I just started reading "Taiko" by the author who wrote the Musashi books. I remember reading them years ago and thought they were OK -- but not great enough to re-read.

In any event, I've always like the time period of feudal Japan (actually, any time between 1300-1750 or so; hmm, now that I think about it, this is also a time period I like for European stuff as well).

Has anyone ever read "Taiko"? I've just started reading the 900 page "abridged" version (it's the only version I found) and it starts out by following the childhood of one of the main historical figures.

I've read it. I don't like it as much as Musashi, but it's still good.

I enjoyed it more in the beginning as he rises through the ranks and power.

Barely on page 85. Monkey still hasn't risen any. He just abandoned a ronin Lord over the "agitator" business.

Still chugging along. What bugs me about this book is that it was (I assume) primarily written for Japanese who are familiar with the terrain. The map provided is too broad with not enough details.

So, for example, he mentions that such and such is in a certain village or town but the immediate question is "what province"? Then, the character moves to another village taking a certain road -- so??? I can see that when describing battles it is important to note paths accurately but what is the point if I don't know what other roads exist or what the immediate terrain features are??

Also, names. I never know which family rules which province because, apparently, in this 900-page abridged version, some key background parts may have been taken out. Such and such was in his castle of name1 in the village of village1 (well, what province??!?) Maybe Japanese people know the traditional provinces of old samurai provinces, but I don't.

Not only that, but someone messed up on the chart showing the hours of the Japanese day superimposed over a western time. They got midnight and noon reversed! So, when a character mentions something and you know it is around noon, the chart says midnight. Very frustrating.

It's a good book, as said earlier, in my mind can never compare to Musashi. I also liked the first half or so more as he slowly climbs the ranks and so on. Then after that I didn't think it was that great. I don't know if I read the abridged version or not though

I'm beginning to agree. Musashi was better.

As a novel, I would rate it a 5 on a 10 point scale. As a vehicle for describing the internecine warfare in feudal Japan, it would rate a 8. I'd give it a 9 for that if it had had better explanations of the distances involved and explanations of where cities/villages/castles are in relation to each other and to borders.