10 best Murakami books

Publishers Weekly provides a list:

1. A Wild Sheep Chase – The original title of this novel is “An adventure concerning sheep,” and it lives up to that title. In it, the Murakami hero takes on a political-business-industry syndicate with apparently limitless money and power, and he does it on his own terms. Some of the most interesting parts of the novel take place in the rural wilds of Hokkaido, which has been interpreted alternately as the hero’s inner mind, or as a mythological land of the dead. At its heart, like many Murakami novels, this is a tale of conflict between the will of the individual and the demands of an impersonal State. Oh, and there is a really cool, all-empowering sheep, too.

2. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – This is another novel that features an “other world,” this time taking the form of a labyrinthine hotel, in which the hero’s wife, Kumiko, is held prisoner by her evil brother, Wataya Noboru. The hero, a mild-manner, unemployed house-husband named Okada Tōru, must find his way into this metaphysical labyrinth, confront Noboru, and rescue Kumiko. Meanwhile, he must also deal with those awkward moments when the coiled springs of time run down, and different historical epochs slam into one another. The work is a study of sex, violence, and collective memories lost and regained.

3. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World – If Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and H.G. Wells has gotten together to write a novel, it might have looked like this. Its dual narratives portray, alternately, the mean streets of a slightly futuristic Tokyo embroiled in an information war with real casualties, and a bucolic fantasy world in the form of a Town, surrounded by a massive, perfect wall, populated by people without shadows, a fearsome Gatekeeper, and unicorns. The hero, finally, must choose between the two worlds for his permanent home.

4. 1Q84 – This is the first novel in which Murakami takes up the risky topic of fringe religious groups—a sore spot in Japan since the Aum Shinrikyō terrorist attack of 1995. As the work’s fictitious cult, Sakigake, attempts to re-establish its connection with earth spirits known as the Little People, the novel pursues a central plot of bringing together its two soul-mate heroes: a fitness instructor who moonlights as an assassin of abusive men, and a math genius who moonlights as a copywriter. As with other Murakami novels, this one looks hard at the tension between political and religious ideology and the inner soul of the individual.

5. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage – Tsukuru Tazaki spends much of this story trying to understand why his circle of friends in high school expelled him from their group shortly after he left Nagoya to attend college in Tokyo. His quest for understanding takes him al the way to Finland, where he confronts some hard truths about his own inner self. It is a novel of betrayal and forgiveness, but above all, it is about growing up.

While they get the #1 book right, that’s not how I see it. This is my top 10 Murakami list, keeping in mind that they specified “books”, not “novels”, which thereby permits the inclusion of both non-fiction and collections of short stories.

  1. A Wild Sheep Chase
  2. Kafka on the Shore
  3. Underground
  4. 1Q84
  5. The Elephant Vanishes and Other Stories
  6. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
  7. Hear the Wind Sing
  8. Dance Dance Dance
  9. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
  10. Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami is, without question, one of the greatest living writers, if not the greatest one now that Umberto Eco is dead. While he lacks any sense of spirituality, particularly in the Christian sense, and his grasp of human socio-sexuality is marginal, he more than makes up for these flaws by his observational skills, his intellectual curiosity, and his penetrating insights into human behavior.

Kafka on the Shore is this week’s book of the week.

The third or fourth book on my list of books to write is a literary novel written in a style that is chiefly influenced by a) Murakami and b) Banks. I’ve already started it, and I’m hoping to be able to get back to it in the second half of next year.

The Worldcon audio

Dave Truesdale has posted the audio of his panel at Worldcon that led to his expulsion.

I had originally planned to post this unedited audio recording of the panel in conjunction with an article I wanted to have posted at Tangent Online the same day as the panel, and the text transcription of the audio. I now feel it is in the best interests of all parties to post the audio now, with the article and text transcription to follow as soon as I can get to it.

I had made notes for the article I wanted to have posted here, so brought them to the panel in their rough state, crossouts, arrows moving pieces around, written in thoughts in pen, the usual rough draft of any document. I did not intend to use anywhere near all of them but knew from experience that having too much material is better than having too little. As it turned out, the only item I used directly from these notes was the quote from David Hartwell.

It’s easy to see understand why they kicked him out. They really had no choice after he began singing “Horst Wessel Lied”, then threatened to whip NK Jemisin until she agreed to pick his cotton. Outrageous!

The panicked reaction to Truesdale’s recording illustrates why you must always record SJWs. When you’ve got a recording, they can’t convincingly lie about what they said or what you said. Keep in mind, as you listen to this, that Truesdale is accused of having caused “excessive discomfort” with his words, which was the grounds for his expulsion.

And SJWs ALWAYS lie.

Consider the obvious alternative

I think it was extremely foolish for Andrew Stroehlein to criticize the use of human masks and pigs’ heads to dissuade immigrants from seeking to invade Hungary:

Hungarian politician Gyorgy Schopflin, of the nation’s ruling Fidesz party, made the incendiary comments in response to criticism of his country’s attitude towards refugees by a prominent human rights campaigner.

Human Rights Watch director Andrew Stroehlein slammed Hungary’s use of eerie masks fashioned from vegetables to ward off migrants at the border in a tweet on Friday.

Hungarian officials have placed the masks across the nation’s vast border fence in an attempt to impede the movement of refugees seeking passage to countries in Western Europe. While it appeared to work for a time, many refugees still attempt the dangerous journey.

Mr Stroehlein tweeted: “Refugees are fleeing war & torture, Hungary. Your root vegetable heads will not deter them.”

Mr Schopflin replied: “Might do so. Human images are haram. But agree, pig’s head would deter more effectively.”

After all, if the masks and pigs’ heads don’t work, the Vlad Dracula method is historically known for its efficacy in this regard.

An advantage, squandered

The West won the Cold War, and thanks to arrogance and a dedication to diversity, appears to already be losing the peace:

A report leaked to The Times newspaper says that the British army would be “vulnerable” in the battlefield against Russia and that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have a “significant capability edge” in state-on-state warfare.

The Times revealed the report, which was produced by the British army, on Wednesday. It warns that the UK and its NATO allies are “scrambling to catch up” with Russia, which enjoys significant advantages in pretty much every key aspect of warfare.

Specifically, the report explains how Russia’s arsenal of weapons — which includes rocket launchers and advanced air-defence systems — are much more powerful than what Britain’s military has at its disposal.

Even major developments Britain has planned will not match up to Russia’s firepower. A planned £3.5 million ($4.6 million) fleet of lightly armoured vehicles will be “disproportionately vulnerable” to Russian rocket fire in a warfare scenario.

It is not just physical warfare in which Moscow has a clear edge, the report says. Russian intelligence has mastered the art of hacking and disturbing radar signals, meaning the effectiveness of British and NATO weaponry and aircraft operated using GPS navigation is under serious threat.

Of course, given the way in which Russia is now the defender of white Christians and the USA and the United Kingdom are the champions of secular diversity, these developments are considerably less worrisome than they would have been back in the 1980s.

It turns out that Sting was wrong. The Russians not only love their children too, they observably love their children, their heritage, and their nation considerably more than the English or the Americans do.

America was never “a nation of immigrants”

Consider the words of one Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton, on the subject of the intrinsic dangers of immigration:

Resuming the subject of our last paper we proceed to trace still farther, the consequences that must result from a too unqualified admission of foreigners, to an equal participation in our civil, and political rights.

The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.

The opinion advanced in the Notes on Virginia is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived, or if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism? There may as to particular individuals, and at particular times, be occasional exceptions to these remarks, yet such is the general rule. The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.

The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils, by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others. It has been often likely to compromit the interests of our own country in favor of another.

As it happens, the ruination of the United States is the result of the “contributions” of two groups of immigrants, Irish and Jewish.

For those who talk about how immigrants assimilate within a generation or two, it would be wise to note the generational status of the three men chiefly responsible for that ruination, Philip Hart, Emanuel Celler, and Edward Kennedy.

Philip Hart – Third-generation Irish immigrant
Emanuel Celler – Third-generation Jewish immigrant
Edward Kennedy – Fourth-generation Irish immigrant

It is clear that even to the fourth generation, immigrants are prone to maintaining their primary loyalty to their ethnic group, if not their nation of origin, rather than to the nation to which they have nominally grafted themselves. They are guided by the principle of “what is good for the Irish” or “what is good for the Jews” rather than “what is good for the Americans” or even “what is good for the USA”.

No immigrant, or child, grandchild, or great-grandchild of immigrants, should have been permitted to vote or hold any office. Had the USA instituted such a policy, it might still be America instead of a multi-ethnic, white-minority idiocracy on the verge of crumbling into violent conflict and ethnic partition, as the ignorant public entertains itself by pretending to believe that Hamilton was either black or Hispanic.

There is no such thing as a HYPHEN-AMERICAN. What comes before the hyphen indicates identity. What comes after the hyphen indicates residence.

McRapey opines

On the state of science fiction in 2016:

1. I’ll write more about the Hugo tomorrow at home, but the general takeaway of this year’s awards are as follows:

2. The winners this year were generally fantastic and point to the health and quality of the field. Some of the best SF/F ever is here now.

3. Once again, we see that quality wins out over slating for obtuse political purposes.

4. In the case of slating, Hugo voters are not stupid and can discern human shields and cynical attempts to ride on others’ popularity.

5. The “puppies” in 2016 are the useful idiots of a minor racist who uses the Hugos as cheap advertising for his publishing house.

6. The Hugos and administrators should recognize point five and stop pretending this minor racist deserves being treated seriously.

As it is written, SJWs always lie.

More importantly, as per the Third Law of SJW, they always project. Think about point 5 in that regard. Now, whereever would a Tor Books author, particularly one notorious for having introduced public “award pimpage” to the various science fiction awards, have gotten the idea that someone, somewhere, might be using the Hugos as cheap advertising?

I’m certainly not. Castalia House is not making any attempt whatsoever to sell books to the decrepit denizens of Worldcon. We see no point in casting literary pearls before shoggoths.

It’s also amusing to see that McRapey, who built his career on the false pretense of having the most popular blog in science fiction, should declare that the author of the most popular blog in science fiction and the lead editor of the fastest growing publisher in science fiction does not merit being treated seriously. For some reason, that matters to him. Very much.

And yet, it doesn’t matter to me. It makes absolutely no difference whatsoever whether they take me seriously or not. My only concern is to continue finding very good authors and helping them publish excellent, best-selling books. Castalia House will succeed or fail on that basis, and barring a complete collapse of the global economy, on that basis alone.

Better they stock up on bullets

It’s remarkable what Germany will do to avoid grasping the nettle:

 For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the German government plans to tell citizens to stockpile food and water in case of an attack or catastrophe, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper reported on Sunday.

Germany is currently on high alert after two Islamist attacks and a shooting rampage by a mentally unstable teenager last month. Berlin announced measures earlier this month to spend considerably more on its police and security forces and to create a special unit to counter cyber crime and terrorism.

“The population will be obliged to hold an individual supply of food for ten days,” the newspaper quoted the government’s “Concept for Civil Defence” – which has been prepared by the Interior Ministry – as saying.

The paper said a parliamentary committee had originally commissioned the civil defense strategy in 2012.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the plan would be discussed by the cabinet on Wednesday and presented by the minister that afternoon. He declined to give any details on the content.

People will be required to stockpile enough drinking water to last for five days, according to the plan, the paper said.

By this time next year, more and more Germans will be gratefully supporting anyone who promises a permanent solution to the invasion. And I don’t want to hear one word from those who are upset at any of the measures that are subsequently adopted, no matter how harsh they might be.

All of this was totally unnecessary. All of this is on the hands of the tolerant, the equalitarians, the multicultis, and the diversicrats.

In which clarification is required

The Swedes would like to make a few things clear to the world:

In light of reoccurring misconceptions on rape statistics in Sweden, the following should be noted:

To compare reported rape in Sweden with reported rapes in other countries with different legal and statistical systems does not describe reality correctly.

Sweden has a broad judicial definition of acts that are considered as rape.

In addition, Sweden uses a broad definition when calculating crime statistics. Every single offence is for example recorded separately and all reported events are counted as crimes even if some of them later are found not to have constituted criminal offences.

Criminal statistics are also influenced by reporting rates. In Sweden the authorities make great efforts to encourage victims of sexual offences to report these crimes.

Crime level comparisons between countries based on statistics are fraught with difficulties due to different methodologies in different jurisdictions.

Whatever. Swedes are the dodo birds of the human race. Their Viking ancestors must be rolling over in the graves in shame.

Three hypotheses

In which various explanative hypotheses for the recent black riots are contemplated:

Hypothesis One: Different races—different local varieties of Homo sap., that have followed different paths through evolutionary space for many, many generations, end up with different distributions on most heritable traits. That includes traits of intelligence, behavior, and personality.

So in a multiracial society that rewards certain traits and penalizes others, different races will precipitate out, average-average, at different social levels. American blacks, for example, with low average IQ, low average impulse control, and high average inclinations to antisocial behavior, will tend to pool at the bottom of society, in slums and prisons and criminal gangs.

The blacks thus pooled, being too dimwitted to understand anything about biology or statistics, will attribute their sorry plight to the malice of hostile agents. They’ll develop a lot of anger against those agents, the anger occasionally breaking out in riots.

Their attributing their crappy life outcomes to the machinations of evil agents is itself a hypothesis of course, one that you can set down on the table next to mine. It’s Hypothesis Two.

Here’s one black guy expounding Hypothesis Two last Saturday, one of the Milwaukee rioters.

It’s sad, because, you know, this what happen because they not helping the black community. They, like, you know … The rich people, they got all this money, and they not, like, you know, trying to give us none.

Here’s Hypothesis Three, offered by The New York Times. This one must be serious stuff, backed by rock-ribbed deep social analysis, to be aired in such a prestigious outlet. Right?


Tackling the root causes of crime would be the most effective way to make the community safer and calm tensions, Reggie Moore, Director of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention, said. “I think it’s a matter of having a dual conversation about what justice needs to look like in this particular situation, but also the broader conversation of what a just community looks like,” Mr. Moore said.

Brilliant! Tackle the root causes of crime! Have a conversation!—a dual conversation! And then a broader conversation!

With a penetrating intellect like Mr. Moore’s on the job, we should have the problem solved in no time. How can it be that, in these fifty years since the long hot summer of 1967, how can it be that no-one ever thought we need to tackle the root causes of crime? And have a conversation? It’s so simple!

So there you are: three hypotheses about what causes riots.

Hypothesis One: cranky old Derb with his stupid, bigoted, so-called “race realism.”
Hypothesis Two: It’s the fault of rich people not giving money to the black community.
Hypothesis Three: It’s our failure to tackle the root causes of crime and to have conversations.

Take your pick.

Well, regardless of which hypothesis is correct, I think we all know what the answer is: education.

Post-Hugo analysis

First, thanks to all the Rabid Puppies who got involved, at both the nomination and the voting stages. Things went very much according to form, and we have the SF-SJWs exactly where we want them at this point in time. Observe that after only two years, we already have them voting almost entirely in reaction to us, changing and complicating their rules, and awarding SJWs instead of merit in most categories.

Second, a few observations:

  • We were only able to burn two categories this year, but we reduced their choices to X or No Award in 5 other categories.
  • We got them to show the public their true colors and demonstrate that what the Hugo Award primarily means is public adherence to the SJW Narrative. Among the finalists no awarded this year: Jerry Pournelle, Larry Elmore, Toni Weisskopf, Moira Greyland, David Vandyke, Pierce Brown, and RazörFist. In most cases, the awards were given to people whose work is of observably lower quality. For example, the bestselling Pierce Brown, whose novel was not even nominated, wrote what was almost certainly, by any reasonable standard, the best science fiction novel published this year. Tough crowd, if even he’s not worthy of mere consideration for Best New Author.
  • They did have the sense to avoid no-awarding Jim Butcher for a second straight year, though. Apparently Mr. Butcher’s writing has improved a lot since last year.
  • They no-awarded a serious literary work about Gene Wolfe. Remember, these are the same people that have repeatedly claimed a blog post was “the Best Related Work” in science fiction that year. The contrast is informative.
  • The four fiction categories are increasingly becoming No White Male territory. The winners were: black woman, black woman, Asian woman, white woman, none of whom are bestselling or even very well-known authors. This is reliably indicative of increasing irrelevance. It won’t be long before simply being a minority won’t be enough and authors will have to be gay, blind, and crippled just to be nominated.
  • Contra all their unconvincing pretenses of delight, the nomination of “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” embarrassed them greatly. Chuck Tingle’s masterpiece was no-awarded, exactly as I predicted.
  • We played kingmaker in Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, where The Martian beat Fury Road, and in the John W. Campbell Award, where Andy Weir beat Alyssa Wong, thanks to our votes. And, of course, in Best Novel, where Jemisin’s win was primarily a vote against us.
  • Neil Gaiman’s acceptance was, characteristically, as classy as the man’s himself. “It meant a lot to see Sandman Overture nominated for a Hugo award, and was disappointing to see that it had been dragged into the unfortunate mess that the pitiable people who call themselves Puppy had attempted to inflict on Worldcon and its awards. I would have withdrawn it from consideration, but even that seemed like it would have been giving these sad losers too much acknowledgement. I am proud it won, and prouder by far of the amazing work that JH Williams, Dave Stewart, Todd Klein, Dave McKean and Shelly Bond did. Thank you.”
  • It’s interesting to note that SJWs aren’t celebrating the fact that more of the awards went to women this year than ever before, including all of the fiction categories.

All in all, despite the twin disappointments of Jerry Pournelle and Chuck Tingle not winning their categories, 2016 was a very good year; arguably better, from the strategic perspective, than last year’s results. The Guardian‘s coverage of the awards is a pretty good summary for the SJW perspective. They still have no idea what’s going on:

The winners of the 2016 Hugo awards have been announced, with this year’s choices signalling a resounding defeat for the so-called “Puppies” campaigns to derail the venerable annual honouring of science fiction literature and drama. As in previous years, there had been attempts by two separate groups, the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies, to “game” the awards in favour of their preferred slates of works. Both groups claimed that science fiction has become dominated by a liberal, left-wing bias.

It’s complete with a picture of the award-winning half-savage herself. It’s quite clear most of these people cheering her Best Novel award have never read even a little of The Fifth Season, which makes George Martin’s masterpiece of rape, death, and grimdark look cheerful and features a protagonist less likeable than Rand al’Thor and Ramsay Bolton combined.

As one reviewer of the 2016 Best Novel put it: “the main character became more and more unlikable as the tale goes on. She ends up in a gay/poly triad, has a child with the gay member of the group, and then essentially decides she’s not cut out to be a mother and goes on and on about how she doesn’t really care about the toddler, ditching him. All of this after a main hook where she’s supposed to be frantically searching for yet another child who she seems for forget for years at a time.”

That pretty well sums it up. Redshirts and Among Others were mediocrities, but The Fifth Season is a depth no Best Novel has seen since The Quantum Rose won the Nebula in 2000. The Impossibility of SJW Convergence is increasingly working in our favor. It won’t be long it won’t even need our paws on the scale to help the process along.

The Guardian claims 2016 was “a resounding defeat” for the Rabid Puppies, but then, they are an SJW institution and we know what SJWs always do. Consider a relatively neutral party’s verdict, as declared back in April, by the Reverend 3.0.

If any other Castalia House work wins Best Related Work or second places to No Award, then the Rabid Puppies have obtained limited victory over the Hugos


Best Related Work
1. No Award
2. Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe, 1951 to 1986, Marc Aramini, Castalia House

“A limited victory”. That is a fair description.

We had over 200 people at the Rabid Puppy Hugo Party last night, which featured Dragon Award finalists John C. Wright, Nick Cole, and Brian Niemeier, as well as Hugo Award finalist Jeffro Johnson, and I think it’s fair to say that a good time was had by most, if not all. One attendee even wrote to express his enjoyment of it.

Thank you for hosting The 2016 Hugo Awards this evening, which doubled as a most excellent and informative SFF convention panel. No one signaled virtue, no one posed, all was honest and free. I’ve never had the pleasure of witnessing a panel of guests quite like these before.