This anthology of Japanese science fiction was first
published in 1988 and is comprised of stories dating back to the 60’s, so in
terms of my interest in comparing SF from other cultures, it doesn’t really
give me an idea of what contemporary Japanese SF is like. What I did find
interesting is that, similar to Anglophone SF of the same period, the
protagonists are all male, and female characters play little, if any, active roles
in the stories. I can only assume that this has changed with time as it has
done to some degree in English SF.
Many of the stories are set in contemporary or near-future
Japan, and even where aspects of society are obviously futuristic, the settings
themselves are not startlingly different from today. I found several of the
stories to be rather, I don’t know, naïve? They told stories of things that
were intended to be amazing, but were not at all surprising. Again, I’m assuming this is due to the age of
the stories, and to the fact that I’m very well read in SF.
One thing that stood out is that the stories are often narrated in the style of a parable rather than from an individual point of view. Another thing that particularly struck me is that none of the
protagonists have names. They are always referred to as ‘the young man’, ‘the
father’, ‘the boy’ etc. In fact the only characters who are named are the
non-humans. Again, I wonder if this is typical of Japanese fiction, or just of
that time period?
Two stories: ‘The Road to the Sea’ and ‘Fnifmum’ stood out
among the collection, the kind of tales that leave you feeling satisfied at
have read them. Then I came to the final entry, ‘The Legend of the Paper
Spaceship’, a novelette by Tetsu Yano, described as ‘the dean of Japanese SF
writers’. For this story, ignore everything else I have written. This is a
classic in any time and place.
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