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Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein
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Daughter of the Sword

Best Seller
Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein
Paperback $17.00
Oct 02, 2012 | ISBN 9780451464774

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    Oct 02, 2012 | ISBN 9780451464774

    Buy from Other Retailers:

  • Oct 02, 2012 | ISBN 9781101615423

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Product Details

Praise

“Steve Bein’s Daughter of the Sword is a strikingly original saga blending contemporary thriller and historical fantasy. Enthralling … A noir modern Tokyo overwhelmed by the shadows of Japanese history. The research is convincing, the touch light. A compelling multifaceted vision of a remarkable culture, and a great page-turner.”—Stephen Baxter, author of Stone Spring

“A sharp and superb urban fantasy, Daughter of the Sword is the perfect melding of skillful prose, fascinating characters, and compelling story. Steve Bein effortlessly combines history and legend with a modern procedural in a book that will have you staying up late to finish it.”—Diana Rowland, author of Sins of the Demon

“Steve Bein’s Daughter of the Sword really captured my imagination. The interweaving of historical Japanese adventure and modern police procedural, Tokyo-style, caught me from two unexpected directions. A tight read, lots of great tension, and epic stakes.”—Jay Lake, author of Green and Mainspring

“Bein’s gripping debut is a meticulously researched, highly detailed blend of urban and historical fantasy set in modern Tokyo.”—Publishers Weekly

“An epic tale that heralds the emergence of a major talent…one of the best debuts I have ever read. Grab it ASAP and see for yourself why Steve Bein deserves all the praise coming his way.”—Fantasy Book Critic

“A beautiful…totally unique novel.”—Between Dreams and Reality

“Ends with a bang…it shall be interesting to read the next book in the series.”—Gizmo Reviews

“A superb effort from a new author, polished and stylish.”—Otherwhere Gazette

“An interesting and absorbing read, I really recommend it and can’t wait to see what happens next in this series.”—Under the Covers

“Beautiful writing, a smart and resilient protagonist who meets her match in a coldly demented villain. The procedural elements are tight and fascinatingly different…I was bewitched.”—All Things Urban Fantasy

“If you love reading about far-away places, historical fiction and fantasy, this book should definitely be on your list.”—Literal Addiction

“A unique read, a combination of the paranormal and a police procedural…I was more than satisfied.”—Goldilox and the Three Weres

“What a great first novel, I can’t wait for the next one. It is rich in all aspects of Japanese history. I was totally enchanted from the beginning and couldn’t put it down.”—Night Owl Reviews

“If you have any interest in Japanese culture, samurais, bushido…ah hell, just read it…freaking epic.”—Pure Textuality

Author Essay

Instead of telling you what Daughter of the Sword is about, I think I’ll say a little something about where it came from. After all, there are plenty of people who can tell you what it’s about: Publishers Weekly has done that for you already, and of course Penguin has too. But those folks don’t know how the book came about in the first place, so I thought I’d share something new here, something that no one else can tell. Daughter of the Sword was born in Japan—in the midst of a typhoon, in fact. I was living in a tiny apartment on the top floor of a teensy little house in Nagoya, with flimsy wooden walls that rattled like maracas and a corrugated tin roof that shuddered like it might rip free at any moment. (The place wasn’t exactly built to withstand earthquakes, let alone hurricane–force winds.) In hindsight I’m not even sure how I managed to fall asleep in those conditions, but I did, and I had a dream about a katana that left a haunting, keening note on the air whenever it cut. It was the wind singing that note, of course, and eventually it got violent enough to wake me up. I groggily scribbled something about the dream, and what began as half–lucid notes written at 2:00 in the morning eventually became a novella about the katana known as Beautiful Singer, and about the vengeful spirit that resides in her. Under those conditions it was hardly an accident that I was dreaming about chilling notes on the air, and as for dreaming about swords, that could have happened on any given night. I’ve been enamored with samurai and ninja stories since childhood, and one of my favorite things about living in Japan was the many opportunities I had to visit medieval castles, with their ever–present displays of weapons and armor. There’s a castle in Osaka that will rent you samurai armor, and one in Iga where they have someone demonstrate how to run through walls. No special effects: just the most cleverly constructed paneling you’ve ever seen, and a woman in a pink ninja suit running right through it. Truth to tell, I didn’t ever set out to write urban fantasy. Much of Daughter of the Sword is really historical fantasy, as is the companion novella, Only a Shadow. I started with the samurai and ninja stories I’ve always loved, but as these were taking shape, I saw they were scattered over too broad a span of Japanese history. They needed someone to unify them. Enter Mariko Oshiro, the only woman to earn a detective’s badge and sergeant’s stripes in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. She’s also my only protagonist in the 21st century—the only one with a perspective long enough to tie all the historical storylines together. I didn’t expect her to take over the book, but that’s exactly what she did. She quickly picked up the trail of Beautiful Singer, the ultimate murder weapon, so in a sense that Nagoya typhoon gave birth to Mariko too. It inspired the sword, and then created the need for a sleuth clever enough to discover just how bloody the sword’s path has been over the last nine hundred years. Like I said, I didn’t expect Mariko to commandeer my book, but now that she’s here, I’ve come to like her. A lot. She’s tough, she’s smart, she’s resourceful, she’s bullheaded—and that’s before she gets a sword in her hands. Now that I think of it, she’s exactly the kind of woman you’d expect to have a hurricane for a mother.

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