Yuffie's Book Reviews

The United States of Japan - by Peter Tieryas

I want to start by saying this book has a giant mecha on the cover, so here I was expecting a story about mechas, and then only casual mentions that oh, there was a mecha walking around patrolling. And that's it. So disappointed... Halfway through the book, the protagonist does get inside one, but it's short-lived and isn't the focus of the story. In the last 100 pages, there is a mech battle and it's cool, but it's not the main point of the book. Having a mech as the focal point of this book's cover would be like having a Gringot's goblin on the cover of Harry Potter. Yes, it does feature, but it's anything but the main point of the book.

So the book is an alternate history sci-fi detailing what the US would be like if Japan had won WWII and taken over the USA, turning it into the USJ (United States of Japan). The Emperor is a god and everything people do and even think against the Emperor is punishable by death. The story is about a military official, Beniko, who heads a censor office for video games. They monitor gamer activity to see the in-game decisions they make, and if those actions give a hint that this person might be less than adoring of the Emperor/Empire. There's a murder and Beniko gets whisked into this big conspiracy plot where Akiko, a member of Tokko, like our CIA, end up on the run from the government to track down a former official, Mutsuraga, who is part of the American rebels called The George Washingtons. The GWs distributed an illegal American propaganda video game called USA where the USA won against Japan.

Akiko got captured by the GWs then released, and her boyfriend Hideyoshi told lies about her to the government (that she was working with the GWs) to get out of being tortured himself. Akiko tortured potential rebels for a living, so she's very cold and emotionless when doing so, even on people who were innocent. So it was actually sort of satisfying to see her get tortured by the GWs and get a taste of her own medicine. She'd torture people even if there wasn't any evidence against them and simply a weak hunch.

Anyway, The GWs released her, saying that to live with the humiliation of getting captured and tortured would be worse than death. After that ordeal, Akiko murdered an evil military official because he talked smack about the Emperor, and Akiko won't stand for that (that wasn't why he was evil. He kept human prisoners and experimented on them and displayed them as art). So her release by the GWs, Hideyoshi's lies about her committing treason, and her murdering the military official framed her as a spy for the GWs. Now she's on the run to find Mutsuraga, the real GW sympathizer, and clear her name.

So the plot was pretty interesting and had a lot of unique elements. It wasn't at all predictable or cliche, which was great. Very layered and well-crafted.

Now onto the criticism:

The book was very dialogue-heavy. Most of the prose consisted of huge chunks of dialogue with little to no narration in between, which makes it hard to get emotionally invested in the characters. We don't get their emotions as strongly, no body language or quirks or nervous fidgeting. Many times, emotions were just told to us, and it came as a surprise because the dialogue had been mechanical and emotionless for a while now, and then out of nowhere we get a line stating an emotion that doesn't agree with the tone of the dialogue. And it's a shame, because in the brief moments there was actual narration, it was revealing and descriptive. I wish there had been more of that sprinkled throughout the dialogue to make it come more alive.

And the lack of emotion and emotional reaction was really what killed this book for me. It had a intriguing premise and potentially great action scenes, but there was NO EMOTION. The building with peace negotiations that everyone has big stake in blows up, the blast hits the car Ben is driving and breaks the windows, and he says a line in monotone in response. There was no fear, no surprise, no dread. The writing was objective and dry. Another example was when Akiko is getting her hands eaten alive by flesh-eating ants—and they eat all the way down to the bone—yet not a single scream from her, and she's STILL TALKING through that. We just get one line that it hurts and wants to writhe in pain, but she doesn't. She doesn't even break into a sweat until the SECOND hand. It's not like she has some kind of pain dampening system. She was being tortured, and she's holding a pleasant conversation while it's happening, and she's not showing any emotional reaction.