I’ve been meaning to read this series for a while, but I only managed to get my hands on a copy last week. Across the Nightingale Floor is a fantasy novel set in a world that is very closely modeled on Shogunate Japan. But there’s magic. You figure out the genre. Every time I try to classify this sort of book, I’m reminded of Polonius’s speech about how good the actors are*.
The book has the standard fantasy genre plot of trying to defeat the evil warlord. There is a lot of journeying around from place to place and maidens in need of rescue. But this book does turn some of the fantasy conventions on its head. Some of the women in this book are not so helpless as they seem. (I’d say more about this but it would give away important plot points.) And, just when it seems like the characters are going to get their happily ever after, after the warlord is dead, things get even more complicated. I really like fantasy books like this. I like books that take the reader past happily ever after and show you what the heroes have to do once they’re in charge. I think it was Che Guevara who said something to the effect of “A revolution is easy, getting the trains to run on time is hard.” (If someone has the original quote, please let me know.)
* Hamlet, II, ii:
Polonius: The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light.