The Stormdancer

By Jay Kristoff

I have finished two books recently and started a new trilogy by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, but today I review the first of the Lotus wars series.

For the last few weeks I have been tearing up the sky’s over the red lotus fields of the Shima Imperium, a Japanese-steam-punk-like country steeped in the pollution of Blood Lotus. A wonderfully versatile plant which Shima’s lower inhabitants are forced to grow to make medicines, poisons and more importantly the fuel to run the higher classes machines.

Jay Kristoff spins an interestingly unique third person perspective tale with an odd mix of steam punk meets feudal Japan with a sprinkle of Western medieval mythology in the shape of a griffin or as the story introduces it as an Asashitora roughly translated into thunder tiger.

Our heroine Yukiko Katsune is the daughter of the Black Fox Masaru loyal servant to the Shogun, and one that is tainted with the ability to talk mind to mind with animals.

Her father is tasked with an impossible mission to hunt and capture a live Asashitora, long thought extinct. The Shogun has dreamt of a victorious battle where he rides this magical creature whilst commanding his armies to crush the barbarian hordes of the west. 

The hunt is on and they end up finding the animal high in the last wild lands alongside a huge mountain range not yet claimed by lotus farms. There on the deck of an airship Yukiko, her father and a crew of hard navel men find and fight the Asashitora within the heart of a thunderstorm. The airship comes off second best, but only after the Master Huntsman has inaccurately sedated the animal and clipped its wings. Appalled at her father’s actions towards the animal, Yukiko frees it from the cage it has been imprisoned in as the sky ship falls from the sky. In a desperate attempt she grabs a hold of the animal and they manage to glide to safely. 

On the ground but in the company of a creature more likely to kill her then protect her Yukiko must gain the thunder tigers trust and even friendship as they battle they’re way through starvation, reluctant allies and powerful enemies set on enslaving or killing them. They return to the city of the shogun after learning from their new found allies terrible truth of the Blood Lotus, they position themselves to strike the power house of Shima itself, but can a flightless Asashitora and one girl topple an evil overload and escape with their lives?

The Stormdancer was an enjoyable read easy read, although lacking a depth I’m used to in my reading books, it read like an anime and kept me vividly engrossed, I think Otaku’s out there will enjoy it as much as I did. I loved the language which at the start was a bit weird to see the odd Japanese word thrown in but overall I think that’s what added to the character of the story and added to the enjoyment of reading this book.

Love The Otaku Bookworm.