Book Review - THE SWORD OF KAIGEN by M.L.Wang

 

(Title: The Sword of Kaigen / Author: M.L. Wang / Publisher: Self-Published / Publication Date: February 19, 2019 / Pages: 651)

Book Blurb: 

A mother struggling to repress her violent past, 

A son struggling to grasp his violent future,

A father blind to the danger that threatens them all.

When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire?  Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?

High on the mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice.  For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have hel the Empire's enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name "The Sword of Kaigen".

Born into Kusanagi's legendary Matsuda family, fourteen year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family's fighting techniques and defend his homeland.  But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen's alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be.  Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.

Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house.  Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country.  But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.

Review:

This is a review that I have kind of agonized over, mostly because it seems like the vast majority of readers have been glowingly positive about it and I ultimately didn't feel the same way when all was said and done.  I will try my best to explain the reasons why I thought it was a good book, but also the reasons why it just didn't connect with me in the same way that it did many others.

Mamoru is a 14 year-old boy who has been trained in the arts of swordsmanship since birth.  The son of one of the most legendary warriors and defenders of the Kaigenese Empire, Mamoru understands that he is to follow in the grand tradition of those men who came before in his long and storied lineage.  It's a lot of pressure to put on someone so young, but his father is unforgiving in his expectations and discipline, often bloodying his son up in their tireless training sessions.

Mamoru's mother Misaki is torn by conflicting responsibilities.  Trapped in a marriage with someone who she doesn't like, much less love, she understands her responsibilities as a loyal wife who must provide more male descendants that will eventually become warriors for the kingdom.  Yet she secretly yearns for an earlier time and an earlier love.  She is also fiercely protective of her children, Mamoru in particular.  So when whispers of a coming invasion of the Kusanagi Peninsula by a rival nation that has tried to do so in the past reach her ears, she takes it more seriously than most who believe their empire to be impenetrable and impervious to harm from any outside force.

And when Mamoru accidentally stumbles upon a secret that casts the Kaigenes Empire's legendary history in doubt, it could have serious ramifications for the storm that may be on the horizon.  That storm is most certainly growing, make no mistake.  Will complacency and a feeling of invincibility be a worse enemy to the famed warriors of Kaigen than any physical army could?  A reckoning is surely coming, maybe sooner than anyone believes.

I had very mixed feelings with regard to THE SWORD OF KAIGEN.  When I started reading this book I was really excited, since it seemed that the majority of reviewers that I know and respect spoke in the highest possible terms about it.  Naturally that cause me to have pretty lofty expectations indeed.  But as I got deeper into the book, I was increasingly struck by the fact that not a lot happens in the first 230 pages or so.

There's much thoughtful conversation among the characters, A LOT of conversation.  There's also quite a bit of flashback chapters to Misaki's earlier life.  I understand that it can sometimes take a while to set events up in a book and so I was very patient in this regard.  However, I found myself putting the book down for a good amount of the first third of it, which isn't an encouraging thing.  The prose was absolutely beautiful and the writing had a decent flow to it, but the story itself just never grabbed my attention for some reason.  Also, many of the characters seemed to grate on me and I thought that Mamoru's father especially was depicted as such an extremely stern disciplinarian and jerk, that he almost felt like a caricature at times.

When things really did start to pick up around 40% into the book is when I finally began to get into the story somewhat.  There are some incredibly vivid scenes of battle and also some very moving and gut-wrenching moments to be sure.  We see a deep dynamic between mother and son that is unbreakable and how tormented Misaki is by her feelings of duty, set against the love and devotion that she has for Mamoru and her other children.  We also experience Misaki's inner strength as a warrior herself shine through as she battles both impossible odds an archaic stereotypes of a rigid caste system bent on keeping her down.

My problem is that all of this came a bit too late and by the time the action did ramp up for the final push, I just didn't care as much and wasn't invested the way I should had I been more connected to the characters.  So the ending fell a little flat for me unfortunately.  Having said that, I do see why people enjoyed this book.  It's a solid fantasy tale that touches on a lot of mythology and magic, and does so very effectively.  For me though, it was good but not extraordinary.  Since it won last year's SPFBO competition, it appears I am kind of out of step with the conventional wisdom though.

Rating: 6.5/10