Not only is this world three years into its amnesia, but apparently there are also space colonies, giant metal walkers that behave like malfunctioning Robocops, experiments reminiscent of Weapon X on Wataru and his dead friend Johnny, and genetically engineered giant animals. The giant mutant animals are indicative of another problem: way too much of the good stuff is prologue. It makes it hard to really care about anyone’s fate. The characters are hollow not because life has hollowed them out, but because the author put nothing in them to begin with. When Wataru and Sophia meet Tonto and Rita, the latest group of people banding together trying to survive while trying to stay away from some sort of predator (the aforementioned giant mutant animals, among other things), there is no sense that this group’s plight affects them, even in a grizzled “only the strong survive” sense. Perhaps you could argue that they have become numb in the ensuing three years, but that doesn’t feel quite right either, especially since the other humans they meet clearly have not lost the ability to have an inner life and emotions amidst the chaos. But neither one really seems to have any sort of reaction to the chaos around them. Sophia is curious and strangely powerful. ![]() Often he just stands there, hand on his gun waiting to be attacked while waiting for Sophia to explain the customs of the latest tribe of primitive humans that they come across in the desert. Sophia knows more than Wataru for reasons that are explained later in the book, but Wataru due to some sort of experiments in Montana at least has the knowledge of human speech, using a gun, and driving a car (all thing that were forgotten with the amnesic wind). First is that the characters are less fully realized people and more vehicles for which Kikuchi uses to take us to the various bits of post-apocalyptic scenery. In fact, the New Mexico interlude illustrates quite nicely the two aspects of this book I find most troublesome. Now with 1000% more primitive human tribes. The story goes from Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco to the ruins of Hollywood and Las Vegas to a mysterious national park in New Mexico built around a meteor impact and home to giant mutant animals, to a New Orleans that somehow has remembered its jazz roots, if not the dangers of the levees breaking.** In between escaping giant robots and cannibalistic serial killers are moments where Wataru takes in the splendor of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, or the characters marvel at the scenery while speeding down the Pacific Coast Highway. As odd as it is to say considering this book is set after America is destroyed by loss of memories, but it really is a love letter to the United States. In a postscript to the book, Kikuchi wrote about how this story was inspired by his own trip to Grand Canyon and the surrounding areas, and how he was blown away by the vast American landscape. Therefore, our intrepid duo of Sophia* and Wataru not only had to survive their cross-country odyssey, but they also had to learn just why America (and the rest of the world) has reverted to a primitive state. ![]() Something stole the memories of humankind, specifically their memories of civilization. However, the particular apocalypse as described in Amnesia felt different–it wasn’t an all out war or an obvious alien invasion. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of stories set in a post-apocalyptic world, though I make an exception for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?Yet even this science-fiction classic written by one of the major names of the genre left me at best, lukewarm. ![]() This is the first in my series about speculative fiction and fantasy books from places other than the United States or UK.Ī Wind Named Amnesiawas an odd choice for me to pick up. As I do not speak or read Japanese, I do not feel qualified to critique specific language use or turns of phrase everything I am reading from Kikuchi’s original story is filtered through Joe and Yuko Swift’s interpretation. Originally, these books were published in Japan under the title Invader Street. ![]() Nota Bene: A Wind Named Amnesia was originally written in 1983, but was published in 2005 as a double novel with Invader Summer.
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