01.13.07
From Bed To Hearse
So, Crest of the Stars 2. It’s difficult for me to put into words exactly what I liked about the novel– or, perhaps, fragment of novel that the book presents. Maybe I really ought to address that element, first and foremost. The Crest of the Stars books– collectively known as Seikai– are an on-going run of books in Japan. The first three make up a single tale, while the remainder tell of an ongoing struggle between two vast interstellar nations. The most obvious thing that I could complain about is that the individual volumes themselves are extremely short. Both of the English-language books that have been released so far took me on the order of about four hours to read each (which is tempered, of course, by the fact that I tend to read very quickly). That said, the story is only about two-thirds of the way through, and so far both ‘endings’ have been extremely abrupt. The one major caveat I would offer to anyone looking to read the books would be to wait until late May, when all three will have been released. Less frustration that way.
I suppose complaining about the somewhat limited vocabulary used and the occasional typographic error (which belie the translator’s attempts to ’spice up’ the narrative; a character yells, “Shut your tmouth,” with the unintentional “t” indicating to me that some draft along the way meant for the dialogue to read “Shut your trap”) is a little silly for me to do, as I haven’t actually read the original Japanese (though, once I do finally get around to learning the language, I welcome the challenge that the books provide). However, they’re legitimate concerns, even if ultimately they don’t detract too much from an otherwise enthralling story.
That’s what it boils down to, for me, anyway. Morioka has taken a somewhat cliched premise– ordinary guy is assimilated into a massive, overpowered space empire in a somewhat transparent wish-fulfillment scenario– and infused it with a particularly voracious enthusiasm. It’s hard to fault him for the somewhat “done that” nature of the plot, especially considering that later stories move towards a more Clancy-esque military-political yarn (as evidenced by the anime adaptations of the remaining books); this is just the setup, the appetizer before the real meal. What Morioka’s initial premise lacks in plot is more than made up for in the detail with which he paints his view of the universe. Everything has a place, everything has a purpose. Nothing is extraneous or there simply for the sake of being there, to fill some unspecified or falsely-obligatory quota. It’s actually quite fascinating.
I suppose that the case could be made– what with the synthetic language and the elvenesque appearance of many of the protagonists– that Morioka is trying almost too hard to be another Tolkien. The thing is, whereas the story of the hobbits is a pretty straightforward good versus evil scenario, it’s hard to pigeonhole one side or another as being genuinely evil within the Crest universe. Both the Abh Empire and the United Mankind have good and bad traits in almost equal parts. Crest 2 paints this picture pretty clearly. On the one hand, you have the four ambassadors who genuinely don’t want open war, but simply pushed the Abh harder than they expected they’d move. On the other hand, you have the MP Captain Kyte, a man who in the parlance of modern Earth politics could reasonably be called a ‘true believer’ in the states causes of the United Mankind. Morioka actually offers the best description of Kyte (through another character): ‘actively good’; Kyte isn’t content with only doing good in his own actions, he believes that other people can be ‘fixed’ to do good or to better themselves, and that it’s his responsibility to do this fixing. The Abh, too, have their sins and salvations. Their bloody and violent past is undeniable, and unwritten simply because there is no need for it to be written; their xenophobia and ultranationalism brought them to a horrible decision which backfired severely. Thus given wisdom, they now seek to unite humanity, both natural and Abh, by providing protection and liberty.
Any novel with a significant amount of politics in its pages is difficult to read without attempting to make analogies to the modern state of the world. And, realistically, perhaps Morioka had something to say in the mid-1990s about the state of the world. It’s not my place to judge the author’s intention. All I can offer is the belief that I know a good book when I read it, and that Crest of the Stars is a good tale, but partly told. I’m looking forward to the final act. Once that’s done, I’ll gladly go into a little detail as to how the story held up in relation to the anime adaptation.
(Oh, the title of this post? Just a little pun on one of the closing events of this particular volume.)