The men are very masculine, and there is a great deal of intrigue concerning beautiful ladies. Yes, there is a pulpy feel to the narrative. The individual plots and character progressions of nearly 400-years are all interwoven in strong but subtle enough ways to make the whole feel believable, substantive, and immersive. Whatever the setting of the particular book, though, perhaps the most exciting dynamic in the series is the interconnectedness of the characters, institutions, events, and cultures. The audiobook was a mere 16-hours, but it felt longer than the four others which each topped out over 50-hours – not because the quality of the writing was poor, but because the subject matter was a bit more bleak and depressing, emphasizing the cruelty of man against man as Australians, Brits, and American soldiers, sailors, and airmen plot and maneuver to survive the deprivations, beatings, and threats of their prison guards.ĭoing the compare and contrast with my two favorites in the series – Shōgun and Tai-Pan – set in 1600 feudal Japan and 1841 Hong Kong respectively – there is a balance of realism in the push and pull of ambitious men striving to prevail in more than mere survival even in the midst of setbacks and mortal dangers. Though the shortest of the six, I personally found the story set in a Japanese POW camp in Singapore during WWII to be the hardest slog. James Clavell for his part breathes narrative, and clearly draws on his experience in the Pacific campaign of World War II to write at least the first book he published in the series, though not the first book in terms of the internal chronology of the series, King Rat. Spanning internally the years 1600 to 1979, and set in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Iran by turns, the stories all add up to one thing – the beauty and horror of what happens when East meets West and the Occident meets the Orient. The day before yesterday I concluded over 250-hours of audiobook listening over what I believe was the 4-years of my going through James Clavell’s 6-part historical fiction series known as ‘The Asian Saga.’

Tai pan james clavell review