Aconyte Books’ growing range of Legends of the Five Rings novels continues to impress with Marie Brennan’s fantastic The Night Parade of 100 Demons, a “supernatural investigation adventure” featuring a pair of mismatched samurai and a horde of creepy spirits. Dragon shugenja Ryōtora travels to the remote village of Seibo Mura, where rampaging yōkai have been causing havoc and killing villagers. There he meets Phoenix scholar Sekken and begrudgingly, albeit politely, agrees to accept the other man’s help in discovering what’s causing the disturbances, and how to prevent any further chaos. Despite their apparent differences the two samurai forge an effective partnership, but both men must find ways to deal with the secrets they carry if they’re to succeed in saving Seibo Mura.
Whether you’re familiar with the concept of the ‘Night Parade’ from Japanese mythology or not, it’s pretty clear from the title alone that there are going to be plenty of monsters in the book, and sure enough Brennan populates its pages with all manner of creepy yōkai for Ryōtora and Sekken to identify and, at times, to battle. All of the supernatural elements here are vibrant and brilliantly (sometimes scarily) drawn, but the world building goes way beyond just the yōkai and the spirit world. With tensions running high in the village and the inherent differences between the two samurai – one lowborn and one highborn, each from different class – to explore, there’s an intriguing opportunity to dig into the realities of life in rural Rokugan and the caste inequality that exists between the samurai and the ‘peasant’ villagers.
This is a hard book to pin down in terms of genre, with elements of investigation, mystery and supernatural adventure all combined into one story, not to mention a slow-burn thread of romance running through it…but that mixture of styles makes for an impactful, entertaining tale that’s more than the sum of its parts. At its core is a brilliant central pair of characters – stiff, formal Ryōtora who holds himself to the highest standards of honour and refuses to allow himself luxuries or respite, contrasting with spoiled, easy-going Sekken who sees everything through a scholarly lens and struggles to understand the realities of life for the villagers of Seibo Mura. The push and pull between these two very different characters plays out beautifully with plenty of ups and downs along the way, and really provides the heart of the story.
It’s not all pointed conversations, samurai politics and ‘will they, won’t they’, of course (although there’s lots of all of that, and it’s fantastic) – as the narrative progresses the danger ramps up in intensity, and the action when it comes is pacy, exciting and inventive. The focus here is predominantly on the relationship between the central characters though, and the tension between their natures and upbringings helps to really bring the supernatural mystery and the vivid world around them to life, the whole thing feeling rich and vivid and believable. While it could certainly be read purely as an enjoyable exploration of how the Legend of the Five Rings world works, in truth it transcends its tie-in roots to deliver a powerful, emotional tale of loyalty, honour, duty and love.
Review copy provided by the publisher – many thanks to Aconyte Books and Marie Brennan for providing me with a review copy of The Night Parade of 100 Demons, in exchange for my honest review.
See also: my Rapid Fire interview with Marie Brennan talking about The Night Parade of 100 Demons
See also: all of the Legend of the Five Rings reviews and interviews on Track of Words
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