From Publishers Weekly
Johnson's mesmerizing second fantasy based on Japanese myth surpasses her inspired debut, The Fox Woman (2000). As the half-sister, aunt and great-grandaunt of the last three Japanese emperors, respectively, the princess Harueme has lived a long life of privilege at court, but now she is dying and must go to a convent. While sorting through her belongings, she comes across several blank notebooks, and a "blank notebook demands words." To fill them, Harueme spins the tale of a nameless tortoiseshell cat living in a ramshackle estate in the capital. When a fire raging through the city destroys the estate, the cat is the only survivor. Her aunts and cousins having been killed, she is bereft of her fudoki the chronicle of all the female cats who have inhabited her home. Homeless and nameless, she sets out on a journey that will take her to humanity and back, and earn her a name both as the Cat Who Survived and as Kagaya-hime, woman warrior. The author interweaves the story Harueme tells with Harueme's own, equally absorbing tale. To call Johnson a stylist is to call Michael Jordan a basketball player each word and phrase glitters gemlike on the page. This tale of life and dying, of love and humanity, soars with feline grace.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The successor to The Fox Woman (2000) is set in the same Japanese-myth-influenced universe and just as charming. It is the story of a tortoiseshell cat who has lost her (feline) family in a fire in the imperial capital. Now only she knows the tales and traditions of her clan. So she sets off on a journey, during which she encounters a kami of the roads, who gives her a new shape, that of a human, without removing her feline soul. The cat-souled woman becomes the warrior Kagaya-hime amid the intrigues of early twelfth-century Japan. Her story is a tale within a tale, for it is framed by the story of Princess Harueme, who tells the cat's tale, and whose life is hedged about by the restrictions of the imperial court. Now, old and dying, Harueme finds, first, relief, and then, renewed interest in the world as she sorts through her possessions and her memories. And in the end, Kagaya-hime sends the princess on a journey. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Enter the world of Kagaya-hime, a sometime woman warrior, occasional philosopher, and reluctant confidante to noblemen--who may or may not be a figment of the imagination of an aging empress who is embarking on the last journey of her life, setting aside the trappings of court life and reminiscing on the paths that lead her to death.

For she is a being who started her journey on the kami, the spirit road, as a humble tortoiseshell feline. Her family was destroyed by a fire that decimated most of the Imperial city, and this loss renders her taleless, the only one left alive to pass on such stories as The Cat Born the Year the Star Fell, The Cat with a Litter of Ten, and The Fire-Tailed Cat. Without her fudoki--self and soul and home and shrine--she alone cannot keep the power of her clan together. And she cannot join another fudoki, because although she might be able to win a place within another clan, to do so would mean that she would cease to be herself.

So a small cat begins an extraordinary journey. Along the way she will attract the attention of old and ancient powers. Gods who are curious about this creature newly come to Japan's shores, and who choose to give the tortoiseshell a human shape.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In her debut novel, Kij Johnson took the classic Japanese myth of the fox who dared to become a woman to win true love and created The Fox Woman, a tale of love, desire, joy, and the nature of the soul.

Set in the same universe as The Fox Woman, Kij Johnson's Fudoki takes on another animal totem and enters the world of the creature who comes to be known as Kagaya-hime, a sometime woman warrior, occasional philosopher, and reluctant confidante to noblemen.

And who may or may not be the figment of the imagination of an aging empress who is embarking on the last journey of her life, setting aside the trappings of court life and reminiscing as she followed the paths that are leading her to the nunnery and death.

Fudoki is the tale of a being who starts her journey on the kami, or spirit road, as a humble - if ever a being such as a cat can be humble - small tortoiseshell feline. She has seen her family destroyed by a fire that decimated most of the imperial city. This loss renders her taleless, the only one left alive to pass on such stories as the Cat Born the Year the Star Fell, the Cat with a Litter of Ten, the Fire-Tailed Cat. Without her fudoki - self and soul and home and shrine - she cannot keep the power of her clan together. And she cannot join another fudoki because, although she might be able to win a place within another clan, to do so would mean that she would cease to be herself.

So a small cat begins an extraordinary journey. Along the way she will attract the attention of old and ancient powers, including gods who are curious about this creature newly come to Japan's shores, and who choose to give the tortoiseshell a human shape.

And who set her on a new kamiroad, where Kagaya-hime will have to choose a way to find what happiness she can.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly