The Unicorn (Legend of the Five Rings: Clan War 2) by Allison Lassieur

The Unicorn (Legend of the Five Rings: Clan War 2) Reviews

• 
  Jukka Särkijärvi

  The Clan War series, I think, is hamstrung by its own structure. You have seven novels, each with their own protagonists and focusing on a different clan, but only one overarching plotline. In The Scorpion, we at least saw the plot begin, but The Unicorn does very little to advance it, being forced to spend time in introducing its characters, who are still left wooden, distant, and somewhat passive. The one thing I think the novel did well with its characters (or with anything else, really) was its sidestepping of the romance subplot with the female protagonist.
  
  The book also undersells its events. From the sourcebooks we know the Battle at Beiden Pass is supposed to be big and significant, but the importance and scale of the events is not passed on to the reader in The Unicorn. It's supposed to be epic, larger than life, a turning point. Instead, we're told about it, we're not shown it, even though we're taken right to the middle of it!
  
  See, I like Rokugan. I like Legend of the Five Rings. It makes no pretension of any kind of cultural accuracy, gleefully embraces every myth about the superiority of katanas the writers could find and is generally an unabashedly Hollywood take on fantasy Japan. It's over the top and takes itself seriously, which is what makes it work.
  
  The Unicorn doesn't deliver that. If you ran a search and replace to change katanas to longswords on the manuscript, it could just as easily be set in the Forgotten Realms. You have katanas and tea sets and rock gardens, but those are all set dressing, and everyone acts like modern-day Westerners. Also, we get zombies. Lots of zombies. They're called zombies. They're called zombies lots, without recourse to synonym or euphemism. It gets repetitive fast, and took me out of the story. Zombies are something you get in a Romero flick. In a fantasy Japan, namedropping them breaks the tone. Calling them walking dead or hungry dead or something would have been preferable.
  
  Meh.
• 
  Nathaniel

  4.5. as a standalone novel, this book is excellent. the interweaving of Tetsuko and Tadaji’s perspectives is well done, and the Japanese — while still honestly kind of unnecessary — is significantly improved from The Scorpion. the horror is well-executed (and remains tastefully within the boundaries of what I, a person who struggles with horror, can enjoy), as is Tadaji’s unraveling. it leans a little too far towards telling rather than showing re Tetsuko being disgraced, but that’s a minor point, so I’ll let it pass.
  
  as a component of the Clan Wars series leading up to the Second Day of Thunder, this book is a little more perplexing: don’t get me wrong, I like Tetsuko, but Kamoko is the Unicorn Thunder. in all the other books in the series, the (future) Thunder is the main — or one of the main — POV characters, but Kamoko only shows up here for a few scenes during the Battle of Beiden Pass, and doesn’t say more than about two hundred words, tops. I remember being confused when I got to The Lion because by that point I’d forgotten that Kamoko appeared in this book at all; she might as well have been showing up out of nowhere just for the climax of the series.
  
  so: good book, odd position in the series.
• 
  lulzcannon

  This book reminded me of a very bad wapanese (that is, white kids acting Japanese) fan-fiction. The most bothersome aspect of the book is that the already wooden dialogue is peppered with Japanese buzzwords that scream "Trying too hard". Reading "The Unicron" as a teen marked the point in my life where I realized how annoying and unnecessary the domoarigotodesudesudesu bits picked up from watching too much anime could be when added to a literary work (and that's saying a lot, because I loved anime at this point in my life). Besides this, I never got really hooked on the story. It felt like mishmash of overdone fantasy tropes and never brought anything new to the table.
• 
  Thomas

  General Overview
  A rather standard second entry, The Unicorn, gets by on its characters and the world of Legend of the Five Rings, over its story.
  
  Style
  Written as any book of its genre, A.L. Lassieur, took no risks with his writing for this book. Where the former felt bold and used its Asian setting well, The Unicorn at times feels like it remembers on occasion its setting, and pastes words or scene dressing in to tick that box.
  
  It is written well enough, that the scenes that feel almost tick boxy as well for this type of novel are enjoyable. I did like this novel. It just didn’t grip me as much as I hoped it would. This is in part due to its writing.
  
  Story
  Starting off slightly disjointedly from the end of the first book, some months have passed over the land of Rokugan. A plague has befallen the land, and the Emperor is on his death bed.
  
  Some of the Clans, the Unicorn being the focus of this book, are banding together to fend off the growing threat of the Shadowlands. The Unicorn’s Ambassador and a Battle Maiden of the Clan must do all they can to ensure the survival of the people of the Emerald Empire.
  
  But the story as told just feels unconnected to these events. It is enjoyable enough, but feels throughout that we are reading the sideline events of this epic war in the making, and not seeing many of the main events themselves. We see our Battle Maiden in battle, and the Ambassador in intrigue, but it’s only at the end of the novel that any of what they do seems to matter.
  
  I also feel that it doesn’t explain the threat that is being posed to Rokugan. It talks about Goblins, Ogres and Zombies, but doesn’t explain them in the world, or what is driving this war.
  
  Thankfully, the world is colourfully written, and the characters we meet are interesting, with good depth. A saving grace for this piece as a whole.
  
  Final Thoughts
  A far less gripping second installment to the what started as an interesting series. It has kept my attention, and was a pleasant enough read that I will look to see what the 3rd book holds.
• 
  Nisha

  My favourite book in this series. It tells of the "barbarian" Unicorn clan's efforts to save their world from the encroaching evil.
  
  The book focuses on two Unicorns, a Battle Maiden named Tetsuko, and the Unicorn Ambassador, Tadaji. Through their eyes the plot unfolds, including deadly battles and political intrigue. A great read for those interested in this series.
• 
  Katie

  Overall I enjoyed this continuation of the Clan War series, following the coup against the emperor and the putting down of the rebellion by the Crab Clan. This picks up a little later with a plague sweeping Rokugan. This time we follow members of the Unicorn clan, a warrior woman and an older ambassador at court. I was a little disappointed that, after introducing sooo many characters in the first book, we move on to an almost entirely new cast of characters in this one. I still want to know what happened with the other storylines! Maybe they will be picked up again in later books in this series. This book also failed in the same way the first one did, in that neither explain large details of the world, like the Shadowlands creatures in this book. They seem like a mix of legendary creatures like goblins and ogres along with reanimated zombies that don’t get explained much. I realize this series exists in conjunction with the game system, but I have read plenty of books that are set in game worlds, like Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms, and I never felt confused at the setting or world because those books explained all of it. Just something I feel is missing from these ones. I’ll still read them all as I do enjoy it.
• 
  Tacitus Kilgore

  I liked elements of this, especially the lead characters, Utaku Tetsuko the Battle Maiden and Ide Tadaji the Imperial ambassador. I found their characters well drawn, believable, and consistent, and their viewpoints were ably interwoven by the author.
  
  That said, the plot did little to create tension. Worse, I was generally not clear on what was going on overall or what the stakes were. As a result, the novel felt somewhat generic, despite its Rokugani trappings (which, apart from everything else, I always enjoy).
• 
  Nancy

  See review of first book.
  I tried it again as the idea of
  these books is good.
  Its just not my style.
  But if they made a miniseries out of this
  Animated
  It would be worth the watch.
• 
  literarykal

  brief synopsis: shadowland forces are approaching and a plague of the undead continues to haunt local villages. Rumors, nightmares, and death haunt the empire as the clan takes on a life shattering battle ⚔️
  
  review: with a wishywashy storyline and a setting that was forgotten half the time, a complete badass battle maiden is the savior of this book! Her bestfriend is a horse and her character arc is just right, what a great combo. But the author throwing in random Japanese phrases every 50 pages? Side eyeing that choice a little bit 🙄
• 
  Eric

  Better overall than the first book in the series, this volume still suffers from mediocre prose. The biggest problem is that, while the world is interesting, there's litte plot development until the end. The combat scenes are bad but the stuff in between are actually quiet good.
• 
  Serge Pierro

  Being a fan of the Legend of the Five Rings CCG, this series of books were a must read. Of course the fanboy element probably added an additional star to the rating. Non-fans of the game might find this to be an enjoyable read (although for them, only three stars).
• 
  Dan

  After thoroughly enjoying the first of this series, this brought me back to reality. Maybe 3 fun moments amidst less interesting characters, more predictability and a crawling pace.
  
  I mean you think I would have know from the cover, right?
• 
  Lori

  Story of the Unicorn, set 3 years after the coup by the Scorpion. Great action and drama. Tetsuko is a character I want to see more of.
• 
  Ashkhan

  My favorite clan in the L5R CCG. Have to be a bit benevolent here.