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Common Knowledge

Legal name: Komatsu, Minoru
小松左京
Birthdate: 1931-01-28
Date of death: 2011-07-26
Gender: male
Nationality: Japan
Birthplace: Osaka-shi, Osaka, Japan
Place of death: Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Organizations: 宇宙作家クラブ
 ハードSF研究所
Awards and honors: Nihon SF Taisho (1985)

Members

Reviews

Japan Sinks: A Novel about Earthquakes by Sakyo Komatsu

Story: 6 / 10
Characters: 5
Setting: 10
Prose: 4

Consider skipping this "quintessential" Japanese science-fiction novel. I came across it on a Top 10 Japanese SF list, which also included 2 other books by Komatsu. However, neither the prose nor the story structure are very strong. Only the story concept is interesting. But what good is a concept without the execution?

Certainly don't read this book before going to Japan for the first time...

Flagged

MXMLLN | 6 other reviews | Jan 12, 2024 |

Japan Sinks (Dover Doomsday Classics) by Sakyo Komatsu

Enjoyably Good

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saltyessentials | 6 other reviews | Dec 23, 2023 |

Japan Sinks: A Novel about Earthquakes by Sakyo Komatsu

Totally readable! Weirdly dated in ways I'm not quite able to place.

Slightly longer review on Positron:

https://www.positronchicago.com/2020/03/japan-sinks-by-sakyo-komatsu.html

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jakecasella | 6 other reviews | Sep 21, 2020 |

Japan sinks by Sakyo Komatsu

Japan Sinks is sort of the literary equivalent of the big disaster movie, like The Day After Tomorrow, or 2012. The cause of the catastrophe is a force of nature, and the story focuses primarily on how humanity responds to the destruction, in this case the literal sinking of Japan. In particular, the focus is somewhat on how Japan would respond to a catastrophe like this one, and also how the international community would respond, considering Japan's cultural xenophobia and how spectacularly Japan had managed to PO large portions of the international community in the past.

My complaint with the book is due to its length, it never really spends enough time on any of those points - the personal tragedies, the societal response, or the diplomatic response.… (more)

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Count_Zero | 6 other reviews | Jul 7, 2020 |

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