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Ten Billion Days And One Hundred Billion Nights (2011)

by Ryu Mitsuse(Favorite Author)

3.5 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1421539047 (ISBN13: 9781421539041)

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Haikasoru

review 1: If our universe is defined by the limits of time since the Big Bang, then what lies beyond that boundary?To try to answer that question Mitsuse has mixed hard science fiction, heavy on cosmology, and the three of humanities great philosophical traditions. And by mixing, I mean pitting against one another in a battle for supremacy and to save humanity from destruction at the hands of some not so benevolent beings. Ten Billion Days and Hundred Billion Nights also covers a tremendous amount of ground starting at the very beginning of the universe to its final death from entropy. Without going into too much detail, the novel tells a story of an alien influence on the growth and development of humanity, and how it has manifested itself in different religions and philosophies th... moreroughout history. These are the parts of the novel in which Mitsuse is at his best. The writing for each time period resembles the religious and philosophical texts of the time, and the science fiction elements of the plot and battle scenes are worked into the story line seamlessly. But the most compelling part of the story for me though was the insights into Buddhism and that outlook compares with the Christian worldview. At times I didn't fully understand what was going on, and at times the constant descriptions of the characters every thought process got to be a bit tedious; but I'm still amazed at how Mitsuse was able to work so much into one science fiction story and still write something compelling.Ten Billion Days and Hundred Billion Nights was an ambitious undertaking, and I believe the Mitsuse pretty much pulled it off. It assumes quite a lot of prior knowledge about both physics and metaphysics, and it moves so quickly it can sometimes be confusing, but in my opinion it was well worth the effort to read. I very much enjoyed my first foray into Japanese science fiction.
review 2: Beyond getting the chance to read about a cyborg Jesus battling Asura, Plato, and Sidharta on a post-apocalyptic Earth, this book offers up several scenarios that make you think about subjects such as free will, determinism, and blind faith, though it doesn't really slow down to let you mull them over for too long before jumping into another action sequence. I would have expected, given the list of characters, that these ideas would have been given more consideration. I also felt that there was something off about either the writing or translation of the work into English. There seems to be an awful lot of creative description of places and nature, while character actions and dialogue seem somewhat wooden. Furthermore, once we get to the future, there are terms for various fictional devices and weapons that are introduced with no accompanying explanation of what they do or how they work. Still, I found the story both epic and engaging. Recommended more for the SF fan than the philosopher. less

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