Crab

Legend of the Five Rings: Clan War #5

by Stan Brown

The Crab is the fifth novel in this hot, seven-book series. The ongoing storyline was based on decisions made by fans themselves during trading card game tournaments.

For centuries, the Crab Clan has protected the empire against the demon armies of the Shadowlands. Now, faced with a showdown against all the other clans in the empire, the Crab Clan abandons its history and allies itself with the very evil it has so long opposed.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, High Fantasy

281 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2001

About the author

Also known as Steven "Stan!" Brown

Reviews

[Nathaniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5. more coherent than The Crane, perhaps, but the characterization is extremely flat or nonsensical. Kisada makes a good contrast to Shoju here: you can see how, from Shoju’s point of view, the coup makes sense and is consistent with his worldview and values; but there’s no convincing way to rationalize Kisada’s actions in-world. it’s supposed to be another pride-before-the-fall thing but it just doesn’t work.

this book also suffers from the same problem as The Phoenix, namely: how on earth does this fit into the timeline? why was the Emperor’s declaration of how he’d choose a successor not mentioned in any of the preceding books that also included the lead-up to the Battle of Beiden Pass? and — especially coming right after The Phoenix — what happened to Junzo, who we’ve just established as the leader of the bulk(?) of Fu Leng’s forces?

so: flat characters, continuity that doesn’t fit with the rest of the series. the one real plus is the Hitomi moments — in another setting, they could have been very funny. one of them featured unequivocally the funniest two sentences in the whole series so far: “He knew the voice. It filled him with lust and desire—bloodlust and the desire to silence the speaker forever.”

unfortunately, though, these sentences are apparently supposed to be read not as humorous, parodic melodrama but entirely in earnest.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one actually covers all the timeline of all the prior books before it and then continues the story, all from the perspective of the Crab Clan. After years of protecting the rest of the Emerald Empire from the Shadowlands at the Carpenter’s Wall, the Crab surprisingly ally themselves with their previous enemies to stop civil war from consuming Rokugan. It was interesting to see the other books from another point of view and also see the justification for the Crab’s unexpected moves, but sometimes the story glossed past events that were mentioned in other books. Obviously no one would read this without having read the prior books (not without being super confused), but it was a little weird with how many “fade to blacks” and time jumps there were. I’m not saying I wanted to slough through dozens of battle sequences—there were more than enough of those—but it happened quite a few times so that the book felt like it was missing something. I’m not sure that the justifications for decisions felt realistic or true enough for my taste, but overall, it was an enjoyable read.

[Serge Pierro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a fan of the Legend of the Five Rings CCG, this series of books were a must read. Of course the fanboy element probably added an additional star to the rating, but it was fun to read about the world created within the CCG, and have the characters fleshed out beyond the text on the cards. Even non-fans of the game would find this to be an enjoyable read (although for them, only three stars).