Art done by Probably Ed Vebell
King Rat - Review
Link to the author's (J. Clavell) personal website
Genre: Fiction
Publication Type: Book
Tags:
- Average Age of Main Characters (28)
- Length (4 / 10)
Series: Asian Saga
Link to Goodreads
Blurb: The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.
Review: This one got me good. It never felt biographical, staying firmly in fiction, but somehow the general mood and the dips / bumps of descriptiveness made it clear that the author had an intimate knowledge of a war-camp.
So, there's no big story laid out in this book from the start. It doesn't focus on a heist, or some grand escape, but rather follows Marlowe, a prisoner of the camp, mainly focusing on everyday life under such conditions and on his interactions with The King. You could very easily with that short description craft an entirely different story then the one intended, and perhaps that's why I'm struggling so hard to describe it. The interesting things that you see individuals adapt to under such conditions aren't what make the story, or at-least they didn't for me, but I'm struggling to not expand on them....... Suffice to say that the story is great, and every character is interesting in that some slight tweaks in morality would make them the most maligned. The ending for me highlighted this perfectly, where there's at-least monetarily a complete war on whether some sympathy should be felt.
It's a huge recommend from me, and I think it's a good example of a fiction book that fantasy readers would enjoy.
It should be noted that this book is part is part of a series, but so briefly interacts with the larger story that it shouldn't be considered remotely dependent.
See the series review here.