Speculative Japan 2: The Man Who Watched the Sea and Other Tales

Now, I'm Chinese so the "cultural" impact from this book won't be as significant on me as on other readers. I still have to say I was enticed by the very first story. The translations here did a really good job conveying the atmosphere and preserved the tone and feel of the original work. Language is pithy and to-the-point and gives me a good overview of the speculative fictions in Japan. As someone with an English major and a creative writing minor diploma, I'm unusually critical about books (Ted Chiang's early works didn't stand well with me while everywhere I looked online sing hymns about them), but the stories in these books are A++.

The first collection of Japanese speculative fiction—before speculative fiction was a nomenclature—was back in 1989: Martin H. Greenberg and John L. Apostolou’s The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories (which was entirely translated by Grania Davis and Judith Merril). Eight years had to pass before it was republished in 1997 without any new material added. The world would have to wait another decade for another collection to materialize in order to sate the appetites of readers who like speculative Japanese fiction.In 2007, Kurodahan Press released Speculative Japan (edited by Gene van Troyer and Grania Davis), which includes five stories from the former collection. Kurodahan’s collection had ten new stories and opened a door of fascination to the microcosm of speculative literature in Japan. Out of the total fifteen stories, I loved eight of them so much I gave them five stars; each had a story, an impact, and a depth that left the mind tingling.Teasingly, Kurodahan took four years to release the second book in the now running series: Speculative Fiction 2 (2011). With this collection, all thirteen stories had never before been published and all but one author had never before been included in either of the prior publications (Shinji Kajio is in both of Kurodahan’s collections). That means there are twelve new authors! And as a bonus, each story is translated by a different translator, too. This gives the collection a broad range of content via the authors and style via the translators.With Speculative Fiction 2, though I haven’t been as generous with the 5-star ratings as with the first collection, you really can’t fault the collection for having (in my opinion) only two under-4-star stories. My three favorites are (1) Issui Ogawa’s “Old Vohl’s Planet” for its combination of hard science with alien identity and a human message; (2) Shinji Kajio’s “Emanon: A Reminiscence” for its speculative shattering of the emotional barrier of what could be to what should have been; and (3) Yasumi Kobayashi’s “The Man Who Watched the Sea” for its combination of the other two stories: hard science, love, and endurance.If you’re an eager reader of similar stories, then you’ll be satisfied to know that Speculative Japan 3 was published in 2012… with more on the way, as Edward Lipsett, one of the founding members of Kurodahan Press, has told me.------------A Gift from the Sea (shortstory, 1977) – Naoko Awa (4/5)Synopsis: Little Kanako receives two fifty-yen coins from her bedridden mother so that she can buy something at the village’s market festival. The paltry sum can buy her very little, but she’s determined to buy one thing for herself and another for her mother. An out-of-place woman sells a bag of “sakura shells” to her, which clatter in her pocket as she walks, yet they also whisper her toward the sea. There at the sea, women gamble with the shells and Kanako learns of her own naivety. 6 pages------Freud (shortstory, 2007) – Toh Enjoe (4/5)Synopsis: An elderly woman dies and her extended family gather at her isolated house to witness its demolition as it’s an onus to them all. When removing the twenty floor mats, they find a lifeless and life-sized Freud under each. They haul and line the Freuds out, discussing what it meant to the old woman and how it affects them. None have a deep understanding of Freud but they all agree that they’re living some sort of dream, but what does this dream mean to the dreamer? 11 pages------The Whale that Sang on the Milky Way Network (shortstory, 1984) – Mariko Ohara (4/5)Synopsis: The backwater planet of Hulftvahl is home to petty grudges, simple puppy love, and limited aspirations. Most of the youth find themselves plants roots on the same planet or flung far abroad with Space Command. Though adventure and exotic ways of life are distant from their everyday lives, The Gardus Show occasionally brings them a tatse of both. Young Joshua and his crush watch Whale on stage; impressed with the sight, they seek friendship with the giant, only to learn about their own urbaneness. 19 pages------Old Vohl’s Planet (novelette, 2003) – Issui Ogawa (5/5)Synopsis: A turbulent gas-giant orbits its sun and is ravaged by both punishing winds and temperatures, yet an alien species still thrives in its seas, forever planet-bound. One large amoeba-like member optically views an incoming body that destroys most of its species, but not before transferring its knowledge to the rest of the species. Thereon, all remain vigilant toward skyward peril—and one body is seen that is sure to destroy their lives, their world. With their remaining time, the species collectively attempts to contact another species, if there are any. 26 pages------The Big Drawer (shortstory, 1994) – Riku Onda (3/5)Synopsis: Mitsunori has the incredible ability to memorize everything he ever reads, including sheet music—but everyone in his family can do that—; however, he is forbidden to reveal their family secret to anyone. As his parents prepare to sift through their stored information while in a self-induced coma, the boy experiences his first boom, or a sudden realization of reality. As he kneels next to a dying man, he witnesses the man’s lifetime of tribulations. Come the man’s funeral, Mitsunori aims to put things right. 16 pages------Emanon: A Reminiscence (shortstory, 1979) – Shinji Kajio (5/5)Synopsis: Scorned by age-long unreciprocated love, a young man steels himself against further pain from raw emotional wounds. On a 17-hour ferry ride, a beautiful girl befriends him. As they begin drinking beer together, she shares her “believe it or not” story. The man, being a fan of SF, takes her story to heart and analyzes it for relevance: Though her body is young, her mind contains the memory of three billion years of direct evolution. As he wakes, she is gone. Thirteen years later, their mutual memories of each other linger. 17 pages------Midst the Mist (shortstory, 2007) – Koji Kitakuni (4/5)Synopsis: Lee’s a seasoned investigator while Sakaguchi is the novice, both of who discover a dog axed to death. A nearby cowbarn raises their suspicions, so they drive to the homestead where a family of three are about to sit down to dinner. Lee asks detached questions to the man, which makes Sakaguchi uncomfortable. When the man accepts and chews a piece of pre-chewed gum, Lee shoots the man’s face off and runs to kill his wife. Meanwhile, Sakaguchi holds the boy, hoping he isn’t one of them, too. 18 pages------The Man Who Watched the Sea (novelette, 2002) – Yasumi Kobayashi (5/5)Synopsis: The region called Mountain holds a festival every year in which they parade around floats pulled by members of the village. Each year, many people make the trek from the region called Shore to see the exhibition; this is when boy meets girl. As she departs, she promises to return “next year”, but she fails to remember that each region—Mountain and Shore—have different temporal speeds. Through their respective telescopes, the girl lives very slowly while the boy lives very quickly. Eventually, they reunite only to separate once again to experience the pain of departed love. 22 pages------Melk’s Golden Acres (shortstory, 2006) – Nobuko Takagi (3/5)Synopsis: The Melk Abbey has a long and rich history amid the vineyard it’s surrounded by, yet it’s the library that holds the abbey’s true historical wealth in the centuries’ old documents and frescoes. Also, there’s an emotional element with the placement of the window and the security of the rhombus of sunlight as the only sense of warmth. Seeing a red vase in the fresco, a visitor is made aware of a woman standing behind the same vase. The old man spins a story of having the woman as his wife and growing a vineyard together. 18 pages------Q-Cruiser Basilisk (novella, 1984) – Koshu Tani (4/5)Synopsis: Aboard the Gurkha 107, Ozaki is just a lackey with a few of the other crew. When they get a call to intercept a fast-traveling object in the Sirius system, they discover the Basilisk, last seen in the year 2100. The mystery is how it came all the way to Sirius with its weak propulsion. As a lackey, Ozaki is volunteered to investigate the ship’s interior, where he finds a log. In this log, the ship’s demise during the war is chronicled as well as the captain’s bizarre experience outside of Sol’s system. 48 pages------Mountaintop Symphony (novelette, 1989) – Norio Nakai (4/5)Synopsis: Higashikoji Kojiro wrote a symphony once, but it took him eighty-three years of relentless copying from the music in his mind. It filled over one hundred warehouses and only began to see the light when Ujihara Tamotsu urged that the symphony be played in its entirety, which may last as long as ten thousand years. A mountaintop amphitheater was constructed and the eight daily orchestras have been playing for over a hundred years without pause. Now, the 800-Person Movement approaches but no one is quite ready for it. 27 pages------Open Up (shortstory, 2007) – Akira Hori (4/5)Synopsis: Their ship entering the warp channel with its inertial drive, a pilot feels the twinge of a bowel cramp and, thus, enters the toilet. Being the only person aboard, they are quite surprised to hear a knock at the bathroom door. Inside, they ponder upon the spaceman’s tale of the “space doppelganger” when in the warp channel, a similar yet sinister ponderment of the same pilot just outside the bathroom door, who hears someone within. They each consider a stowaway; each considers themselves as Schrödinger’s cat. 4 pages------Perspective (shortstory, 1982) – Yuko Yamao (4/5)Synopsis: From a vantage point of a stone cell, other stone cells wrap around from the right all the way around to the left; below, more floors of cells and the Perspective; above, more floors of cells and the Perspective. The world within the Sausage Universe is all the inhabitants know—the stone walls belong to them and the vast space between the cells belongs to the passing sun, moon, and the comical Gods upon the cloud. With no knowledge of their history or of their destiny, myths are abound and hope clings to mere whims. 21 pages