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"Dew of Fire" by Xavier Mauméjean

First puzzled, then alarmed, I hesitated to buy this book. And yet, once I got it from hands, knowing just what to expect, it was a pleasure from start to finish! A very good book and a great success speaking SF soldiers and suicide bombers to the collapse of the Japanese empire.

+ + + The back cover + + +

" The officers and men of Imperial Japan are all members of a suicide bomber. "
Information Office of the Government of Japan, 1944.

1944. Faced with the advance of U.S. forces in the Pacific, the high command Imperial Japanese Navy uses a tactic of last resort: its pilots to commit suicide attacks in dragons.
Soon another fire descends from heaven on the Rising Sun. The B-29 Superfortresses miss all the big cities with napalm bombs. Only a few pilots are brave enough or crazy show to confront them on their dragons fight ...
Three destinies are swept by the winds of war. Hideo, a small boy who lives inside the suffering of Japan. Tatsuo, his older brother, a student enrolled in a suicide squadron. Finally Captain Obayashi, master archer who imposes the "strategy of the certain death."

+ + + + + + My opinion

start with some explanations ... I was initially scared to get into this work, a little cooled by reading "Bloodsilver" where Xavier Mauméjean wrote in collaboration with Johan Heliot under the pseudonym of American Indians Wayne Barrow . You can also find this column in these pages by following this link it . But nevertheless intrigued by the subject and the treatment more widely than historical science fiction. So, I started in this adventure with great interest that was awarded instead.

On the other hand I think some people will not like the side a bit cold, deliberately drained by the author who imposes rules of writing such as Banruku (Japanese puppet theater). The book also speaks Japanese imperialist Japan of a decadent and vindictive, a crumbling empire but who will not give up, who would rather die than surrender. So a war story, dealing with this fall and the lives of these warriors of death, without the glory. A subject and a way of writing that can not please everyone so. By

cons of my side I can confess a certain fascination for Japan and its code warrior, being myself practicing traditional Japanese martial arts. So follow this historical treatment of the end of an empire was very interesting. Xavier Mauméjean discusses patriotism exacerbated by a militarist Japan and vindictive. A Japan where the cult of the Emperor is part of everyday life. A country that sends its children to commit suicide in order not to declare himself the loser. An island that is pounded by the United States, an Empire déliquescent carried by propaganda rather than realism. A country that sees its end very close but denies al.

Xavier Mauméjean cutting his book on playing the elements metal, water, wood fire, and earth, the five elements of Chinese thought. This choice is symbolic because China was a country humiliated by Japanese imperialism, the territory where the Japanese have committed atrocities and that no names Xavier Mauméjean denounces in his novel through Mr. Nagayama, teacher campaign, which find quickly brought to heel by propaganda. Of these five elements, Xavier Mauméjean cut his story, talking to various characters in turn while maintaining consistency. It combines various angles, including Hideo, kid friendly campaigns that undergoes the war from inside the country and who dreams only of his brother became a pilot in aviation empire. The latter, Tatsuo, a student pilot before becoming a dragon for the Imperial Navy and become a suicide bomber. Through this figure we'll live the life of these suicide bombers, their fears, their suffering, their heroism to the extremist, a symbol of a decadent empire near the end and ready for anything. Captain Obayashi is the third character that we follow, and it is one that represents the idélogie Japanese, who will push all to the end rather than accept defeat. Three for and three different angles. Three ways of approaching a turning point in Japanese history: the defeat of the Empire forever.

The story of Xavier Mauméjean very informative, it feels like much in the way of treating history, close to the historical novel in the way of describing the material and acts of war. I found it enjoyable without falling into the too much, without falling into an endless followed descriptive of acts of war or combat equipment.

Regarding how to deal characters, it would almost be afraid to become attached. Everything is played from the start: we know that Japan will lose the war, then who will die and how? But more precisely, Xavier Mauméjean speaks of his characters without falling into a certain pathos, and its handling of the text is playing great. At the risk of cooling some readers, but there is a tone almost Japanese in the manner of speaking, with just enough detachment and proximity.

Regarding dragons, they are there, as if from prehistory they survived as a special branch of aquatic dinosaurs, dragons yes because its water animals here. The dragon is also a symbolic animal because it is also an important figure in Asian culture, so it was okay to be appropriated without making it the center of the book. The interest lies in the kamikaze and the fall of that empire.

short, "Dew of fire" was my real pleasure, even more surprising that I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting something more rough, more warlike, maybe just a series of heroic battles suicidal magnified ... But interviews and other feedback about this book intrigued me and I did well to buy and read this book. It is a very good book, maybe not the kind of book that everyone will treat as a masterpiece, but a book that has the merit of treating a subject of history with good tone and a certain originality of approach. I say bravo Mr. Mauméjean , you fooled me this time. Keep it up!

+ + + + + + But still

Link to the book "Dew of Fire" published by The Belial
An interview with Xavier Mauméjean around "Dew of fire" on uchronies . com
His opinion was intrigued: Cachou .