Customer Reviews

Black Wind

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read this book many years ago, it was passed around between family members. To this day, I have not read a book that has so powerfully depicted the tumultuous events involving Americans and Japanese during World War II. In fact, I was so dismayed that the book was out of print! This beautifully written historical epic is riveting, the kind that makes you cry and gets you all choked up, and the characters are admirable and true to life. F. Paul Wilson brilliantly weaves in historical details, native superstition and cultural differences around an unforgettable love triangle, and gives some very lasting (not to mention haunting) images of the war. Steven Spielberg should have made a movie out of it!

Fantastic! I want to give it 5++ stars! F. Paul Wilson has truly created a novel to capture the intricate dynamics of loyalty between friends, between lovers, between brothers, between family and child, between love and hate...inter-twined without gaps, fast moving...a tightly woven tale that held me spell-bound, anxious to keep on reading well late into the night. Excellent work, sir...

Arguably the best yet from F. Paul Wilson including the entire Repairman Jack series. Don't get me wrong; I love Jack but he's getting a little long in the tooth and I think F. needs to move along and get back to his roots as we see in Black Wind. Wonderful story.

I must say that this was quite possibly the best novel I have ever read! I was captured by the plot from the very first day that I started reading Black Wind. The way that F. Paul Wilson describes the way of life for the Japanese at the most crucial of times during the Second World War was truly inspiring and enlightenning. I even noticed myself crying at several spots in the book, which was an incredibly awesome experience. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read, no matter what type of book they prefer. Black Wind has it all. F. Paul Wilson had truly delivered an epic story in its truest form.

This book touched me from the first time I read it, 10 years ago. Since then I have read it once a year. It gives a stunning depiction of cultures that were never discussed in history books. Whether fiction or not the author makes you believe because of what we do know as fact from history. It also displays World War II in a way I had never realized. I have told everyone I know to read this book. The first thing I did on Christmas Eve after receiving and setting up my Kindle was to order this book. I began reading it on Christmas night and it was as always,an eye-opening pleasure.

"Black Wind" is one of only two novels that are part of the "Secret History of the World" but that are not part of either the Adversary Cycle or the Repairman Jack Series (the other is "Sibs"). Even though I have been an avid fan of all 21 novels comprising the two series just referred to, plus several other novels and anthologies and written by FP Wilson, somehow I never read Black Wind until this week, immediately after reading the last RJ entry, "The Dark at the End". I was immediately sucked into this rich tapestry of life in the early part of the 20th century in the US and Japan. While the novel does contain the FPW trademarks of horror/fantasy (the titular Black Wind), even discounting these, it is wonderfully complex with several unexpected plot twists and not one but two bona fide love stories. The main characters are richly drawn and the interpersonal relations between Japanese brothers, Matsuo and Hiroki, the beautiful Meiko, and Matsuo's American friend Frankie are deeply intertwined.

This is historical fiction at its best. The setting flips back and forth between Japan and California from the 1920s through the end of WWII. FPW really did his homework on this one and it shows clearly. There is some really good authentic Japanese thrown in and used in a way so as to define it in context (a lá Shogun), and great examples, in deeds and discussion, of traditional Japanese cultural values of honor, obligation (several different kinds) and debt. The conspiracy theory concerning what we knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor, and when, has been treated in fact and fiction before, but this is as good a fictional treatment as I have read anywhere, and is used to great advantage by FPW. There are a number of historical figures depicted much as I know them to be from my reading of history, but the main characters are FPW's creations. The tie-in with the "Secret History of the World" is, as most FPW fans could have predicted, through an ancient katana sword that is bequeathed to Matsuo, the main character, early in the novel. The sword is an important player in the novel, but here is simply an excellent katana, albeit of somewhat ancient and unusual construction. For RJ fans, the 2008 novel, "By the Sword" is, in many respects, virtually a sequel to Black Wind, as well as an integral part of the beginning of the end-game of the Secret History of the World.

This might be the best example of pure mainstream fiction writing by FPW, especially if you are not particularly into SF and/or fantasy. Make no mistake, there are some pretty horrific scenes in this one too, it's just that they are the icing rather than the cake itself, in contrast to much of the Adversary Cycle and Repairman Jack in which the fantasy and horror aspects tend to take center stage. I can't say enough good things about Dark Wind. It has quickly jumped right to the A-list of my all-time FPW favorites. The novel is completely stand-alone - one doesn't have to have read anything else by FPW for full appreciation, but for fans of RJ and the Adversary Cycle, it does fill in a few blanks, and as I mentioned, fans of Black Wind will probably want to read the sequel, By the Sword.

Very Highly Recommended.

JM Tepper

Although this novel has some super natural elements, it is more about the relationship between two men and the woman they love amidst the turmoil of WWII. I'm not one for romance in literature, but I was not put off by it here. A great mix of love and war, fantasy and reality.

This book has ambitious scope and it fully carries it. It is well written, touching, and fascinating.

Centered around the time prior to, and during WWII this is an interesting mash of several genres and is hard to classify. It pulls together historical-based fiction, a loved and lost and maybe found again story, pitfalls of friendship, clashes of culture and a touch of the supernatural.

It's an interesting enough storyline but I found that the characters were very one-dimensional and stereotypical. You like them, but at the end of the story you're quite happy to put the book down, move onto another story and leave them behind.

I found that the story didn't really make a lot of impact expect for some complete revulsion generated by the supernatural aspect of the story as it relates to the manner in which this element is released.

Really, it's a good story, but it's a nice, light read.

I read this book several years ago and the images it gave me as well as the new knowledge I gained from it have hung with me ever since. I came to Amazon to buy it and read it again only to find it out of print. I agree with what others have said here - if I could give it more stars than 5 it would get it and it should be made into a movie. This book gave me insight into the Japanese culture that I would never have otherwise had. It made me live the pains of prejudice, respect tradition, helped me understand the difference between irony and coincidence, and gave me insight into the soul of the samurai. Twin brothers separated because of a seers prophecy and the inability to alter fate -- A MUST read.