As part of the the Yuri issue of SF Magazine last winter, I read a short Yuri story by author Miyazawa Iori.  It was very good. So, when a novel by Miyazawa was included in the initial rollout of J-Novel Club Yuri titles , I was super excited. It’s thrilling to me to read science fiction that is unique and thoughtful. That it has a frisson of Yuri is a nice to have…what I really want it to be a good story.

Side by Side Dreamers is a very good story.

It also was a case of atrocious timing. ^_^;

I’m a very bad sleeper myself and have been since I was young. I picked this book up as my normal insomnia was exacerbated by jet lag. So the opening in which we meet Saya, a young woman who has not slept in a very long time, and whose ability to function normally has been all but destroyed, I questioned whether this was the book I really needed in my life right that moment. ^_^;

Saya is trying once again to get some sleep when a schoolmate climbs into the bed she’s in…and instantly she falls asleep. Saya finds herself battling a creature in her dream with the other girl, who she immediately understands is her lover. Upon waking Saya is refreshed, but confused. As she encounters other dream warriors, Saya discovers a whole ecology of sleep monsters, the Suiju and the Sleepwalkers who combat them. Unfortunately for Saya, Hitsuji, her dream lover, and the other girls, the monsters are getting smarter…and are starting to enter the waking world! 

With an original, if poorly-timed-for-me premise, I was hooked pretty quickly into the story. The relationship between Hitsuji and Saya took second place to the main plot, which twisted in the most interesting ways. Their relationship was also pleasantly service-free. Even with girls sleeping as the plot driver, the lack of lingering creepy gaze was a relief.

The eventual climax was nothing I could have predicted, a quality I particularly like in my science fiction. It was a very good read.

Ratings:

Story – 8
Character – 8
Service – 2
Yuri – 4

Overall – 8

My expectations for the J-Novel Club Yuri line was not high – like most people who have read a lot of light novels, I tend to assume they are mostly franchise/genre extenders written for an audience with an 8th grade comprehension level. The current crop of “reincarnated as a log in a feudal monarchy” trend has not changed my opinion much.

I can say with all honestly, that after reading 4 out of 5 of the initial Yuri offerings from J-Novel Club, I am damn impressed. 3 out of 4 get top marks from me for good writing (and the one I didn’t love was blatantly not for me,) and 4 out of 4 for excellent translation.  And we’re not done yet, because we’ve go two more to go and at least one of them is superlative!  ^_^ Check back for a gushing review next week!

Thank so much to J-Novel Club for the review copy!

Last and First Idol, by Gengen Kusano, is the first of the J-Novel Club Yuri novels that I have read. Having read it, I feel that I stand in the presence of genius, very uncomfortably so. ^_^

This collection of three stories, “Last and First Idol,” “Evo Girls” and “Dark Seiyuu” are reminiscent of Murakami’s “Superflat” movement; combining pop culture and the shallowness of consumer culture with an eye to creating something new and extraordinary. In Murakami’s work, he’s using pop culture art as the base for his epic art. Kusano is using pop culture in the form of idols, seiyuu and mobile games as a base for hard science fiction, sprinkled liberally – and holistically – with philosophical discussions of consciousness, soul, time and life, with extremely detailed forays into science, with a strong emphasis on evolution.

The post-script essay by Satoshi Maejima gives us a few clues to the nature of this particular flattened construction; noting that the titular story began life as a Love Live! fanfic. Kusano himself likens his description of his opening story as a “widescreen yuri baroque proletariat hard sci-fi idol story,” as being suggestive of the kind of trope inversions we saw in Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

For myself it reminded me heavily of Piers Anthony’s early pre-Xanth science fiction Herald the Healer series and his early fantasy Tarot series, which, while both were obsessed with sex, dealt rather prominently with communication and evolution and society as well. (Disclaimer: The Tarot series is one of my foundational series and a great number of things remind me of it.)

“But in a deterministic universe only the present exists. There is no past or future. Determinism only allows for a time-like progression based on the laws of causality. All that existed is a privileged point in time we call the present. These points in time are related to each other, in that one occurs before or after another, but that’s all. In a universe where free will had shattered determinism the real present exists. The point at which free will activates is the present. By activating free will, we can create a future that had not yet existed. As opposed to the deterministic universe, in which all points in time exist simultaneously.”

Yuri Novel or philosophic rant by an unhinged pop culture addict? Or thought-provoking science fiction? Choose all that apply.

There’s no question that this book is bonkers, but bonkers in a brilliant and brilliantly disturbing way that nonetheless did not leave me feeling traumatized. This despite a great deal of violence, guts, cannibalism, and three completely different end-of-the-world scenarios, all uniquely horrific.

If you are still reading at this point, not put off by anything I have said, you are now ready to read story descriptions.^_^

“Last and First Idol,”explores the nature of pop idols in extremis, in which one young woman’s desire to be an idol, and another young woman’s desire to see her achieve that, drives her them reshape reality to achieve their ends. The end of the world and the destruction of humanity is nothing more than another idol activity.

“Evo Girls,” explores the exact opposite, using the media of mobile games, which have the ability to strip all life from the planet and how one addict puts is all back together, from scratch. You may have read other “reincarnated as an amoeba” stories, but you have never read one like this. Objectively, this one has the happiest Yuri ending.

In “Dark Seiyuu,” the universe turns out to be fundamentally not at all what physicists tell us it is. Genetically engineered seiyuu who fuel interplanetary travel, have the capacity to destroy or preserve life. Murderous Akane, driven mad by her dreams of becoming the greatest seiyuu, is the only one capable of saving herself and her kouhai, Sachi.

I have never before been so relieved that a book did not have illustrations.

The book is described as being “Yuri” and is being sold as being “Yuri” so, it behooves us to ask “Is it Yuri?”

Yes. Every story includes an intense emotional/romantic connection between two characters who identify as female. This last distinction will become clearer as you read the stories. I will not spoil, but I caution you to make no assumptions about my phraseology. It is neither gender nor sexuality, but humanity, about which I am prevaricating.

In more than one of the stories, “love” or “like” is probably not the right terminology, either. Obsession, mutual need, symbiosis, all come a little closer. I’ll tell you this, though – none of the stories have a particularly bad end. The beginnings and middles, though…you’re on your own. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 9

Genuinely brilliant, thoughtful and uncomfortable-making in a dozen ways, Last and First Idol is an excellent book, but not a light read. Thanks very much to J-Novel Club for the review copy!

Tomorrow, we’ll be talking to Sam Pinansky of J-Novel Club about this new line of Yuri science fiction novels and see what else in store for us!