Salvation of a Saint - Keigo Higashino (4.3🌟)

Salvation of a Saint is a thriller, crime novel originally written in Japanese in 2008 and translated into English in 2012 by Alexander O. Smith. It is fast paced, original, mind blowing and great fun.

As in The Devotion of Suspect X we meet the same detective Kusanagi who is investigating the mysterious dead of Yoshitaka Mashiba, a wealthy business man. Mashiba is found dead by his lover at his department after drinking a cup of poisoned coffee. The wife had been away visiting her parents in another city and Kusanagi suspects the mistress. However, his assistant, Detective Kaoru Utsumi, suspects the wife. She has not proof to support her suspicion though, but she trusts her instincts. She also believes Kusanagi is falling for the widow. After a couple of days into the investigation and unable to find any clue as to how the poison got into the coffee, Utsumi calls Professor Manabu Yukawa (detective Galileo). (We had previously met Yukawa in The Devotion of Suspect X.) Yukawa agrees to help the police only because he is struck by Kusanagi’s situation. However the more Detective Galileo thinks about the problem the more he is convinced this is an impossible murder.

Opinion: I completely agree with the quote in the front cover of the book “You’ll want to finish it in a single night”. I couldn’t finish it in one night, because no time, but I did finish it in three nights. This is not a “whodunit” but a “howdunnit” kind of novel. That is, we are told about the murder and strong suspect at the beginning of the book. The story is about finding out how the crime was committed. The narrative is simple, easy to ready. The events flow full of details without overwhelming the reader. I loved how Higashino designed (or structured) the crime and how he gave us details in bits each satisfying gradually our need to know how the crime was committed. The ending was GREAT! In terms of characters, I liked Utsumi’s sharp mind and initiative and of course Detective Galileo’s deductive capabilities not to mention the way he played with the detectives giving them only half truths and keeping them waiting for more. The widow and the mistress were also were constructed, revealing fragility and mysterious auras. We change our minds all the time suspecting one or the other. Overall this is a good light detective novel but with an intricate puzzle to entertain the reader.

My edition 330 pages and was published by Minotaur books in 2012.

Shangri-la - Mathieu Bablet (4.2🌟)

Shangri-la is a science fiction graphic novel originally published in France in 2016 and translated into Spanish in 2017. To me it is mainly social and political critic in outer space dealing with issues such as mass media and crowd manipulation, ethics of genetics and creation of life, racism and discrimination. The scientific aspects of the work are also interesting to say the least. This is not hard science fiction, but the author takes the time to explain relevant topics effortlessly.

The events take place in a space station orbiting earth centuries after humanity made its home planet uninhabitable. There is no formal government at the station but a corporation called “Tianzhu” dictating norms and providing jobs for everyone who complies with their ideas of a perfect society. We follow Scott and the crew of a small vessel sent by Tianzhu to investigate an accident in a smaller station. They find everyone death and evidence of a small explosion. This is not the first time they find something like this and Scott goes back to Tianzhu to ask them for more resources to take his investigations further. However, Tianzhu are not interested and he is not given any explanation. Scott’s crew mates ask him to join a revolutionary movement to stop Tianzhu manipulating the population. However, he doesn’t understand their arguments and continues to be loyal to the corporation.

Not much time passes, and Scott is kidnapped by a strange man. But then rescued by his friends. While interrogating the man, he reveals plans to colonise Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. Particularly a region called Shangri-la. As earth is still uninhabitable they think Shangri-la is the best option for humanity. However, they don’t want to take the Station’s population there. They want to create a new human race from scratch. By recreating the conditions in the big-bang, or the collision of stars, (requiring huge amounts of energy hydrogen fuses into Helium, and with more energy, Helium fuses into Carbon which form the basic structures of life) they want to become the gods of a new humanity. It is not clear if this group of scientists is part of Tianzhu or not, but the ethical and moral dilemma of their actions force him to open his eyes. He decides to join his friends and fight for change in the station. Being a scientist himself he realises that the recreation of the big-bang in a small space station may be fatal to the rest of the population. He then designs a plan to destroy their laboratory.

Opinion: I really liked this novel. The story is gripping, and the art is a-ma-zing! We are given much more than a nice account in space, but social and political commentary embedded in layers on the story and which I enjoyed and recognised as relevant in our times: manipulation of masses, consumerism, critique of marketing methods, discrimination, slavery among others. We have the political and social dynamics within the space station, racism, discrimination, manipulation of masses. We have the secrets the Tianzhu heads keep from the population. We have a group of scientists playing god and all the ethical and moral assumptions this brings. We have (easy to understand) science explaining the way atoms are created, from Hydrogen, to Helium to Carbon which can lead to the creation of life, and how we can recreate this process with anti-matter and huge amounts of energy.

Although the art is of excellent quality, especially the panels of space and earth, the contrast with the space station, etc, one weakness I found is the design of the faces of the characters.  Not distinguishable between them and with little appeal at first sight but not a big deal after a while.  Also the social criticism, at points, came as too evident, or too much into the foreground, that it was distraction from  the main plot. I like social commentary but I feel it works better if it is subtly interwoven within the fabric of a story.

I have the third Spanish edition published by Dibbuks in 2018. 222 pages in total.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Michael Klastorin (4🌟)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Ultimate Visual History is a beautiful book about the making of one of my favourite science fiction movies of all time. This was the first movie that blew my mind as a child and when I saw this edition I added it into my wish list right away. I was lucky enough to get it a few months later through Wordery give away 😊 Thanks!

The book follows the story of the creation of the movie chronologically in short chapters all of which are fully illustrated with behind the scenes photographs and pictures of concept art, story boards and scripts. We start with Spielberg’s first ideas and with selling the concepts to major Film Production companies. There are explanations of the negotiations and then his partnering with movie making people such as producers, visual, audio effects people, illustrators, photography directors, etc. We also follow his thought process in choosing the main actors as well as designing the sets, aliens, and particularly the Mothership. I think this last bit was my favourite. Of course the book also refers to problems, things that went wrong, changes of plans, additions, deletions, everything that happens during filming. Not much to say but to recommend it to any fun on the movie or any fan of science fiction in general.

My edition was published by Titan Books in 2017. It has 192 pages.

The Soul of Anime. Collaborative Creativity and Japan's media success story - Ian Condry (4🌟)

The Soul of Anime is a scholarly look into Japan’s anime industry, media and fandom. This is a “serious” book about a fun topic. Published in 2013 it recounts ethnographic accounts, interpretations and conclusions on participant observation and interviews rating since (as far as I could tell) 2004. The aim of the book, I think, is to develop the concept of Collaborative Creativity as the combustible which keeps the industry alive and working in synch with parallel industries and fandom. Condry defines the anime industry as being transmedia, that is it embraces/crosses/feeds other medias such as toys, figurines, video games, manga and at the same time feeding from them. So the study in the book contains references to all these media and their relationship with the anime industry. Collaborative Creativity arises from these relationships to create characters and worlds depicted in anime films but also recreated in toys and video games as well as fan created media (fan art, fanfic, fan videos, etc.) I don’t think I am capable to develop more this concept here but I guess I have given a slight initial approximation.

In addition to insights on Collaborative Creativity I found two aspects of this book extremely interesting. The first one is the ethnographic tales on meeting reputed directors and artists, participation in script, storyboard meetings and even voice recording for an anime film. The second one is the multiple references of interesting anime including some failures. I ended up with a short list of anime I didn’t know about but which I want to watch now: mainly Summer Wars and The Girl who leapt through time by Mamoru Hosoda who Condry actually met.

My edition was published by Duke University Press and it has 242 pages

Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata (4🌟)

Snow Country is a short novel, first published in 1956. It is considered a classic of Japanese literature. Not only it depicts traditions and social conventions of the Japan of the 1950s but immerses the reader in a gentle flow of emotions, subtle yet intense.

Shimamura is amarried man from Tokyo in a relationship with a young geisha, Komako, who is desperate in love with him. Both characters cannot be more different and their relationship is odd at best. He is from the city. She is from a small town. He is much older than her and has a family. She lives an isolated, lonely live as a geisha. One thing they have in common though is they are both looking for something to fill a hole in their lives. And their relationship isn't doing that but they keep trying in their own odd ways.

Opinion: this is the kind of novel that grows in your heart when you have the time to process and reflect on the meanings of metaphors and symbols embedded in the narrative. The story is filled with beautiful descriptions of the landscapes and surroundings, setting up brilliantly the mood between the couple's encounters.  There are some codes (to me) left here and there which the author uses to convey emotions, decisions or memories.  I took note of a few but I'm sure I missed many. For example: 

* moths by the window screens, death and stuck, until they fall to the floor.

* the milky way at night showing the way to the characters (?), 

fire, which destroys or ends lives, and 

* Chijimi (traditional clothes), which Shimamura compares to his relationship with Komako. If well kept Chijimis are ment to last for decades. However Shimamura's attitude towards the geisha is only comparable to the discarding of clothes.
* fire, which destroys and ends loves.

In addition to the above codes, the dialogues between the couple told much more than the words said. Distance and indifference from Shimamura, and love, desperation and loneliness from Komako. Won't say more but you have to read it.

My edition is a Modern Classics by Penguin Books. Published in 2011 and with 121 pages.