Got some time on your Hands? Looking for something good to read? Well I've got something I think you'll enjoy. You should check out the Tails of the Otori series of books by Lian Hern. If you're not a fan of novels then you should just skip this, however if you like to enjoy something other than a manga or light novel every now and then, then you should really take a look at this series of books.

The story takes place in feudal Japan with a twist. If I had to sum it up with only a few words it would sound like: Ninjas, Samurai, and Awesomeness. Okay so I'm sure you're thinking, well that sounds like a typical plotline. Well there's more too it than that. Before I get more into the details about the actual story, I suppose I should tell you just what you're getting yourself into if you decide to read the whole series.

There are five books in the series; the first book is called Across the Nightingale Floor and is the beginning of the trilogy. The titles of the second and third books are Grass for His Pillow, Brilliance of the Moon respectively. The last two books in the series are titled The Harsh Cry of the Heron and Heaven's Net is Wide. The Harsh Cry of the Heron finishes up the story where the trilogy leaves off, and Heaven's Net is Wide takes palce before the start of the trilogy and gives us the back story on one of the characters who meets his maker rather early on in the trilogy.

In the first book of the trilogy we start following the story of our main character, whose name is Otori Takeo. He is the son of a powerful and talented member of the Tribe who has sworn to never kill again. His mother is a member of the religion called the Hidden (think Christians) who oppose violence and that there good stuff. One day the village Takeo lived in was massacred by one of the local warlords Iida Sadamu, a particular brutal fellow with a rather large hatred of the Hidden. Our main character manages to survive the encounter due to the use of his Tribe skills, which he is unaware of, and subsequently gets adopted by the Head of the Otori clan Otori Shigeru.

Now I suppose I should tell you what the hell the Tribe is before I start throwing the term around to loosely. Basically the Tribe is a group of families with unusual powers. They use these powers to procure knowledge and aid any clan who pays them enough money, basically they are ninjas. The Tribe is divided in to two major families; you have the most powerful family the Kikuta which is basically the head of the Tribe and the Muto family, not as powerful as the Kikuta but still pretty damn good. The head of the Muto Family is a rather cool fellow by the name of Muto Kenji, (he is in fact where I derived my screen name from) a friend and ally to Shigeru.

Look I could spend hours telling you all about how the books go and who loves who, or who gets killed by whom and with what. Let's just say that the story is engaging, fun, and original. And besides if I told you how the whole thing went there'd be no point to reading it yourself.

I was once asked the question by a friend who really isn't in to reading "What is that book about?" and I answered something like "Well it's about this kid who's family is murdered, and he becomes an assassin to kill the man responsible" My friend was rather surprised and said "Wow that sounds pretty cool." So if like my friend you too think that sounds rather cool then you should check out this series. You can check out the author's website here for more info on the books and such. Also check out the gallery for some of the book cover art.