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This is Catherynne M Valente’s collection of the stories and poems with a connection to Japan In the stories with less of a connection, the references to Japan are subtle and as hard to distinguish as a thread woven into fabric You will also notice other recurring themes Descriptions of houses and families appear several times A wife is separated fros) find the the same house The stories are all dressed differently and are quite original But if you have encountered this author’s works before, you already kno the worlds she depicts are unfamiliar, and you can continue without any trouble and never lose the way Her prose is as carefully refined as a smoothly paved road

I first came across Valente’s work in 2010 when her novel Palio Award for Best Novel I visited her website and found that some of her works were influenced by Japanese culture For example, the title of one of her books, Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams (2005), is in Japanese, and she named her monthly letter project after omikuji, fortunes written on paper strips and sold in shrines and te her stories, I realized that her interest in Japan is informed by both study and by authentic lived experience

Did you know that there are 45,000 US soldiers living in Japan? There are another 45,000 members of military fa in Japan as part of a Navy faraphical, such as “Fifteen Panels Depicting the Sadness of the Baku and the Jotai,” and “Ink, Water, Milk,” the latter of which ritten for this collection Both stories are set in Yokosuka, a city with a US Navy base, and in both appear yokai, iinary creatures, and a lonely Navy wife

Japanese ion, Buddhisn myths and folklore, which cah just the beginning of this book, you will co the Sadness of the Baku and the Jotai,” on the chaos of Yokosuka—and Paradise—described in a manner that will totally blow you away In this powerful opening story, Valente introduces her Japanesque view of the world and quickly immerses you in it

You will see inary Japanese creatures such as fairies, ghosts, andthe Edo period, book-rental shops beca became a popular hobby in Japanese cities In those days, yokai were an especially popular theme, and many ukiyo-e artists drew yokai pictures One of these artists, Toriyama Sekien (1712–1788), made some yokai picture books He drew famous traditional yokai as well as some he created himself Kyorinrin and Futsukeshibaba, which appear in “Ink, Water, Milk,” are understood to be Sekien’s creations

Valente finds inspiration in traditional yokai tales but doesn’t simply retell classic stories In “One Breath, One Stroke,” she describes Sazae-Oni (the Horned Turban shell spirit or Snail Woman), a Japanese version of a Siren, in this way: “Sazae-Onna lives in a pond in the floor of the kitchen Her shell is tiered like a cake or a palace, hard and thorned and colored like the inside of an al in spiral patterns over her gnarled surface She eats the rice that falls from the table when the others sit down to supper She drinks the steam from the teakettle” Valente here shows us her version of cute Sazae-Oni that no one else would ever iine

The ilophone science fiction has tended to take the foracities, such as Chiba City in Neuromancer by William Gibson This trend continues today Neriters such as Lauren Beukes and Hannu Rajanieinary future Tokyos—and their work is funny and good—but acities represent only a s from north to south, and it has many suburban areas, rural locations, and historical ruins Valente has written about places in Japan not widely portrayed in science fiction and fantasy before, for example, Hokkaido, the northernmost prefecture on the Russian border She also explores Hashima, a small uninhabited island known as Gunkanjima, where over five thousand people once worked in a coal mine, in “Ghosts of Gunkanjima”

In reading this collection, you may discover not only another view of Japan, but also another side of the author, thanks to the stories she published in Clarkesworld Magazine These include “Silently and Very Fast,” which according to Valente is “real science fiction” This fains in the near cyberpunkish future and ends in the age of Singularity It is rich in references toat Space/ Time” is also an ambitious story It dismantles and reconstructs Creation myths from around the world in scientific terms “Fade to White” is a dystopian story set in the days after the apocalypse with a slight fragrance of Japanese history Valente is a ineer,” one who adapts and transforhly modern stories She demonstrates her power in a freer and h the latest work, I am certain that Valente should, and likely will, continue transfor far beyond possible boundaries of country, new and old, genre and everything

Iine this book as a set of traditional Japanese paper doors By turning the pages, you slide the doors open Soon you will enter a place where you have never been

Teruyuki Hashimoto is a Japanese reviewer and critic of science fiction, azine Born in Hokkaido in 1984, Hashimoto currently lives in Tokyo

THE MELANCHOLY OF MECHAGIRL

X Prefecture drive time radio

trills and pops

its pink rhinestone bubble tunes—

pipe that sound into my copper-riveted heart,

that softgirl/brightgirl/candygirl electrocheer gigglenoise

right down through the steelfrown

tunnels of my

all-hearing head

Best stay

out of my way

when I’ve gotIt’s a rhythm

you learn:

s