, was published five years earlier in 2002) so I might be missing a few important points in reading it first, but I've always preferred to read books by their own chronological order when possible, not necessarily by their date of publication.

The book opens with a murder: Kikuta Isamu, who had abandoned his old life as an assassin to start anew, is found by his cousin, Kikuta Kotaro, and knows that his life is at an end. However, he has taken a vow to never kill again, and can only lead his assassin as far as possible from his village, young wife and unborn son before calmly accepting death. This opening chapter introduces us to two of the three driving forces of the series. The first is the mysterious Tribe, the group of assassins and spies that Isamu had tried to leave behind. No Japanese adventure tale is complete without ninjas, and although the term is never used, that's the Tribe in a nutshell. The second group, only hinted at here but expanded upon later in the book, is the Tribe's antithesis--the Hidden, a Christian cult whose members practice their religion in secret. This was a big hook for me, not only because I have a fondness for my own creed but also because of the historical basis behind this apparently artificial insertion. The first Westerners to reach Japan brought along Catholic missionaries, and the new faith first flourished then survived, even in the face of heavy persecution after Japan secluded itself from the West.

After this enigmatic (although extremely important) opening chapter, the book follows the life of Otori Shigeru, heir to the ancient and powerful Otori clan (driving force #3). Shigeru starts out as a 12 year old boy and we watch as he is fostered and forged into a tragic hero of epic proportions (although significantly more likable than most other tragic heroes I can think of). The title 'tragic hero' may be a bit of a spoiler, but this is the prequel, after all--it's obvious that Shigeru will be a powerful driving force in the later series, but he is not the main character. Quite a bit of the book is also spent filling out the political and cultural background of the land, setting the stage (or rather, filling in the background) for later developments. The book ends with Shigeru finding and adopting Isamu's son, now a boy of 16. The boy, originally named Tomasu and renamed Takeo, is obviously the true star of the series--tied to all three groups: Hidden, Otori and Tribe. Poor kid. And here's the danger of reading the books in the wrong order ^_^ Now I'm more emotionally invested in a secondary character, and we'll have to see if Takeo can earn his rightful place.

Recommended for: Fantasy and anime fans

Parental Worries: Lots of sex. Nothing too explicit, but there's no shyness about the topic, and it's quite central to the plot.

Audiobook comments: Read by J. Paul Boehmer and Julia Fletcher, depending on whether a woman or man is narrating a particular chapter. It's a nice effect.

Ramblings (Spoiler Threat: High)
For all the high points of this book, its got definite issues as well. I started out with the assumption that Lian Hearn was a man, and only recently discovered that I was wrong. This assumption was strengthened as I read because I thought that only a man could write female characters and romance as abysmally as they were handled in this book. For example, our first major female character is a courtesan named Akane. She's not a courtesan when we first meet her, she's an anonymous girl who helps Shigeru save his brother from drowning and then haunts his adolescent dreams for years. Oooo, a mysterious beauty, very nice. What really gets me though, is how Akane falls into her line of work. She's the daughter of an eccentric but extremely talented mason, and his reputation combined with her own 'independent spirit' mean that none of the women in the village want her to marry their sons. The mothers don't like her, so she'll have to be a prostitute. That's how it's presented in the book, just a matter of fact cause and effect. I had to stop for a minute at that. Really? Is this society so restrictive and structured that there's no other way? She can't find a man who doesn't have a mother, or isn't completely under her control? She can't learn a trade of some kind, become a healer, work as a servant, anything? She's a beautiful, intelligent, resourceful woman, and the first alternative she turns to is prostitution? Please.

To be fair, the type of prostitution she comes to practice falls under the geisha tradition, and because she selects a well-run house, her virginity is guarded longer and more jealously than any other girls of the time could expect (there's a large price tag on it, after all). Even so, the setup of Akane as a 'happy prostitute' turned my stomach. And it gets worse from there. She eventually becomes exclusively Shigeru's mistress, and because both of them have for different reasons sworn to never fall in love, there is much silly going-on about how they are 'so dangerously close to the edge' (of falling in love, which is obviously a horrible fate). Bah. She becomes obsessively jealous of Shigeru's wife (from an arranged marriage) and does her best to poison the marriage and any chance Shigeru has of producing a legitimate heir. Circumstances being what they were, I can't really blame her for that, but there's this looming sense of doom that begins to emanate from Akane. I couldn't help but think that she was going to innocently and stupidly destroy everything Shigeru stood for, and by the time she dies in the throes of madness, all I could do was breathe a sigh of relief that her course of destruction had come to an end.

Shigeru's wife Moe turns out to be Akane's polar opposite, and although I never really got the sense of oncoming doom from her that I did from Akane, she's still a very poisonous character. Like Akane, she's trapped by circumstances, and like Akane, she makes them even worse, to the point where her death is a relief to the reader.

Now, to be fair I think the first two female characters are meant to be awful, but even Shigeru's main love interest isn't particularly impressive, imho. She's supposed to be this powerful ruler in her own right, strong and independent. Predictably, therefore, she goes completely goey when the hero shows up. That's all well and good, but in the meantime we never actually see her political prowess and independent spirit at work, we just have to take everyone's word for it. We do see quite a bit of her strength as a woman; she's really remarkable just for that, but since her character is sold so strongly as transcending the traditional role of a woman, it would have been nice to see more than one side of her. Oh well :-p Maybe I'm a bit too hard on Lady Maruyama.

This is not to say that all the female characters in the book are horrible. There's several minor characters that I have no objection to (mostly because, as minor characters, there's not enough for me to object to :-p ) But there's also Muto Shizuka, a woman of the Tribe who eventually realizes the depths they are willing to sink to, and transfers her loyalty to Shigeru. Shizuka is an interesting character, walking a tightrope of loyalties and deception without coming off as fake or insincere in any of them. It'll be interesting to see what happens to her.

There's probably a few more things I could ramble about, I haven't given nearly enough time or attention to Shigeru himself, for one thing, but this post is getting really long. Suffice it to say that Heaven's Net is Wide is an interesting, delightful book, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.