I just could not get into this book at all and had to give in by 100 pages. It felt like the author had a checklist of all the Japanese things he had researched and bits of the story were only there so he could check something off. The baddies felt cliched, all christians must die every time they appeared with very little of substance to any of them to be able to make any of them stand out more than others. Even the biggest bads were as colourless as the bully samurai.
Then we have the good guys, within the first 100 pages i was sick to death of the religion aspect of this and was on the side of the shogun. I have a dim view of religions at the best of times, all this blind faith in a mystical sky fairy. If something bad happens it's this being testing them, if it is something good then he willed it - impossible to be rational with such delusional beings.
So all in all, not a book for me.
Then we have the good guys, within the first 100 pages i was sick to death of the religion aspect of this and was on the side of the shogun. I have a dim view of religions at the best of times, all this blind faith in a mystical sky fairy. If something bad happens it's this being testing them, if it is something good then he willed it - impossible to be rational with such delusional beings.
So all in all, not a book for me.