• Across the Nightingale Floor

  • Tales of the Otori, Book One
  • By: Lian Hearn
  • Narrated by: Kevin Gray, Aiko Nakasone
  • Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (8,256 ratings)

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Across the Nightingale Floor  By  cover art

Across the Nightingale Floor

By: Lian Hearn
Narrated by: Kevin Gray,Aiko Nakasone
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Editorial reviews

Why we think it's Essential: At the heart of Lian Hearn's beautiful saga of samurai, enchantment, and passion in feudal Japan is the story of two ill-fated lovers, brought to poignant life with the dual performances of Kevin Gray and Aiko Nakasone. Trading chapters as their stories intertwine, Gray and Nakasone anchor the action with their alternating voices, underscoring the very personal stakes amidst the epic tale of feuding warlords. — Ed Walloga

Publisher's summary

A tour-de-force novel set in ancient Japan filled with passion, fantasy, and feuding warlords. The first volume in the highly anticipated Tales of the Otori trilogy.

Sixteen-year-old Takeo's village has been massacred by an evil warlord, and he is about to be slain by the men who murdered his parents and neighbors. At the last moment, his life is saved by a nobleman, who claims the boy as his kin and begins his education.

But nothing is as it seems. Takeo discovers that he has rare powers that are useful to those around him. As he grows into manhood, he must decide where his loyalties lie: with his noble master and adoptive father; with the Hidden, a secret, spiritual sect whose beliefs are forbidden; or with the Tribe, the assassins and spies who consider him one of their own.

A story of treachery, political intrigue, and the intensity of first love, set in a world ruled by formal ritual and codes of honor, Across the Nighingale Floor crosses genres, generations, and genders to captivate fans of all ages.

Don't miss the rest of the Tales of the Otori series.
©2002 Lian Hearn (P)2003 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

"The novel fills a unique niche that is at once period piece and fantasy novel." (Amazon.com)

What listeners say about Across the Nightingale Floor

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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Performance
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Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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  • 1 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful epic story

I listened to the sample and could think of nothing else until I downloaded it; and, having just finished, I have just purchased the next book; and am listening to the this one again!

This book has just about everything; epic story; love (requited and not), honor, heroes, scoundrels; magic and wars.

The story starts with the narrator's story. He is rescued by a lord when his village is destroyed. The reasons behind all this, are developed in the story. There is also the story of a young woman, held as a hostage to ensure cooperation between "warlords". They meet and the rest well, I won't tell you. The story goes back and forth between these two characters.

The reading is excellent, but the Japanese names are a bit difficult. I do not know if the names would be easier in print. The images, while painted with spare strokes, capture a feeling of a different time and place. I suggest listening to the sample; if you like that, you will like the book.

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154 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Just don't understand the praise this book gets.

After seeing all the praise for this book, I was excited to listen to it. I kept waiting for the book to find it's stride, but it never did. The book has the beginnings of something interesting, but doesn't deliver.

Feudal Japan (even though this is something of a parallel universe) has so much to offer a book like this, but there is very little setting of scene. In fact, I'm not sure I heard more than one consecutive sentence of description. One obligatory mention of the swirling cherry blossoms is as much as we get, which is really too bad. If there's one thing Japan has in spades, it's aesthetics. It's as if the characters are walking around a brief sketch of a scene -- not such a bad thing if the characters stood on their own.

I'm not usually a harsh critic, and will generally give a book it's due even if it's not up my alley. But this book just kinda falls flat; The beginnings of a good fantasy setting, the details of which are never fleshed out; a great atmospheric location that's entirely ignored; and cardboard cut-outs of characters.

Read Ender's Game (or even Harry Potter) for this kind of experience done right.

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68 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Tales of the Otori trilogy - book one

This is book one of a trilogy. After hearing it, I had a feeling that the story was cut off in mid sentence. I would highly suggest that the reader get all three books before listening. Unfortently, book three, "Brilliance of the Moon" will not be available in print until June 7, 2004 and there is no telling when or if it will be available in audio.

These books are outstanding, and well worth the price and time (at least the first two that I have heard.) The narrative is also outstanding. I highly recommend them.

Al

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50 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Reads like poetry! Don't miss the sequels!

I?ve always loved Japan, and martial arts have always fascinated on me. So it is with the greatest pleasure I listened to the magic of this book. Magic at several levels indeed, since the leading character, Takeo (Tomasu) is of an ancient tribe and has supernatural powers. Set in medieval and feudal Japan, it starts within the Hidden (the Christians) who are persecuted. That part is historic. Then we learn about the feuds between the clans and the designs of Lord Otori, and how Takeo fits in. I won?t give away more of the story. You?ll have to find out how the clans lead their wars, including assassins and one way to keep them at bay: wooden floors designed to chirp on anyone who walks on them (hence the beautiful title, which is the first thing actually that captured my attention).

Those who have read and liked the White Ninja series by Eric Lustbader will immediately love this book. I thought for a while that the skills (invisibility, power to put anyone to sleep by looking at them) lent to the hero had a natural explanation, such as a natural way to blend into the scenery (camouflage techniques, hypnosis), but it seems they are to be taken quite literally.

But there is so much more magic in this book. The choice of words and sentences reads like poetry. Since the chapters alternate between Kaede (the feminine hero) and Takeo, reading by two narrators of the opposite sex was a great idea. The narration is good and does not get in the way. Some found it monotone (esp. of Ms Nakasone), but I quite disagree; to me, it had a hypnotic quality. Besides, it let the words speak for themselves and did not try to add on to them, which I think was the just touch. On a last note, those like me who speak or have some knowledge of Japanese will also appreciate the accurate and original pronunciation of the Japanese names.

Last note: this is the first of a trilogy. The second (Grass for his Pillow) is even better. Read on!

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41 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Is this some kind of joke?

Like many, I was temped to download this story based on the glowing reviews of the many listeners. Unfortunately, I was in for quite a shock as I was subjected to 8 1/2 hours of sheer boredom. "Across the Nightingale Floor" is an uninspired story with tired overused characters in a cliche world. Even taken as a "fantasy-lite" story it fails miserably.

The first problem is Hearn's prose is unimaginative and plain. Hearn seems to take great lengths to describe scenes poorly chosen adjectives and even poorer descriptions. Every paragraph drags on, and when finally finished, you don't feel as if you know any more about anything. It reminds me of a fifth grader who just discovered a Roget's Thesaurus.

The next problem is the dialog, which is simply poorly written. If there weren't male and female readers you could never tell who was saying what.

Lastly, the story is so cliche that it really isn't worth getting to the end to see what happened.

With the plethora of stories available in this genre, a potential reader/listener would be best suited to go elsewhere.

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28 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable narrators

I was interested in this book but was put off by the reviewers who did not like the narrators. I finally did listen and I have to disagree with the the negative reviews, especially as regards the female narrator. She sounds as if she may actually be a Japanese speaker and her inflections, pacing, and articulation are precise but convey the appropriate emotion, as well. I enjoyed both performances very much.

The book itself was absorbing and enjoyable. I had a slight problem with the ocassional lapses of the author into 20th century colloquialisms which broke the illusion of feudal-era Japan, but I look forward to reading the next books in the series.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic

I will have to respectfully disagree with the other reviewers who did not like the narrators. This is a Japanese tale, so their voices are calm, gentle- it fits well for this tale. They are also far from "robot-like", there are definite inflections, and separate "voices" for different characters. One quality I look for in a good narrator is the ability to get lost in the telling of the story, without being distracted by inconsistencies in character voice inflection or odd noises made by the narrator. I easily got lost in this tale. So much so that I had a hard time putting down my iPod to pause from the book.

The tale itself is delightful, poetic and vivid. It is technically a fantasy, but I found it also romantic and full of political intrigue. A very well done story. I'm looking forward to listening to the second book.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Loved it from the first paragraph....

This is a wonderful book. My husband and I both enjoyed listening to the narrators tell this story of love, power, mystery and custom. We are looking forward to the second and third books. The characters are well developed and the story is easy to follow.

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved This Book!

How to describe this book? It's just one of the most beautiful stories I've read/heard in a very long time. This is not an action-adventure story, although there are moments of both, it's a story about family, fathers and sons, lovers, and great evil perpetrated against those who choose peace over war, and then must choose war over peace. Almost from the minute this story began I was enthralled. I listened to it as I walked each day and would often find myself losing track of time. I can't wait to start the next book!

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

brilliant reading of a brilliant series of novels

My wife and have lived in Japan several times over the past 40 years. We both learned Japanese and became interested in Japanese history and traditions as adults. These truly are wonderful novels inspired by much real history of Japan's civil wars. The narrators are outstanding in that they impute a Japanese sounding intonation to the characters. In other words, although they are speaking English, one can almost think they are speaking Japanese. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

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18 people found this helpful