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Eight Million Gods
A new urban fantasy saga by the creator of the popular Tinker contemporary fantasy/SF series. A young American expat writer in Japan suffering from OCD tries to figure out if she’s crazy or not while solving a murder that may be part of a war among Japanese deities.
One Saturday afternoon, Nikki Delany thought, "George Wilson, in the kitchen, with a blender." By dinner, she had killed George and posted his gory murder to her blog. The next day, she put on her mourning clothes and went out to meet her best friend for lunch to discuss finding a replacement for her love interest.
Nikki is a horror novelist. Her choice of career is dictated by an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that forces her to write stories of death and destruction. She can't control it, doesn't understand it, but can use it to make money anywhere in the world. Currently "anywhere" is in Japan, hiding from her mother who sees Nikki's OCD as proof she's mentally unstable. Nikki's fragile peace starts to fall apart when the police arrest her for the murder of an American expatriate. Someone killed him with a blender.
Reality starts to unravel around Nikki. She's attacked by a raccoon in a business suit. After a series of blackouts, she’s accompanied by a boy that no one else can see, a boy who claims to be a god. Is she really being pursued by Japanese myths—or is she simply going insane?
What Nikki does know for sure is that the bodies are piling up, her mother has arrived in Japan to lock her up for the rest of her life, she's written herself into her new book—and her novels always end with everyone dead.
About Eight Million Gods :
"Spencer is a good storyteller, with a knack for pulling interesting plot surprises out of left field. . . . A well-paced story with interesting characters and setting. . . ." – Asimov’s
"Eight Million Gods is a wonderfully weird romp through Japanese mythology, culture shock, fan culture and the ability to write your own happy ending. It is diverting and entertaining fantasy." — Galveston County Daily News
“An American writer in Japan gets mixed with murder and magic in this engaging fantasy novel.”— Locus
About Wen
“Wit and intelligence inform this off-beat, tongue-in-cheek fantasy…. Furious action … good characterization, playful eroticism and well-developed folklore…lift this well above the fantasy average…. Buffy fans should find a lot to like in the book's resourceful heroine.”— Publishers Weekly on series debut Tinker
“Spencer's intertwining of current Earth technology and otherworldly elven magic is quite ingenious.” – Booklist on the Elfhome series
Comprehensive Teacher's Guide available.
One Saturday afternoon, Nikki Delany thought, "George Wilson, in the kitchen, with a blender." By dinner, she had killed George and posted his gory murder to her blog. The next day, she put on her mourning clothes and went out to meet her best friend for lunch to discuss finding a replacement for her love interest.
Nikki is a horror novelist. Her choice of career is dictated by an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that forces her to write stories of death and destruction. She can't control it, doesn't understand it, but can use it to make money anywhere in the world. Currently "anywhere" is in Japan, hiding from her mother who sees Nikki's OCD as proof she's mentally unstable. Nikki's fragile peace starts to fall apart when the police arrest her for the murder of an American expatriate. Someone killed him with a blender.
Reality starts to unravel around Nikki. She's attacked by a raccoon in a business suit. After a series of blackouts, she’s accompanied by a boy that no one else can see, a boy who claims to be a god. Is she really being pursued by Japanese myths—or is she simply going insane?
What Nikki does know for sure is that the bodies are piling up, her mother has arrived in Japan to lock her up for the rest of her life, she's written herself into her new book—and her novels always end with everyone dead.
About Eight Million Gods :
"Spencer is a good storyteller, with a knack for pulling interesting plot surprises out of left field. . . . A well-paced story with interesting characters and setting. . . ." – Asimov’s
"Eight Million Gods is a wonderfully weird romp through Japanese mythology, culture shock, fan culture and the ability to write your own happy ending. It is diverting and entertaining fantasy." — Galveston County Daily News
“An American writer in Japan gets mixed with murder and magic in this engaging fantasy novel.”— Locus
About Wen
“Wit and intelligence inform this off-beat, tongue-in-cheek fantasy…. Furious action … good characterization, playful eroticism and well-developed folklore…lift this well above the fantasy average…. Buffy fans should find a lot to like in the book's resourceful heroine.”— Publishers Weekly on series debut Tinker
“Spencer's intertwining of current Earth technology and otherworldly elven magic is quite ingenious.” – Booklist on the Elfhome series
Comprehensive Teacher's Guide available.
496 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 15, 2013
36 people are currently reading
600 people want to read
About the author
Wen Spencer
41 books893 followersJohn W. Campbell Award Winner Wen Spencer resides in paradise in Hilo, Hawaii with two volcanoes overlooking her home. Spencer says that she often wakes up and exclaims "Oh my god, I live on an island in the middle of the Pacific!" This, says Spencer, is a far cry from her twenty years of living in land-locked Pittsburgh.
The Elfhome series opener, Tinker, won the 2003 Sapphire Award for Best Science Fiction Romance and was a finalist for the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award for Fantasy Novel. Wolf Who Rules, the sequel to Tinker, was chosen as a Top Pick by Romantic Times and given their top rating of four and a half stars. Other Baen books include space opera thriller Endless Blue and Eight Million Gods.
The Elfhome series opener, Tinker, won the 2003 Sapphire Award for Best Science Fiction Romance and was a finalist for the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award for Fantasy Novel. Wolf Who Rules, the sequel to Tinker, was chosen as a Top Pick by Romantic Times and given their top rating of four and a half stars. Other Baen books include space opera thriller Endless Blue and Eight Million Gods.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews
April 24, 2013
This book was equal parts delicious gaijin-in-Japan-whodunit, and madness-or-magic creepiness, and I thought the mix was really interesting. Nikki's mental illness and her experiences are vastly different when viewed through a different cultural filter, and it makes you think about how many things we know are true are actually just our own culture talking.
Nikki is charmingly pop-culture, as is most of the book. She says that quoting laws to police officers is like their kryptonite. Toward the end of the book, there is a Lilo & Stitch quote which just killed me and was deeply appropriate.
This book was full of women, all types of women, doing all types of things. Very seldom do the women feel like victims, and even the one who is killed off screen is a person, with her own interests, and not just a girl to avenge. Nikki is working extremely hard to not be a victim of her mother's power and manipulation. She has a strong network of women helping her. I really liked that.
I didn't feel like it had the deep thematic structure of some of Spencer's books, like A Brother's Price or Endless Blue. It was more on the Ukiah Oregon end of her writing spectrum. But there were still some moments of genuine creepy horror, mostly in Nikki's relationship with her mother.
I bought this as an e-ARC, and as usual, there are some typos, probable about 10 or so of them. Other than that, it is obviously well-edited.
Read if: You are content to let a story carry you along at its own pace, and to not really overinvest in knowing what exactly is happening all the time. You have liked previous Wen Spencer books. You have a mental catalog of anime movies other people might like.
Skip if: You have mommy+mental health issues of your own. You are tired of OCD as the catch-all detective disease. You are not sure about spending a whole novel in Japan.
Also read: Alien Taste
Nikki is charmingly pop-culture, as is most of the book. She says that quoting laws to police officers is like their kryptonite. Toward the end of the book, there is a Lilo & Stitch quote which just killed me and was deeply appropriate.
This book was full of women, all types of women, doing all types of things. Very seldom do the women feel like victims, and even the one who is killed off screen is a person, with her own interests, and not just a girl to avenge. Nikki is working extremely hard to not be a victim of her mother's power and manipulation. She has a strong network of women helping her. I really liked that.
I didn't feel like it had the deep thematic structure of some of Spencer's books, like A Brother's Price or Endless Blue. It was more on the Ukiah Oregon end of her writing spectrum. But there were still some moments of genuine creepy horror, mostly in Nikki's relationship with her mother.
I bought this as an e-ARC, and as usual, there are some typos, probable about 10 or so of them. Other than that, it is obviously well-edited.
Read if: You are content to let a story carry you along at its own pace, and to not really overinvest in knowing what exactly is happening all the time. You have liked previous Wen Spencer books. You have a mental catalog of anime movies other people might like.
Skip if: You have mommy+mental health issues of your own. You are tired of OCD as the catch-all detective disease. You are not sure about spending a whole novel in Japan.
Also read: Alien Taste
November 28, 2014
The cover art and blurbs, and the humorous first few pages of this book beguiled. So much so that on a recent book store visit, armed with a gift card, I succumbed to the allure of the cover and my past experience with other Wen Spencer novels.
This seemed to be shaping up as an the action adventure urban fantasy set in Japan facing demons in a Japanese mythological battle, with samurai swords and monsters, and maybe that was where this story was going, but after 40% read, it was bogged down in a completely different scenario. The main character seemed to be able to create characters by writing them, there was a murder, mysterious characters appeared and the humor was not there at all.
I was not impressed.
Pass
This seemed to be shaping up as an the action adventure urban fantasy set in Japan facing demons in a Japanese mythological battle, with samurai swords and monsters, and maybe that was where this story was going, but after 40% read, it was bogged down in a completely different scenario. The main character seemed to be able to create characters by writing them, there was a murder, mysterious characters appeared and the humor was not there at all.
I was not impressed.
Pass
March 30, 2013
I first read Spencer's work years ago with Tinker. I can always look forward to a well written adventurer and in this she moves out of the over used Western European Mythos for Supernaturals into Japan.
Her character is an American woman who is gifted with great magic but who has been tormented by an evil mother into thinking she's mentally ill. When she escapes her mother's latest attempt at institutionalizing her, she ends up in Japan. There her world view is quickly expanded by meeting a Tanuki, the shapeshifting badger dog, who tries to kill her. She soon after becomes the vessel for a Kami, a minor god who inhabits an ancient sword and from there "much action abounds."
At the end of the book is also an informative glossary titled "Wen's not completely accurate glossary of Japanese terms." Five stars for just NOT writing ANOTHER Vampire novel and refreshing the fantasy world with a rich culture's Mythos.
Her character is an American woman who is gifted with great magic but who has been tormented by an evil mother into thinking she's mentally ill. When she escapes her mother's latest attempt at institutionalizing her, she ends up in Japan. There her world view is quickly expanded by meeting a Tanuki, the shapeshifting badger dog, who tries to kill her. She soon after becomes the vessel for a Kami, a minor god who inhabits an ancient sword and from there "much action abounds."
At the end of the book is also an informative glossary titled "Wen's not completely accurate glossary of Japanese terms." Five stars for just NOT writing ANOTHER Vampire novel and refreshing the fantasy world with a rich culture's Mythos.
August 13, 2014
Look, I understand what it is to be a Japan-o-phile. Gods know I was one throughout all of college and the culture retains a place of affection in my heart. But there's so much gratitous Japanese in this book (by which I mean, the usage of words that do not carry any appreciable difference over their English counterparts) that even I got irritated and turned off. Here's a hint for all you aspiring authors out there: If you have to include a lexicon at the back of your book for a real world language, and find yourself putting their equivalent of "yes" in it, YOU HAVE MADE A MISTAKE IN WHICH TERMS YOU DECIDED TO USE FROM THAT LANGUAGE.
Other folks might enjoy Eight Million Gods a lot more than I did. But for me, Spencer's insistence on using gratitous Japanese grated, reminding me of all the most irritating otaku you can only encounter in the dark corners of screening rooms at Anime conventions, and it left me wanting to take a rasp to my eyeballs rather than read another word.
Other folks might enjoy Eight Million Gods a lot more than I did. But for me, Spencer's insistence on using gratitous Japanese grated, reminding me of all the most irritating otaku you can only encounter in the dark corners of screening rooms at Anime conventions, and it left me wanting to take a rasp to my eyeballs rather than read another word.
March 20, 2021
Eight Million Gods reads like an otaku fangirl letting all her freak flags fly. A fan fiction writer heroine goes to Japan to escape an evil domineering bitch of a mother, becomes possessed by a cute Samurai boy kami, hauls a katana around Japan and gets in battles with gods and monsters, and winds up with the hot cat-dude in the end.
Nikki Delany suffers from hypergraphia, a kind of OCD that compels her to write on any available surface. When given writing materials and an outlet, she writes gory horror stories and yaoi fan fiction. Her mother, a U.S. Senator, has kept her locked up and hospitalized for much of her life, appalled by both her disorder and the things she writes. Nikki has escaped her mother, with some money from an advance after actually getting one of her novels sold, and now she's in Japan, with a small but loyal fanbase. Things go wrong when a Japanese police officer overhears her describing to one of her friends her latest murder scene - a gaijin businessman in Japan is murdered in his apartment by having a blender shoved through his stomach.
Problem is, it turns out that a gaijin businessman in Nikki's city was just murdered in his apartment by having a blender shoved through his stomach. Understandably, the police have a few questions for her.
At this point, the story goes off the rails and only occasionally regains direction. The author packs the story with every manga trope you can imagine. There are manic pixie Japanese dream girls who use aikido on lecherous groping sararimen. There are kami and spider-geishas and Samurai ghosts and Susanoo hiding magic spears and gods possessing shrine maidens and gaijin running through a Japanese street festival chased by yakuza tanuki and secret anti-supernatural government organizations (run by a man named "Shiva"). Nikki, it turns out, is actually an oracle whose writing is describing actual events, which means whenever we need some exposition or to get over the next plot bump, she scribbles a scene from some other character's point of view. The plot is about saving the world from a vengeful goddess, which involves a lot of MacGuffin hunts and lengthy teeheehees about how very Japanese Japan is.
Wen Spencer is lucky she's not a YA author — she'd be canceled faster than you can say "weeaboo."
Nikki has a final confrontation with her evil mother (family secrets are revealed, but not how even a U.S. Senator can have a basically functional adult involuntarily committed), and then she winds up with her growly half-Japanese cat-dude (you can tell who's the love interest right away because he "growls" practically all of his dialog) after facing down the Big Bad.
This was a brainless magical cat girl of a novel, cute and fluffy and entertaining in the way that stuffing your face with candy is entertaining, but leaves you feeling empty and a little queasy.
Nikki Delany suffers from hypergraphia, a kind of OCD that compels her to write on any available surface. When given writing materials and an outlet, she writes gory horror stories and yaoi fan fiction. Her mother, a U.S. Senator, has kept her locked up and hospitalized for much of her life, appalled by both her disorder and the things she writes. Nikki has escaped her mother, with some money from an advance after actually getting one of her novels sold, and now she's in Japan, with a small but loyal fanbase. Things go wrong when a Japanese police officer overhears her describing to one of her friends her latest murder scene - a gaijin businessman in Japan is murdered in his apartment by having a blender shoved through his stomach.
Problem is, it turns out that a gaijin businessman in Nikki's city was just murdered in his apartment by having a blender shoved through his stomach. Understandably, the police have a few questions for her.
At this point, the story goes off the rails and only occasionally regains direction. The author packs the story with every manga trope you can imagine. There are manic pixie Japanese dream girls who use aikido on lecherous groping sararimen. There are kami and spider-geishas and Samurai ghosts and Susanoo hiding magic spears and gods possessing shrine maidens and gaijin running through a Japanese street festival chased by yakuza tanuki and secret anti-supernatural government organizations (run by a man named "Shiva"). Nikki, it turns out, is actually an oracle whose writing is describing actual events, which means whenever we need some exposition or to get over the next plot bump, she scribbles a scene from some other character's point of view. The plot is about saving the world from a vengeful goddess, which involves a lot of MacGuffin hunts and lengthy teeheehees about how very Japanese Japan is.
Wen Spencer is lucky she's not a YA author — she'd be canceled faster than you can say "weeaboo."
Nikki has a final confrontation with her evil mother (family secrets are revealed, but not how even a U.S. Senator can have a basically functional adult involuntarily committed), and then she winds up with her growly half-Japanese cat-dude (you can tell who's the love interest right away because he "growls" practically all of his dialog) after facing down the Big Bad.
This was a brainless magical cat girl of a novel, cute and fluffy and entertaining in the way that stuffing your face with candy is entertaining, but leaves you feeling empty and a little queasy.
July 21, 2013
I have mixed feeling about Eight Million Gods. I really like Wen Spencer’s writing. and Eight Million Gods is very well written. For me the problem is the setting and how it works into the story.
Worldbuilding: Eight Million Gods is set in Japan where there are many, many shrines and gods. The interaction of the main character with the shrines the gods and all things Japanese is the basis of the story. I am not a fan of manga or anime and a background with those would make this an easier world to drop into. In fact drop into without understanding is how I felt. I just did not have the background for the world and was often left in the dark. At one point I started to make this a DNF but pressed on and did get more caught up in the story. There are many terms used in the story that requires a glossary and there is one on pages 341 – 355. I needed it more than once. Ir is a complex world that has the potential for many, many stories.
Plot: Nikki is the main character and she is what drives the plot. She has powers she does not understand. When she escapes a Mother who wants to keep her locked up and goes to live in Japan strange things start to happen. The entire plot stems from there. Look for a lot of danger, strange characters, many surprises and twists and turns. There is also some romance. This is also a set up for a series so watch for how everything’s leads to future actions.
Tension: There is plenty. The internal tension stems form Nikki’s need to write. The externals from all of the other characters who want a part of Nikki.
Characters: There are a lot. Nikki is very well drawn. She has several friends that play a part. Each is well developed. There is some mystery about some of the characters and the bad guys are just that, bad
Writing: The story is very well written. As I stated earlier my only problem was a lack o backgrounds in Japan , anime and mange. There were some parts that were out of chronological order. That fit the story but could be confusing.
I will continue to read the series but it will not be my favorite of the books written by Wen Spencer.
Worldbuilding: Eight Million Gods is set in Japan where there are many, many shrines and gods. The interaction of the main character with the shrines the gods and all things Japanese is the basis of the story. I am not a fan of manga or anime and a background with those would make this an easier world to drop into. In fact drop into without understanding is how I felt. I just did not have the background for the world and was often left in the dark. At one point I started to make this a DNF but pressed on and did get more caught up in the story. There are many terms used in the story that requires a glossary and there is one on pages 341 – 355. I needed it more than once. Ir is a complex world that has the potential for many, many stories.
Plot: Nikki is the main character and she is what drives the plot. She has powers she does not understand. When she escapes a Mother who wants to keep her locked up and goes to live in Japan strange things start to happen. The entire plot stems from there. Look for a lot of danger, strange characters, many surprises and twists and turns. There is also some romance. This is also a set up for a series so watch for how everything’s leads to future actions.
Tension: There is plenty. The internal tension stems form Nikki’s need to write. The externals from all of the other characters who want a part of Nikki.
Characters: There are a lot. Nikki is very well drawn. She has several friends that play a part. Each is well developed. There is some mystery about some of the characters and the bad guys are just that, bad
Writing: The story is very well written. As I stated earlier my only problem was a lack o backgrounds in Japan , anime and mange. There were some parts that were out of chronological order. That fit the story but could be confusing.
I will continue to read the series but it will not be my favorite of the books written by Wen Spencer.
November 23, 2019
As always, this Wen Spencer’s novel is based on a unique concept and masterfully executed. A fast moving, exotic escapade, the story takes place in Japan, where the heroine is hurtling like a random Brownian particle between Japanese deities, huge shopping malls, mysterious agents of the paranormal branch of the CIA, and her own imagination.
Nikki Delany is a twenty-year-old horror writer with OCD, which manifests as hypergraphia – an overpowering urge to write. To escape her domineering, super-rich mother, who wants to lock her daughter in a mental institution, Nikki flees America to Japan. She is writing a horror novel involving lots of dead people, a horde of menacing shapeshifters, and one or two scheming gods. Her fans clamor on her website, whenever she posts a new blood-curdling snippet from her novel. Her mother doesn’t know where Nikki is, so life seems good, if one disregards a massive culture shock, until Nikki collides with the terrible realization: what she writes might not be dark fantasy.
It might all be true. All those gods and shape-shifting raccoons in business suits might really exist, and the corpses in her story suddenly become real dead people, mentioned on the evening news. Afraid that she is losing her marbles, Nikki got enmeshed in a vengeful goddess’s plans as well as a police investigation.
Running for her life, she shuttles from one Japanese city to another, becomes possessed by a noble spirit, residing in a magical sword, and falls in love with an enigmatic half-blood Leo, who might or might not be in her mother’s employ. Or is he a local shapeshifter? Or an FBI agent? And by the way, Nikki is also trying to prevent an apocalypse – in her novel as well as in real life. Unfortunately, her fictional heroes are as ungovernable as the personages of Japanese mythology.
Have I puzzled you yet? That’s how this novel feels – a puzzle in a good, intriguing way, where every little piece sparkles with color and the author’s inventiveness. I usually don’t like reading about characters with mental problems, but Nikki caught my sympathy and held it from the first chapter to the last. Even though she constantly doubts herself, doesn’t like guns, and doesn’t do martial arts, unless her spiritual sword takes control of her body, she is definitely a heroine.
She is kind and absolutely loyal to her friends. Her courage is amazing, especially considering that since she was eight years old, she has been perpetually battling both her mother and a battalion of shrinks. I’d like to have a friend like her, someone for whom a betrayal is an impossibility, while a god making ceramic pots is an unquestionable reality.
Nikki represents a rare archetype in the fantasy genre – an artist. Her words literally change the world. In an oblique way, every writer affects life around him, even though the changes might not be as drastic as in Nikki’s case.
The novel feels a little bit like a spoofy caper, with subtle humor and a slightly surreal tone, but its pace is furious, its conflict deep, and its heroine’s insecurities keep you glued to the pages. The other characters are less alive though; I would give all of them about 2.5 dimensions; most of them are practically interchangeable. Fortunately, they don’t spoil the joy of reading this book.
The only objection I have is the profusion of Japanese words and names in the text. They are all spelled with Latin letters, all italicized, and all perplexing. Instead of adding to the book’s already strong ethnic flavor, they stop the story. The author included a glossary in the end of the book, but if I had to look up words several times a page, the process would’ve become irritating fast. So I didn’t. I scanned the Japanese words without understanding them and inferred their meaning from the normal English vocabulary surrounding them.
Otherwise, this novel is an engaging and original tale with a fascinating protagonist. Recommended for fantasy lovers.
Nikki Delany is a twenty-year-old horror writer with OCD, which manifests as hypergraphia – an overpowering urge to write. To escape her domineering, super-rich mother, who wants to lock her daughter in a mental institution, Nikki flees America to Japan. She is writing a horror novel involving lots of dead people, a horde of menacing shapeshifters, and one or two scheming gods. Her fans clamor on her website, whenever she posts a new blood-curdling snippet from her novel. Her mother doesn’t know where Nikki is, so life seems good, if one disregards a massive culture shock, until Nikki collides with the terrible realization: what she writes might not be dark fantasy.
It might all be true. All those gods and shape-shifting raccoons in business suits might really exist, and the corpses in her story suddenly become real dead people, mentioned on the evening news. Afraid that she is losing her marbles, Nikki got enmeshed in a vengeful goddess’s plans as well as a police investigation.
Running for her life, she shuttles from one Japanese city to another, becomes possessed by a noble spirit, residing in a magical sword, and falls in love with an enigmatic half-blood Leo, who might or might not be in her mother’s employ. Or is he a local shapeshifter? Or an FBI agent? And by the way, Nikki is also trying to prevent an apocalypse – in her novel as well as in real life. Unfortunately, her fictional heroes are as ungovernable as the personages of Japanese mythology.
Have I puzzled you yet? That’s how this novel feels – a puzzle in a good, intriguing way, where every little piece sparkles with color and the author’s inventiveness. I usually don’t like reading about characters with mental problems, but Nikki caught my sympathy and held it from the first chapter to the last. Even though she constantly doubts herself, doesn’t like guns, and doesn’t do martial arts, unless her spiritual sword takes control of her body, she is definitely a heroine.
She is kind and absolutely loyal to her friends. Her courage is amazing, especially considering that since she was eight years old, she has been perpetually battling both her mother and a battalion of shrinks. I’d like to have a friend like her, someone for whom a betrayal is an impossibility, while a god making ceramic pots is an unquestionable reality.
Nikki represents a rare archetype in the fantasy genre – an artist. Her words literally change the world. In an oblique way, every writer affects life around him, even though the changes might not be as drastic as in Nikki’s case.
The novel feels a little bit like a spoofy caper, with subtle humor and a slightly surreal tone, but its pace is furious, its conflict deep, and its heroine’s insecurities keep you glued to the pages. The other characters are less alive though; I would give all of them about 2.5 dimensions; most of them are practically interchangeable. Fortunately, they don’t spoil the joy of reading this book.
The only objection I have is the profusion of Japanese words and names in the text. They are all spelled with Latin letters, all italicized, and all perplexing. Instead of adding to the book’s already strong ethnic flavor, they stop the story. The author included a glossary in the end of the book, but if I had to look up words several times a page, the process would’ve become irritating fast. So I didn’t. I scanned the Japanese words without understanding them and inferred their meaning from the normal English vocabulary surrounding them.
Otherwise, this novel is an engaging and original tale with a fascinating protagonist. Recommended for fantasy lovers.
August 7, 2013
Finished this one today.
The story is intriguing and the characters are fun. Well Nikki and Atsumori are. Miriam is a bore and just a bit too otaku fan-girlie for me. Which is odd in a way because I grew up an otaku. I guess having lived in Japan, it never crossed my mind to act the way she does. Dress that way, yes. Harajuku and Shinjuku were my favorite hangouts but the squealing was a no.
I loved the way the kami are depicted, however. They're not juvenile in any way, with maybe a slight exception for Inari but ... it's Inari. Any god that uses foxes as a totem can't be entirely solemn at all times. The kitten was absolutely adorable as well. Really, though, I think Nikki--when she wasn't around Miriam and Pixii--was probably a favorite. Watching her discover herself was a joy.
However, I've run across a few issues of "where do you get your information, Ms Author?" The locations were fine; she had a good grasp of them. But I lived in Japan for years and there were some things that seemed to be based off of stereotypes and otaku-fangirling.
The majority of men in Japan are not shorter than 5'3", the main character's height. Speaking of which, 5'3" is actually close enough to the height of Japanese women that she should be able to easily find clothes in her size (a size 8 is a M in Japan). Even underwear should be easy enough to match.
Not every toilet in Japan is the trench type. In fact, going out in public, there are plenty of normal, Western style toilets to choose from. They're actually very sophisticated.
The book seems like it really could have used an editor, as well. Entire words are missing or the wrong one is used (it's gozaimasu, not goazimasu or gozaimaisu). A couple times I've had to re-read the sentence to figure out what was supposed to be said as the word that was missing/mangled was a key one and there were points where this happened in every paragraph on a page. Really. Editor.
The story is intriguing and the characters are fun. Well Nikki and Atsumori are. Miriam is a bore and just a bit too otaku fan-girlie for me. Which is odd in a way because I grew up an otaku. I guess having lived in Japan, it never crossed my mind to act the way she does. Dress that way, yes. Harajuku and Shinjuku were my favorite hangouts but the squealing was a no.
I loved the way the kami are depicted, however. They're not juvenile in any way, with maybe a slight exception for Inari but ... it's Inari. Any god that uses foxes as a totem can't be entirely solemn at all times. The kitten was absolutely adorable as well. Really, though, I think Nikki--when she wasn't around Miriam and Pixii--was probably a favorite. Watching her discover herself was a joy.
However, I've run across a few issues of "where do you get your information, Ms Author?" The locations were fine; she had a good grasp of them. But I lived in Japan for years and there were some things that seemed to be based off of stereotypes and otaku-fangirling.
The majority of men in Japan are not shorter than 5'3", the main character's height. Speaking of which, 5'3" is actually close enough to the height of Japanese women that she should be able to easily find clothes in her size (a size 8 is a M in Japan). Even underwear should be easy enough to match.
Not every toilet in Japan is the trench type. In fact, going out in public, there are plenty of normal, Western style toilets to choose from. They're actually very sophisticated.
The book seems like it really could have used an editor, as well. Entire words are missing or the wrong one is used (it's gozaimasu, not goazimasu or gozaimaisu). A couple times I've had to re-read the sentence to figure out what was supposed to be said as the word that was missing/mangled was a key one and there were points where this happened in every paragraph on a page. Really. Editor.
February 11, 2015
3.75 stars
It took me a while to get into this and it had nothing to do with the writing or plot - in fact once I relaxed into the story I thoroughly enjoyed it. My reluctance stemmed from the blurb's mention of mental illness and my resultant cautionary reading of reviews first. As a sufferer I felt forewarned was forearmed and despite being a fairly ardent Wen Spencer fan I had some trepidation - mummy issues and OCD and horror *shivers*. From the reviews I read, I felt my nerves were justified; yet I'd been unable to get it out of my head so I finally succumbed but proceeded cautiously. Unnecessarily so it turns out because the mental illness aspect? Pretty much inconsequential. Oh, I don't mean it's brushed past, treated irreverently or unrealistically; quite the opposite. But this is, as I should have realised (duh!) a fantasy novel. By awesome author Ms Wen Spencer. The OCD isn't even technically OCD, it's hypergraphia, it's overly diagnosed by mummy dearest and, most importantly, it's actually a key element that is integral to everything that happens and not really what it seems in the first place. And mother? She's a bitch, no doubt, but mostly off page. There are a few allusions to possible psychosomatic events but it's quickly established they are in fact occurring and after about 60% when none of my fears were forthcoming I settled down and actually began to totally enjoy this Japanese themed fantasy. I'll certainly be rereading and I suspect that it will be even better on second reading because I won't be nervously expecting anything other than a really good adventure story - that stands pretty damn good on it's own but would be equally well served by a sequel or two.
It took me a while to get into this and it had nothing to do with the writing or plot - in fact once I relaxed into the story I thoroughly enjoyed it. My reluctance stemmed from the blurb's mention of mental illness and my resultant cautionary reading of reviews first. As a sufferer I felt forewarned was forearmed and despite being a fairly ardent Wen Spencer fan I had some trepidation - mummy issues and OCD and horror *shivers*. From the reviews I read, I felt my nerves were justified; yet I'd been unable to get it out of my head so I finally succumbed but proceeded cautiously. Unnecessarily so it turns out because the mental illness aspect? Pretty much inconsequential. Oh, I don't mean it's brushed past, treated irreverently or unrealistically; quite the opposite. But this is, as I should have realised (duh!) a fantasy novel. By awesome author Ms Wen Spencer. The OCD isn't even technically OCD, it's hypergraphia, it's overly diagnosed by mummy dearest and, most importantly, it's actually a key element that is integral to everything that happens and not really what it seems in the first place. And mother? She's a bitch, no doubt, but mostly off page. There are a few allusions to possible psychosomatic events but it's quickly established they are in fact occurring and after about 60% when none of my fears were forthcoming I settled down and actually began to totally enjoy this Japanese themed fantasy. I'll certainly be rereading and I suspect that it will be even better on second reading because I won't be nervously expecting anything other than a really good adventure story - that stands pretty damn good on it's own but would be equally well served by a sequel or two.
December 14, 2013
SIX STARS!
I loved this book. It reminded me right away of Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies but set in Japan and with a righteous heroine just trying to be herself, sort of.
From the amazing scenery to the myths and stories of Japan, this book drags you kicking and screaming into every horrific minute.
Imagine being a teenage daughter of a senator. Then there is the unhappy condition of her hypergraphia - or an unrelenting obsession to write whenever anxious or scared, no matter where or what you are doing. Her mother's way of dealing with it, even though Nikki is fully capable in every other way of looking after herself, is to hospitalize her continuously. So Nikki heads half a world away, to live in Japan with her best friend.
As if culture shock and the lack of toilet paper wasn't shocking enough, Nikki finds herself being questioned by police when her horror blog resembles a murder that happened just hours after her post. And the details are the same. the names almost identical...
What is Nikki in for and who is killing people that match her book ideas and blogs?
I loved this book. It reminded me right away of Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies but set in Japan and with a righteous heroine just trying to be herself, sort of.
From the amazing scenery to the myths and stories of Japan, this book drags you kicking and screaming into every horrific minute.
Imagine being a teenage daughter of a senator. Then there is the unhappy condition of her hypergraphia - or an unrelenting obsession to write whenever anxious or scared, no matter where or what you are doing. Her mother's way of dealing with it, even though Nikki is fully capable in every other way of looking after herself, is to hospitalize her continuously. So Nikki heads half a world away, to live in Japan with her best friend.
As if culture shock and the lack of toilet paper wasn't shocking enough, Nikki finds herself being questioned by police when her horror blog resembles a murder that happened just hours after her post. And the details are the same. the names almost identical...
What is Nikki in for and who is killing people that match her book ideas and blogs?
July 31, 2017
The latest book by one of those authors that I don't know anyone else that reads. I picked up Wen Spencer when I was looking to leave Atlanta - her books were placed in Pittsburgh and I was looking at Pittsburgh. This book is set primarily in the location and mythology of Japan and as such I'm sure I missed many of the references. It was a bit of a confused wild ride but Nikki and her friends are kind of a hoot. Kind of a murder mystery clairvoyant/precognition manga romp that unfortunately fell over near the end. I was also a bit disappointed that the cover never really happened - though I think it might have been an accurate portrayal of Nikki and Miriam. Call it 3.5 due to the rush ending.
March 22, 2020
A good escapist fantasy story. There could have been a lot of improvements but it was entertaining enough. Felt like a typical urban fantasy novel but set in Japan with Eastern Mythology at its core. Would have been nice to see more Japanese representation. But still a fun enough adventure for the few hours it took to get through.
March 18, 2020
Definitely 4.5 stars not sure if i'll read it again soon but boy was it fun to listen to.
August 8, 2014
There's a saying among expats in Japan: "If you stay here for a week, you write a book. If you stay here for a month, you write an article. If you stay here for a year, you don't write anything." I suspect Wen Spencer has spent a week in Japan.
I really wanted to like this book. Japan appeals to me enough for me to have made it my home for more than a decade, and I've always been fascinated by Japanese folklore and mythology. The idea of a book dealing with folklore in modern Japan appealed, but unfortunately this book falls down on several fronts.
The Japan presented in this book is a mixed bag. Some aspects (perhaps not coincidentally those that a Western tourist would encounter over the course of a short stay, such as subway station coin lockers, or a description of the Gion festival) are represented authentically, with almost fetishistic detail. Other bits are embarrassingly off. The use of the Japanese language is frequently suspect; Osaka locale "Dōtonbori" is misspelled consistently throughout the book, as is the "jorogumo" monster name. Prices for things tend to off by a factor of ten, and the protagonist shops with bills that don't exist (\100,000?). It's also a bit strange as someone who has lived in rural Japan to see tanuki ("raccoon dogs," which basically combine the least threatening aspects of both animals) presented as a dangerous menace. Most of the Japanese mythology was represented accurately, but fairly shallowly. It was blatantly obvious that this was Japan viewed through an anime/manga lens; there's actually a pretty cringe-worthy section where characters remark "This is just like that bit in Inuyasha! Or Naruto!" I guess this is a book you can judge by its katana-wielding schoolgirl cover.
None of the characters really appealed to me. Heroine Nikki has hypographia, a mental disorder characterized by a severe compulsion to write, but this felt like a trivial depiction, as is common for obsessive compulsive disorder. Her hypographia turns out to be more of a supernatural gift than a mental disorder, which could excuse some of this, but it still reminded me of flaky girls using "I'm SO OCD!" as an excuse for minor personality quirks, when the real thing isn't so cute and harmless.
It also bothered me that the only prominent Japanese characters were basically spirits on the periphery. The main character, her friends, the shadowy organization operating in Japan, are all foreign. Leo is half-Japanese, at least, but he was raised in Hawaii by a Brit and serves little purpose in the plot but to beat people up, get beat up, and be sexy for the heroine. The actual Japanese characters are basically all deities, including dead historical--although this strangely isn't played up in the text--figure Taira no Atsumori. It's fun reading about foreigners active in Japan (hell, I AM one), but reducing Japanese people to props, obstacles, and Yoda-like mentors does them a great disservice, especially after borrowing so many of the cool trappings of their culture.
The plot *feels* fast-paced, but there were so many dead ends and tangents that even with its exuberant tone, this book was a struggle to get through. There's a late plot twist involving protagonist Nikki's mother that feels extremely contrived, and the book's final confrontation is breathtakingly anticlimactic.
If you like Young Adult books, anime, and dream about maybe visiting Japan someday, this may be a good book for you. If you're expecting a more adult book (it wasn't marketed as YA, although it should have been), or if you're more acquainted with Japan and/or less than enthused about the manga Inuyasha, this is probably one to skip.
I really wanted to like this book. Japan appeals to me enough for me to have made it my home for more than a decade, and I've always been fascinated by Japanese folklore and mythology. The idea of a book dealing with folklore in modern Japan appealed, but unfortunately this book falls down on several fronts.
The Japan presented in this book is a mixed bag. Some aspects (perhaps not coincidentally those that a Western tourist would encounter over the course of a short stay, such as subway station coin lockers, or a description of the Gion festival) are represented authentically, with almost fetishistic detail. Other bits are embarrassingly off. The use of the Japanese language is frequently suspect; Osaka locale "Dōtonbori" is misspelled consistently throughout the book, as is the "jorogumo" monster name. Prices for things tend to off by a factor of ten, and the protagonist shops with bills that don't exist (\100,000?). It's also a bit strange as someone who has lived in rural Japan to see tanuki ("raccoon dogs," which basically combine the least threatening aspects of both animals) presented as a dangerous menace. Most of the Japanese mythology was represented accurately, but fairly shallowly. It was blatantly obvious that this was Japan viewed through an anime/manga lens; there's actually a pretty cringe-worthy section where characters remark "This is just like that bit in Inuyasha! Or Naruto!" I guess this is a book you can judge by its katana-wielding schoolgirl cover.
None of the characters really appealed to me. Heroine Nikki has hypographia, a mental disorder characterized by a severe compulsion to write, but this felt like a trivial depiction, as is common for obsessive compulsive disorder. Her hypographia turns out to be more of a supernatural gift than a mental disorder, which could excuse some of this, but it still reminded me of flaky girls using "I'm SO OCD!" as an excuse for minor personality quirks, when the real thing isn't so cute and harmless.
It also bothered me that the only prominent Japanese characters were basically spirits on the periphery. The main character, her friends, the shadowy organization operating in Japan, are all foreign. Leo is half-Japanese, at least, but he was raised in Hawaii by a Brit and serves little purpose in the plot but to beat people up, get beat up, and be sexy for the heroine. The actual Japanese characters are basically all deities, including dead historical--although this strangely isn't played up in the text--figure Taira no Atsumori. It's fun reading about foreigners active in Japan (hell, I AM one), but reducing Japanese people to props, obstacles, and Yoda-like mentors does them a great disservice, especially after borrowing so many of the cool trappings of their culture.
The plot *feels* fast-paced, but there were so many dead ends and tangents that even with its exuberant tone, this book was a struggle to get through. There's a late plot twist involving protagonist Nikki's mother that feels extremely contrived, and the book's final confrontation is breathtakingly anticlimactic.
If you like Young Adult books, anime, and dream about maybe visiting Japan someday, this may be a good book for you. If you're expecting a more adult book (it wasn't marketed as YA, although it should have been), or if you're more acquainted with Japan and/or less than enthused about the manga Inuyasha, this is probably one to skip.
January 2, 2015
Conceptually, Eight Million Gods is pretty cool, and manages to pull off the whole "is the narrator crazy, or isn't she?" theme a lot better than many stories that try it. Spencer's pattern of jumping back and forth between scenes taking place in reality, and scenes from Nikki's writing is in large part to thank for this. That said, this book does suffer from some problems with pacing (with a final confrontation that felt particularly rushed), and, more damningly, editing.
I'll touch on the pacing in a bit, but as for the editing, I can sum it up best by saying it feels like there wasn't any. If I had a dime for every misspelling, grammatical error, or place in a sentence where two clearly different drafts failed to come together, I wouldn't have had to pay a cent for this book. At its worst, it's rare for ten pages to go by without some kind of error--that's inexcusable in a professionally-published book. Particularly when some of the mistakes are as egregious as "Nikki" becoming "Nakki" for a page or two.
As for the pacing, things start out great. From the opening section where Nikki's fleeing from her mother, to the beginning of the supernatural elements in Japan, Eight Million Gods keeps up a good, enjoyable clip. But then things begin to go wrong, as most of the action starts happening around the characters, instead of directly to them. It eventually gets to the point where it feels as if they're playing one long game of catch-up, until Spencer decides to wrap everything up all at once. Disappointing.
All in all, I'm not sad that I picked this up, but I do wish it had carried its engaging first act through its entire length. But between the navel-gazing of the third act, and the chronic lack of any proofreading, Eight Million Gods did try my patience at times.
I'll touch on the pacing in a bit, but as for the editing, I can sum it up best by saying it feels like there wasn't any. If I had a dime for every misspelling, grammatical error, or place in a sentence where two clearly different drafts failed to come together, I wouldn't have had to pay a cent for this book. At its worst, it's rare for ten pages to go by without some kind of error--that's inexcusable in a professionally-published book. Particularly when some of the mistakes are as egregious as "Nikki" becoming "Nakki" for a page or two.
As for the pacing, things start out great. From the opening section where Nikki's fleeing from her mother, to the beginning of the supernatural elements in Japan, Eight Million Gods keeps up a good, enjoyable clip. But then things begin to go wrong, as most of the action starts happening around the characters, instead of directly to them. It eventually gets to the point where it feels as if they're playing one long game of catch-up, until Spencer decides to wrap everything up all at once. Disappointing.
All in all, I'm not sad that I picked this up, but I do wish it had carried its engaging first act through its entire length. But between the navel-gazing of the third act, and the chronic lack of any proofreading, Eight Million Gods did try my patience at times.
August 23, 2014
This was a great, fun book. It's a complete story, but Spencer could easily write another book about these main characters if she wished. As I loved them, I'd be perfectly happy it she did. However, I'm equally happy if she doesn't, as it ended well. I felt the same about one of her other stand alone books, Endless Blue. Both are a little on the quirky side and both are well worth a read.
I know nothing about Japan and Japanese culture, so I can't comment at all about accuracy or respect. But there was certainly a feeling of respect to the story.
Nikki's power is a wonderful one, especially for anyone who's ever felt caught up by the writer's muse (or felt pulled down by an OCD-like moment).
I also liked that while Spencer created a cool love interest for the heroine, he's not always rushing up and saving the day. She does her fair share of saving and at the point where he was totally out of the story and she was adventuring with her girlfriends I did a little jump of joy. It's awesome that the power of girls being friends is equally strong or stronger that the power of finding someone, in this case a man, to love.
To quote Seanan McGuire, Nikki is wicked girl saving herself (http://seananmcguire.com/songbook.php?id=238) with the help of all her friends and she's awesome doing it.
I do have to agree that the "insta-love" came from nowhere and had very little behind it (there was too much else going on in the story to fit it in) but I'm willing to give that a pass and take it on faith, thanks to the power of the rest of the story.
I know nothing about Japan and Japanese culture, so I can't comment at all about accuracy or respect. But there was certainly a feeling of respect to the story.
Nikki's power is a wonderful one, especially for anyone who's ever felt caught up by the writer's muse (or felt pulled down by an OCD-like moment).
I also liked that while Spencer created a cool love interest for the heroine, he's not always rushing up and saving the day. She does her fair share of saving and at the point where he was totally out of the story and she was adventuring with her girlfriends I did a little jump of joy. It's awesome that the power of girls being friends is equally strong or stronger that the power of finding someone, in this case a man, to love.
To quote Seanan McGuire, Nikki is wicked girl saving herself (http://seananmcguire.com/songbook.php?id=238) with the help of all her friends and she's awesome doing it.
I do have to agree that the "insta-love" came from nowhere and had very little behind it (there was too much else going on in the story to fit it in) but I'm willing to give that a pass and take it on faith, thanks to the power of the rest of the story.
October 16, 2015
Nikki Delany is not your average girl. For years, she's had to deal with Hypergraphia, a compulsion to write, often taking the form of gory horror, and her overbearing mother, determined to lock her "insane" daughter up for good. Escaping to Japan, Nikki begins her second novel and, while things go good for a time, disaster soon strikes; an American has been murdered and the method bears a striking resemblance to a scene from Nikki's current work. Coming under suspicion from the police, Nikki soon begins to discover the line between fantasy and reality are not so well defined for her as more and more events from her book begin to occur. When a boy god, visible only to Nikki, appears on the scene however, it sparks a chain of events that will lead her to the brink of sanity. Along the way, she will discover that, as with her books, utter destruction waits just over the horizon and, joined by Leo, a secret agent with a past shrouded in mystery, she must do everything she can to save not only herself, but all of Japan.
Wen Spencer displays a mastery of storytelling not often seen this day and age. Eight Million Gods is a wonderful adventure that will have you desperately following young Nikki as she deals with rampaging tanuki, playful gods, vengeful goddesses, and abilities she never knew she had. I highly recommend to anyone looking for a very enjoyable fantasy.
Wen Spencer displays a mastery of storytelling not often seen this day and age. Eight Million Gods is a wonderful adventure that will have you desperately following young Nikki as she deals with rampaging tanuki, playful gods, vengeful goddesses, and abilities she never knew she had. I highly recommend to anyone looking for a very enjoyable fantasy.
November 3, 2013
"Raccoon Dogs Ripped My Flesh!" A very well done example of the sort of thing it is. Monsters, internet friends, mysteries, a missing sword, parents, good things to eat, a problematic rock, more mysteries, gangsters, the water trade, treachery, shrines, shrine maidens, answers to mysteries. I greatly enjoyed reading about likeable characters doing things that matter, and will now seek out the author's other books to see if they're as much fun as this one was.
Given the attention to detail on the Japanese setting, it's odd that it sometimes mixes up ten thousand yen and hundred thousand yen (even in the glossary), but if you just pretend it uses the right one, no harm results.
Also, if you have Tanuki in the first act, and drums in the third act, it is only natural to desire Tanuki drumming, and yet.
I recommend watching the Studio Ghibli film "Pom Poko" either before or after reading this, but then I recommend watching all Studio Ghibli films, so there's that.
Given the attention to detail on the Japanese setting, it's odd that it sometimes mixes up ten thousand yen and hundred thousand yen (even in the glossary), but if you just pretend it uses the right one, no harm results.
Also, if you have Tanuki in the first act, and drums in the third act, it is only natural to desire Tanuki drumming, and yet.
I recommend watching the Studio Ghibli film "Pom Poko" either before or after reading this, but then I recommend watching all Studio Ghibli films, so there's that.
June 19, 2014
This was my first Wen Spencer novel. It was recommended to me by a friend. And I was very impressed - though said friend tells me other novels by the author are even better!
The story was gripping and hard to put down and I really liked the characters. I loved "writing about writing". Unlike most other authors or screenwriters I've experienced, I thought Spencer got the proper feel for gaijin in Japan; didn't hammer in "ooo this is foreign" references but didn't treat the reader as dumb that we couldn't figure out the culture. Basically, it felt like seeing through the eyes of someone who had studied Japan and been living in Japan for a short time - as the main character has.
My only real complaint (and generally this becomes big one) is I felt the ending was a bit too rushed. I don't want to say more to avoid spoilers.
The story was gripping and hard to put down and I really liked the characters. I loved "writing about writing". Unlike most other authors or screenwriters I've experienced, I thought Spencer got the proper feel for gaijin in Japan; didn't hammer in "ooo this is foreign" references but didn't treat the reader as dumb that we couldn't figure out the culture. Basically, it felt like seeing through the eyes of someone who had studied Japan and been living in Japan for a short time - as the main character has.
My only real complaint (and generally this becomes big one) is I felt the ending was a bit too rushed. I don't want to say more to avoid spoilers.
March 6, 2015
Awesome. I wish I had read this sooner. For some reason when I first started this book a year or so ago I couldn't finish it, it was DNF at 5% or so. But I was in a Wen Spencer drought the other day and remembered there was this book of hers that I never finished so I took another run at it. If this is her first book you've considered reading, do yourself a favour and read the other books too, they're all awesome to some degree or another and I don't use the term lightly.
This book: I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 initially because I had trouble finishing it the first time around. But after further consideration I decided to give it 5 after all. It's good and I wish there were more, like, say, a series... :). Wen Spencer is not fast in writing but any book of hers is an auto-add on my TBR pile.
This book: I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 initially because I had trouble finishing it the first time around. But after further consideration I decided to give it 5 after all. It's good and I wish there were more, like, say, a series... :). Wen Spencer is not fast in writing but any book of hers is an auto-add on my TBR pile.
July 5, 2013
Baen's 'buy-an-ARC-two-months-early' is a wonderful, wonderful thing. While $15 is steep for an e-book, it's cheaper than buying the hardcover. A perfect program for people who lack all patience when it comes to books.
Anyways, what I love best about Spencer's books is her world-building. She always has the most unique and creative plots. While the Elfhome series remains my favorite, Eight Million Gods is practically designed to be required reading for fans of anime and Japanese culture. However, there was a lot going on and some bits seemed very 'insider.' I would have recommended streamlining it and tightening it up a bit, but perhaps the finished book is in better shape.
Anyways, what I love best about Spencer's books is her world-building. She always has the most unique and creative plots. While the Elfhome series remains my favorite, Eight Million Gods is practically designed to be required reading for fans of anime and Japanese culture. However, there was a lot going on and some bits seemed very 'insider.' I would have recommended streamlining it and tightening it up a bit, but perhaps the finished book is in better shape.
June 4, 2013
what a fun read! I know nothing about Japanese mythos, so this book was especially interesting to me. Spencer is a great writer, and she manages to weave together a brilliant story using very unique parts. Definitely recommend it to fans of urban fantasy who are looking for a fresh take on the genre.
April 14, 2015
An American writer who gets caught up in a different world when what she writes comes to pass. Loved how the Japanese Mythology tied in with the culture of Japan. Romance mixed with mystery this novel has all of the twists you never expect.
February 2, 2015
I found this a thoroughly engaging tale combining the best of mystery, thriller, and urban fantasy. It was made all the more fascinating by being set in Japan and told through the eyes of someone for whom the language and culture still held surprises, if not the utter shock that I would feel.
November 5, 2015
Another interesting world by Wen Spencer. My biggest problem with her books is unwillingness to put them down to do anything else, like sleep. Love the characters and the setting in Japan. This may finally get me to try manga again.
July 6, 2015
Wow! This was awesome! I found it confusing at first with Nikki's writing and what was actually happening. Great story!
February 5, 2016
This book was written for a specific audience. I was not it.
August 3, 2019
Reread - better than the first time.
July 7, 2022
Other than the painful cover, this was a very good fantasy story that involved some really unusual concepts, like a mythic origin for an obsessive-compulsive behavior.
At this point I should probably explain my problems with the cover. Not only is there no scene in the book which resembles this cover scene, but the body types and clothing are just weird. For instance, the young woman who is wearing a sex-shop version of a schoolgirl outfit is, in the story, a trained martial artist with three black belts, has a genuine human physique, and is not carrying a sword. The other young woman, who is the main character in the story, is drawn to be unusually skinny. No reason for it, the artist just drew her funny. I'm not sure who the figure in the background is. At least the tanuki are drawn reasonably, except, oh, wait, they're shapeshifters who would look human during this fight. So, the artist didn't actually get anything right except for the fact that the main character really did have a sword, but the one on the cover looks like an odachi rather than an antique katana, which is what she would have had in her hands. Yes, I'm being picky, but it would actually matter in the story.
The story is much better than the cover. The main character, Nikki, has an odd form of OCD which causes her to write fiction obsessively, especially whenever she gets stressed. She's finally gotten support for this by getting a novel published, but she's on the run from her mother, who keeps getting her put into medical care for this seemingly harmless condition. Since her mother is both wealthy and a politician, she's been managing to do this repeatedly, but the reasons are part of the plot, eventually.
In any case Nikki has managed to get to Japan to continue her writing and to be on a different continent from her mother. This has gotten her caught up in some really weird things, but also gotten her to realize that her writing isn't at all what it seems, and might actually be important.
The result is an action/adventure story of really strange proportions, at least if you count the Japanese gods as being as big as the legends say, and that it's a fun and interesting story.
At this point I should probably explain my problems with the cover. Not only is there no scene in the book which resembles this cover scene, but the body types and clothing are just weird. For instance, the young woman who is wearing a sex-shop version of a schoolgirl outfit is, in the story, a trained martial artist with three black belts, has a genuine human physique, and is not carrying a sword. The other young woman, who is the main character in the story, is drawn to be unusually skinny. No reason for it, the artist just drew her funny. I'm not sure who the figure in the background is. At least the tanuki are drawn reasonably, except, oh, wait, they're shapeshifters who would look human during this fight. So, the artist didn't actually get anything right except for the fact that the main character really did have a sword, but the one on the cover looks like an odachi rather than an antique katana, which is what she would have had in her hands. Yes, I'm being picky, but it would actually matter in the story.
The story is much better than the cover. The main character, Nikki, has an odd form of OCD which causes her to write fiction obsessively, especially whenever she gets stressed. She's finally gotten support for this by getting a novel published, but she's on the run from her mother, who keeps getting her put into medical care for this seemingly harmless condition. Since her mother is both wealthy and a politician, she's been managing to do this repeatedly, but the reasons are part of the plot, eventually.
In any case Nikki has managed to get to Japan to continue her writing and to be on a different continent from her mother. This has gotten her caught up in some really weird things, but also gotten her to realize that her writing isn't at all what it seems, and might actually be important.
The result is an action/adventure story of really strange proportions, at least if you count the Japanese gods as being as big as the legends say, and that it's a fun and interesting story.
June 10, 2022
So I first came to Spencer's writing through the Ukiah Oregon series and then kind of lost track of her for a long time. Apparently, this came out in 2013...so I'm a little behind. Its been on my TBR for ages and I finally was able to get my hands on it.
Nikki is a USA citizen living in Tokyo to hide from her domineering mother. She's got an obsessive compulsive habit of writing-- only what she writes is usually right out of Japanese horror manga with creatures, blood, swords, and modern characters who end up dying.
Her fiction has developed an online fanbase, some of whom live in Tokyo, so that's where she ended up. Only, when she ends up at a shrine eerily similar to one of her writings, and is attacked by scary not-humans, she begins to realize that maybe her writings aren't entirely fiction after all.
What follows is Nikki, her friends, and shadowy operative traveling around Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and various shrines and famous places to unravel the machinations of an angry god-- all in time for the famous Gion Matsuri festival.
There are tons of little references to life in Tokyo that made me think Spencer had probably lived there at one time-- including offhand reference to children's rhymes like Jugemu Jugemu, etc. There are lots of little fandom easter eggs, like references to Disney movies and Naruto. It's a romp.
Sadly, there's lots of typos. Missing words in sentences, etc. At times the narrative flow becomes a bit confusing as Nikki is possessed by Taira no Atsumori and also writes from the POV of other people in the book due to her special power, so POV gets super-confusing (and all the voices sound the same so not much to distinguish them).
Despite its age, the book does hold up, don't be fooled by the old weird fantasy cover, the contents are more modern urban fantasy then schlocky manga.
Nikki is a USA citizen living in Tokyo to hide from her domineering mother. She's got an obsessive compulsive habit of writing-- only what she writes is usually right out of Japanese horror manga with creatures, blood, swords, and modern characters who end up dying.
Her fiction has developed an online fanbase, some of whom live in Tokyo, so that's where she ended up. Only, when she ends up at a shrine eerily similar to one of her writings, and is attacked by scary not-humans, she begins to realize that maybe her writings aren't entirely fiction after all.
What follows is Nikki, her friends, and shadowy operative traveling around Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and various shrines and famous places to unravel the machinations of an angry god-- all in time for the famous Gion Matsuri festival.
There are tons of little references to life in Tokyo that made me think Spencer had probably lived there at one time-- including offhand reference to children's rhymes like Jugemu Jugemu, etc. There are lots of little fandom easter eggs, like references to Disney movies and Naruto. It's a romp.
Sadly, there's lots of typos. Missing words in sentences, etc. At times the narrative flow becomes a bit confusing as Nikki is possessed by Taira no Atsumori and also writes from the POV of other people in the book due to her special power, so POV gets super-confusing (and all the voices sound the same so not much to distinguish them).
Despite its age, the book does hold up, don't be fooled by the old weird fantasy cover, the contents are more modern urban fantasy then schlocky manga.
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