For sheer narrative power and immersion in another world, few have done it better than Clavell in Shogun. The book grabs you from the first page and never seems to let go. It's an easy read, too, since you barely notice you're reading. (I read it in three days back in the seventies, hardly stopping for air, and have needed bifocals with reading lenses ever since.) Still the book has some unfortunate blunders including an allusion to a samurai using judo (not invented until the 1880's, while this book takes place in the 16th century) and another shaking off his sandals to kick at an enemy (quite out of character for such warriors since they were predominantly weaponed soldiers who would never choose to kick an enemy if they had access to one of their traditional instruments of war; besides so-called karate kicking wasn't introduced into Japan, from Okinawa, until the 1920's). The worst error, I thought, had Lord Toranaga playing chess, a western game, when it would have made more sense for him to be playing the indigenous Japanese game of go instead. But the Japanese warriors did have jiu-jitsu, the forerunner of judo, and kicking could have been a part of what they did (however unlikely) and Toronaga could have taught himself chess since he is portrayed as a quick study with a keen and very deep mind. And besides, these are minor quibbles. Basically, this is a powerful tale of intrigue and maneuvering as the players move about on the chessboard of feudal Japan, never certain who among them is really moving the pieces and who is just being moved -- at least until the end. The sense and feel of the culture, if not the details, also ring remarkably true and you do feel as though you've lived the entire experience when at last you close the book on the final page. And the characters, as the reviews following mine point out, are also based on real people; the events on things that really occurred -- though Clavell granted himself literary license to manipulate and recast what he found in the histories to make his tale a more dramatic one. It's not a true story in that sense, but it's a great one and well worth a pair of glasses. -- Stuart W. Mirsky