Kōtarō Isaka (伊坂幸太郎, Isaka Koutarou) is a Japanese author of mystery fiction.
Isaka was born in Matsudo City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from the law faculty of Tohoku University, he worked as a system engineer. Isaka quit his company job and focused on writing after hearing Kazuyoshi Saito's 1997 song "Kōfuku na Chōshoku Taikutsu na Yūshoku", and the two have collaborated several times. In 2000, Isaka won the Shincho Mystery Club Prize for his debut novel Ōdyubon no Inori, after which he became a full-time writer. In 2002, Isaka's novel Lush Life gained much critical acclaim, but it was his Naoki Prize-nominated work Jūryoku Piero (2003) that brought him popular success. His following work Ahiru to Kamo no Koin Rokkā won the 25th Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers. Jūryoku Piero (2003), Children (2004), Grasshopper (2004), Shinigami no Seido (2005) and Sabaku (2006) were all nominated for the Naoki Prize. Isaka was the only author in Japan to be nominated for the Hon'ya Taishō in each of the award's first four years, finally winning in 2008 with Golden Slumber. The same work also won the 21st Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize.
This is the same author who wrote the story of the movie Bullet Train starring Brad Pitt. (original title is "Maria Beetle") I enjoyed reading that book so much! Ever since I read that book I craved for more of Kotaro Isaka's books.
This book had 8 short stories and all of them are connected. In this story, an asteroid is going to fall 8 years later and the world is going to end. We get to follow several different people; A married couple who is about to have a baby, a teenage girl who lost her parents, a father and daughter who hasnt spoken to one another for a long time...
For me it took an hour to finish each story. It was easy to take a break. I enjoyed reading first four of the stories but there were many characters to keep up and I got confused. I took a note at first but I got tired of listing characters names. lol I think its cool to find a character that came up in the previous story show up again in another story but I got so tired of keeping up.
I got excited when Wes Craven's "People Under the Stairs"was mentioned in the first story. Such an awesome horror movie!
A collection of short stories in a setting where the world is ending. The characters work towards reconciling their long-standing family conflicts to bravely face the end of the world and keep living to the end.