Blurb:

Japan, 1625

A new Drum Master has risen, and soon the nation will fall to the curse of Izanagi. Answering the call of his kotsuzumi, dead warriors abandon their peace to once again roam the land of the living, swinging rusty blades and chattering rotten teeth at his behest.

Japan’s last hope lies in the hands of the nine warriors gathered by the young daimyō of Owari. To reach Onijima, where the source of the curse’s power awaits, the Nine will not only have to face swarms of undead samurai and waves of shinobi mercenaries but even more dangerous to their mission, their inner demons.

Against the undead, the Nine only have two choices, fighting as one or becoming them.

Review:

Like almost all the books I’ve reviewed for SFF Insiders, I learned of this book's existence sometime during late February, early March. Didn’t think much of it, noticed he had some other books, so I read those (check out the review for the first one of that series here) and put “Undead Samurai” onto my “to look at later” list after reading Gary’s review of it. Just a few days ago, perhaps even more, depending on when this review airs, I finally got around to reading it. After reading this, I was absolutely stunned by how well everything within Pinson Wu’s tale of a somewhat fictional Japan was adapted to fit with historical Japan as well as how it came off as actual, historical folklore, instead of the fantasy he crafted.

To quickly hook friends and family into looking at “Undead Samurai” as a potential read, I’d give them the same spiel that I gave you when you clicked on this review, namely: “Nine win a competition set by the shogun's brother. Nine set out on a perilous mission for him to gain their rewards. Will they all survive the trials to come?”.

But as always, that small snippet of information that’s meant to get you to look at this book goes only so far in truly conveying what is within “Undead Samurai”, and even then, bringing across the amount of joy and suspense I felt reading this isn’t easy, despite the 324 pages.

So, looking at the previous paragraph, I mentioned nine went out for a mission for the shogun’s brother. Who are those nine? Masters of the blade, the bow and the firearm. All nine of them are unique, and all are in some way love letters to the history of Japan. I won’t say more about the nine, because that would ruin the suspense of the story. I will say however that all of them are beautifully crafted to fit the story in mind. That being said, the drum master is mentioned. Who is the drum master? Feel free to take a charcoal pencil and puzzle it out. That antagonist is hidden behind various layers of foreshadowing and outright name callings from the nine, but I never expected that villain to be who it turned out to be. 

That brings me to the next thing about this book. The plot of “Undead Samurai”. Sounds simple enough, right? Hacking through the hoard of dead until they finish their quest. Well, yes but actually no. Not only do they not get a leg up against the dead, but the dead are actively looking for them on behest of the Drum Master. This leads to absolute mayhem, separation and eventual completion of the goal with an epic showdown. “Couldn’t they just try to kill the Drum Master?”, you might ask yourself reading this. Here’s the thing though, not only are the dead at the beck and call of this figure, but they also slowly regain their skills from their previous lives. Even if an opportunity was presented to them, it would’ve been difficult to pull off. The plot of this book goes from “DOOM, Japan Edition” in the first half to “Who is Drum Master?” in the last half, and despite some parts going too hard on the text expositioning, it still works. 

That brings me to the next part, the undead being the undead on behest of the Drum Master. Obviously, there is magic involved here. What is that magic? A curse. From a God. That reanimates the dead. And the dead slowly gain back their abilities and skills from their life before after they are reawakened. With how Pinson Wu incorporates that reveal, without text expositioning for a few pages and instead chooses to reveal it quickly and more in a passing moment, leaving the nine to figure out what the hell is going on and why they aren’t able to just throw the dead off a cliff as easily as they did a few minutes ago, it works. Honestly, it works far better than the expositioning parts of the book that reveal the backstories of the nine. 

Then, there’s the history of how this came to be. And that history explaining the magic, it truly keeps the folktale-esque aspect of the rest of the book.

As to what I didn’t really like about this book, I’ve already mentioned the expositioning within this book is either done right or feels too forced. Actually, the only expositioning that felt a bit odd reading were the chapters that went solely into the backstory, which either added far more meaning to the story or just reconfirmed what we already knew. Some pasts could’ve been left a mystery and it would still have worked without a hitch. Which is just how I felt about it, there’s probably differing opinions there.

Overall though, if you want a samurai tale that is based loosely on historical figures that doesn’t bother to hold itself back with the action, I’d hand you this tale because the action truly never stops until the end.

As always, thank you for reading this review and I hope I’ve helped nudge you towards your next read. If not, there are so many reviews here on SFF Insiders that are just a few clicks away. There’s a review for books of almost any genre of fiction here on this site, and we’d be happy if we’ve helped you find your next read, be it this book or any others.

Wherever you are reading this, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening or good night!