James Nicoll Reviews

2022’s The Girl from the West is the first volume in Nahoko Uehashi’s Kokun secondary-world ecological fantasy series. Cathy Hirano’s English translation came out in 2022.

Aisha and Milucha are the grandchildren of Keluahn, the deposed Lord of West Kantal. This makes them potential threats to Jookuchi, the current Lord of West Kantal. Simple prudence demands that he kill Aisha and Milucha, lest they be used in a plot against him.

But… during what was to be her first and final audience with Jookuchi, Aisha claims that someone is poisoning Jookuchi. Which someone is.

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2014’s Returners is the second and final volume of Nahoko Uehashi’s The Deer King secondary-universe fantasy duology. The 2024 English translation is by Cathy Hirano.

Desperate to rescue his adopted daughter Yuna, Van (a former soldier and ex-slave turned fugitive) catches up with Yuna’s Ahfal Oma kidnappers. The plot pauses as readers are treated to some extended infodumping.

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2014’s Survivors is the first book in Nahoko Uehashi’s The Deer King series. The 2023 English-language edition was translated by Cathy Hirano.

The sole survivor of the Lone Antler Warriors¹, Van was captured by the Empire of Zol and consigned to the Aquafa salt mine. His life as a slave would have been unpleasant and short, were it not for the black dogs.

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Nahoko Uehashi’s 2020 The Beast Warrior is the second book in her Beast Player young-adult secondary-universe fantasy series. Cathy Hirano’s translation was published in 2020, which makes me optimistic that more Uehashi books will be translated in the near future. 

Eleven years after the events of The Beast Player, the kingdom of Lyoza is still wrestling with the repercussions of a controversial marriage: Lyoza’s religious leader, the Yojeh, married the kingdom’s Aluhan military commander. This was intended to heal the rift between the kingdom’s two great factions, but many subjects are alarmed by the unconventional move.

Meanwhile, Elin, Lyoza’s keeper of the Royal Beasts (whom readers may remember from Beast Player) has her own problems. Once again, mass death shapes her life.

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Nahoko Uehashi’s 2006 The Beast Player, published as Kemono no Sōja Ichi: Tōda hen, is the first volume of her Beast Player series. Cathy Hirano provided the 2018 English translation.

Despite entrenched distrust between the Ao-Loh and the Aluhan, two peoples of the same land, Elin’s Ao-Loh mother and her Aluhan father fell in love and married. Elin was the result. Elin could have been a barely tolerated freak, grudgingly accepted by the Aluhan thanks to her mother’s job tending the Toda (the great lizards the Aluhan ride into battle, serving¹ Lyoza’s spiritual leader, the Yojeh). Instead, her life takes an altogether different direction.

It begins with mass death among the Toda. 

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1999’s Guardian of the Darkness (translated by Cathy Hirano) is the second volume of Nahoko Uehashi’s Moribito series of secondary-universe fantasy novels. It’s the most recent of the lengthy series to be translated into English and also a demonstration of how poorly I defer gratification. I just reviewed the first book in the series and I could not wait …. 

Twenty-five years ago, Balsa fled Kanbal with her foster father, Jiguro. The malevolent king whom the pair were fleeing, is long dead, as is Jiguro himself. With the adventures of the first volume behind her, Balsa decides that the time has come to return to her homeland.

Balsa retraces the subterranean route she and her foster father used to escape Kanbal. It’s an unnecessarily difficult route that has an unintended benefit: she happens upon fourteen-year-old Kassa and his nine-year-old sister Gina, just in time to save them from a hyohlu. Exploring the caves is a well-established test of courage for Kanbalese youths. The siblings barely survive. But at least they have had a salutary lesson in prudence. 

It just so happens that the pair belong to the Musa clan, as did Jiguro¹.

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Nahoko Uehashi’s 1996 novel Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit (Seirei no Moribito ) is the first of twelve Moribito young-adult secondary-world-fantasy volumes.

Wandering bodyguard Balsa has no desire to become entangled in the affairs of royalty. Despite this, when she sees the carriage conveying Second Prince Chagum tumble from Yamakage Bridge, she dives into the raging river and saves the young boy. 

There are consequences.

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