This sequel to The United States of Japan works just fine as a stand-alone. We follow Mac on his dream to be a mecha pilot, through disappointments and tragedies and unwitting successes--his untraditional career path points up the precarious nature of life in the USJ. Tieryas is excellent at pacing, and this is a fascinating fresh take on alternate history.

Ready Player One do-si-dos with The Man in the High Castle in Tieryas's tale of a modern America run by Japan after the Axis's win in World War II. Orphan Makoto Fujimoto wants only to be a mecha pilot and defeat the rebels who killed his parents, but his academic scores and a commander with a grudge put him out of contention—at least until a chance opportunity sends him down another path toward his goal. Readers of alternate history will enjoy the details of the Japanese culture enfolded into the US and the ongoing tensions with the Nazis, while the plot itself packs a punch. -Adrian Liang, Amazon Book Review

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Peter Tieryas, and Berkley Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

While I found the first book to be rather interesting and pretty unique in terms of plot and style, it lacked the mecha action that I thought it might have, heavily predicted by the cover. Mecha Samurai Empire is even better than the first book, and has so much mecha action I can hardly catch a break. The book itself has very few "low rest" points, and has almost constant action, whether it be murders or mech battles. This book is a constant stream of exciting events, and an hour of reading flies right by.

The main character, Makoto (or Mac), has always wanted to be a mech pilot, but it's hard to get into the top programs to do so. When his friend appears to an exam with a mechanical arm, presumed to not only be cheating, but to be involved with a terrorist group, Mac's affiliations with him absolutely destroy his chances of going to BEMA (the Berkeley Military Academy) and ends up joining RAMDET (Rapid Mobile Defense Team)  instead, an alternate path to making his dream come true to serve the Empire as a mecha pilot.

Mac makes many friends and fights through the hardships of military training in RAMDET to make his dream come true. When the RAMS are asked to escort a train full of valuables to the Empire, it's a double-edge sword. It's great that they finally get to go on a mission, but it also seems like an insult in that all they get to do is guard a train. When the Germans attack, Mac realizes the USJ may just have used their team as a decoy. Being one of two survivors showing prowess against the German mechas, Mac and Cheiko are offered a full ride to BEMA, a dream come true. And who do they meet there? None other than the son of one of the most famous mecha pilots ever: Kujira.

With his dream to pilot finally coming true, BEMA offers a number of mecha tournaments and combat classes. That sure comes in handy when a hidden mecha facility falls under attack. It's between the USJ and the Nazis. Who's tech will win out? And how will Mac fare against the superior mechas?

I already said it, but this book was absolutely exciting. I love that fact that it's extremely well-written. There's a lot at stake, and the politics within the USJ are realistic and complex. This book was even better than the first one (and I loved the first one). Full of action and drive to fight for one's country. While this book was very long for me and took me awhile to read, I don't regret a minute of reading, and eagerly hope for a third installment to the series. Highly recommend for those who are interested in Japan or alternate history, as well as war books and mecha.

In United States of Japan, Peter Tieryas created a smart, timely novel built on the structure of Philip K. Dick’s seminal work of alternate history The Man in the High Castle: the Axis powers have won the second world war, and the North American continent is divided between Imperial Japan and the Nazis. Dick’s alternate history takes place roughly 15 years from the end of World War II, and United States of Japan 15 years after that, a whole generation from the liberation by Imperial forces of the Japanese interment camps that were signed off by FDR and upheld by the highest court in the US of A. The novel makes the most of its situation in the early 1980s, blending the almost fanciful tech of the era’s cyberpunk with a spy novel and a video game. It’s a peripatetic work, jumping around in time and through the eponymous United States of Japan, following several characters in the their quest to run down the creators of a seditious video game that posits that the Allies won the war.

Tieryas returns to this rich canvas in Mecha Samurai Empire. It’s been about a decade since the events of United States of Japan, but while a number of characters from that novel cameo, it’s largely a standalone novel. The key difference is that Mecha Samurai Empire is a first person narrative, told from the personal and limited perspective of one Makoto Fujimoto (Mac to his friends), a war orphan of mecha techs killed in the battle of San Diego. After his parents die, he’s placed with an abusive family, one that eventually turns him out into a boarding school. We first meet Mac in his senior year. As an orphan, he doesn’t have the money or family connections to advance in USJ culture, and as an indifferent and average student, he’s not likely to make it on scholastic merit. He’s placed all of his hopes on passing an optional military portion of a national test; if he aces it, he can go to the Berkeley Military Academy and realize his dream of piloting a mecha.

In this way, Makoto’s is not dissimilar from a thousand stories of talented but beleaguered boys who aim to overcome by dint of pluck and wit. Mac is full up with his hopes and dreams. Despite his luckless childhood, he’s so sure he’s going to beat the test and show everyone. The difference between him and other literary orphans of his ilk is that he is allowed to fail, and fail hard. It’s hilariously adorable that he thinks playing thousands of hours of video games—one of which involves controlling a Nazi-fighting cat—is going to prepare him for either military school exams, military school, or the actual military. (To be fair, the maker of several popular video games is also a designer of the military school simulation. Still.)

The exams don’t just go wrong; they go spectacularly wrong. His best friend Hideki—who offers Mac the test answers days before the exam (Mac declines)—ends up inadvertently working for the National Revolutionaries of America (NARA), successors to the George Washingtons of the previous novel. Mac, meanwhile, basically flunks out of everything, in no small part because of the animus of the tester. But then, Mac is a war orphan nothing, and there is no overcoming a system allied against you in ways small and large. He ends up enlisting in the USJ equivalent of the merchant marines, the boats in question being giant fighting robots instead of boats. Here is where Mac really shines. There is a prodigious washout rate among the RAMDET (Rapid Mobile Defense Team) cadets, but Mac doggedly persists, running off his adolescent ramen weight and pushing through the sadistic basic training calisthenics.

In one outing as a RAMDET cadet, he runs into his other best friend from high school, Griselda, who is from mixed German and Japanese heritage, and an exchange student from Nazi Germany. It wasn’t such a big deal that Mac and Griselda were friends in high school, but now that they’ve matriculated into the larger world, their friendship is threatening and uncomfortable. Griselda is mixed race in a government that exults racial purity above all, and her placement in the USJ is precarious; she has no real home. The Nazis and the Empire are in a cold war, sniping at each other over what is called the Quiet Border in engagements predicated on plausible deniability. Each side is arming the American terrorists against the other. The actions of the Nazis are, of course, horrific, and the descriptions of the camps Mac transports past in Texas are sickening. The Nazi biomechs are even worse.


Mac ends up in several mecha engagements that test who he thinks he is, both as a citizen and a person. I found him particularly likable, precisely because he never quite becomes exceptional, yet remains doggedly determined. And even his determination wavers at points, as he finds himself in morally and ethically dubious situations, or ones that resonate with his parental abandonment and subsequent abuse. While the sins of the second world war occasionally intercede, this is a world half a century from those events, and the real fire of the characters’ motivations comes from more personal events.

The term lingua franca refers to the language used in diplomatic and trade situations. Clearly this term was coined when French was in ascendancy as a trade language; probably English performs this linguistic function more often than not. In this alternate history, however, the Japanese Empire has been a global power for decades, and Japanese language and culture has sunk indelibly and permanently into the culture of the USJ. There’s a running catalog of the food the characters eat, much of which ends up being the weirdest sort of Asian fusion you’ve ever heard of. (My favorite was “unagi kimchee fried rice with bacon curry poutine.”) Tieryas creates a brilliant cultural lingua franca in Mecha Samurai Empire, while still telling the intensely personal story of one small person, made larger by the carapace of history, and the giant mecha he pilots.

Alexander Páez has kindly reviewed for us Mecha Samurai Empire, by Peter Tieryas, the sequel to United States of Japan. You can also read this review in Spanish at Alexander's website, Donde acaba el infinito. Hope you like it!

Review Soundtrack: Álex suggests reading this review while listening to the main theme of Mazinger Z, by Ichirou Mizuki (YouTube, YouTube)

Some years ago, I got an ARC copy of a book at my email. It was an Angry Robot book: United States of Japan by an unknown author at that time, Peter Tieryas. I contacted him by Twitter and since then we speak now and then. With that warm and proximity that is so Tieryas. Now, in 2018, Peter Tieryas has positioned himself as one of the emergent authors that you must read. He has succeeded in the international market as in the anglosaxon. And he hasn’t lost this close touch, this proximity to the readers. The story repeats itself, I got an ARC copy of his new novel and I start reading it as soon as it gets into my Paperwhite. I need more of his world. I need more mechas. I need more sci-fi. Mecha Samurai Empire is this new novel that is also a sequel to the previous novel but both can be read as stand-alone works. Oh, and it was worth. So much.

If the first novel was a dystopia, a homage to a Phillip K. Dick novel, this second one is a novel about war, about humanity, a tribute to the sub-culture surrounding mechas, videogames and probably a more Heinlein-reminiscent novel. In Mecha Samurai Empire, Japan and Germany won the World War II and they divided North America. West is Japanese, a hybrid between Japanese and North American culture, while in the East, the Germany area, it is more divided between non-Aryans and “normal” citizens. You probably already knew this if you read the previous novel. The truce between the Japanese Empire and the German Reich is uneasy, mechas versus biomechs, but they usually stay out of each other businesses. Usually.

Mecha Samurai Empire begins with Mac, a student struggling with his grades, but a guy who is incredibly good at videogames, especially with “portical”, something that grants with a chance to enter the mecha examination program so he can fulfill his dream: to be a mecha pilot. Mac is attended by the state, since both his parents were killed in The Battle of San Diego. They were both mecha pilots.

Peter Tieryas doesn’t write typical heroes. You probably are wondering when Mac will have his chance to save the world, to be a hero. Well, actually on different occasions, but the way Tieryas drives the plot is brilliant. This are not hero worthy situations, most of them are a fruit of chance, or sometimes he is in the right place at the right time. Tieryas also does a lot of criticism to the military structure, with poor leaders that lead to a lot of trooper deaths and so on. While I don’t really care about military criticism (I guess this is an important issue in USA, but in Spain not really) I think it’s very clever because you can take the philosophical exploration and put it into a bigger picture. While I was reading this novel, I reckoned it felt a lot like a Kojima game. A Metal Gear Solid game. It’s about soldiers, but it has a bigger picture. Mac isn’t a philosopher, but he encounters situations that really question his motivations. For instance, he has a German friend, and that is not very keen to the eyes of his companions.

I have to admit, the best in this novel? The mecha battle. Oh my. So funny, so well written, so epic. This was something the readers wished for more in the first novel. And here we have our wish. Granted by Tieryas. I would LOVE to see a movie about this novel. Mecha Samurai Empire isn’t as dark as the previous work, it’s more war-like, more dynamic, faster. And I really enjoyed the change in style and narrative. It really feels like Tieryas had a lot of fun writing this novel. And you know, mechas vs other things is always a win-win. My recommendation is that you should read it, but don’t expect a new dystopia, this is not (very much) it. It’s a criticism to war, military states and totalitarianism. Another great work by Peter Tieryas.

Mecha Samurai Empire is set in the same universe as United States of Japan, Tieryas's previous novel, in an alternate history where the Axis won World War II: the United States of America are now the United States of Japan and a part of the Japanese Empire.

Mecha Samurai Empire follows Makoto Fujimoto, or Mac, a young student whose only dream is to become a mecha pilot. In order to train himself for the simulation test portion of the Imperial exam, Mac plays a lot of video games with his friend every time he gets the chance. He is quite good at it, however, to enter the university of his dreams, he also need to excel in the theorical part of the exam. Being a pretty average student, he knows he's probably not going to be able to reach his dreams,at least, not without a miracle.

A few days before the exam, his best friend Hideki informs him that he has find a way for them both to obtain good scores: he has heard of a way to cheat that will be undetectable by the Empire. Mac knows it is probably is only chance but after thinking about it for a while, he decides that he doesn't want to cheat even if it might be his only chance.

Come the day of the test and Hideki's plan goes terribly wrong as the technology given to him to cheat is actually a hacking device made by the NARA, an organization of American rebels fighting for the freedom of the United States of America. Because of his link with Hideki who is now seen as a traitor by everyone, Mac not only fails the Imperial exam but he is now also on the radar of the Tokko, the Imperial secret service.

His only chance  to ever become a mecha pilot is to join the civilian pilot ranks and wait for an opportunity to arise. However, during his first mission, Mac finds himself in the middle of a fight that might spark a war between the United States of Japan and the German Empire that will change everything he ever thought about the war.



I read and I really enjoyed United States of Japan when it came out a few years ago so I was excited to read another story set in this world. Both works are standalone so you don't need to read one to understand the other however, if you are intrigued by both novels, I would still recommend that you read USJ first. Indeed USJ as a lot more worldbuilding than MSE and it will give you a bit more context and explanations about this alternate history world and how it came to be.

Mecha Samurai Empire is a bit more contained and focused that USJ, it is narrated from Mac perspective and we only follow his journey as he grows from a very naive student to a cadet confident in his abilities. I have to say though that, out of the entire cast, Mac actually is my least favorite character, I found him a bit too passive and ignorant for my liking. The other members of his crew were a lot more interesting especially Kujira, Chieko and Nori. Kujira especially was a fascinating character and I would have love to follow his story and learn more about his past.

However, except for the main character, I quite enjoyed Mecha Samurai Empire, if you are looking for your daily dose of mecha action, this book has you covered! I'm sure it would make a great anime or action movie. Even if I liked it a bit less that United States of Japan that I found particularly original and different, I would still recommend Mecha Samurai for those who are looking for an action-filled book with giant killer robots. And who wouldn't?

Review will be posted on October 2 at the following link: https://reviewsandrobots.com/2018/10/02/mecha-samurai-empire-book-review

Mecha Samurai Empire is a beautiful complexity, weaving alternate history, military fiction, cultural appreciation, and a coming-of-age story into a well-rounded novel that demands to be read. It's more than epic battles between mechanical warriors, though those are exciting and well-done. It's a story about good versus evil and a young man's place in the world as he grapples with the realities of war and the inevitable losses that result. It's a story with heart, and I appreciated every page of it.

NOTE: I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest, unbiased review. I only publish reviews of books I enjoy, and this novel meets that criterion.

MECHA SAMURAI EMPIRE

Peter Tieryas
ACE, September 2018

QUICK SUMMARY

Makoto's dream is to become a Mecha pilot. His reality works against him, forcing him to work his hardest to overcome the obstacles standing in his way. Through his journey, we see an alternate version of how our world could have been.

WHY I LOVED IT

A FLAWED PROTAGONIST

I'm a huge fan of the lead character, Makoto. He's flawed, as most bildungsroman protagonists are, trying to discover who he is as a man while struggling against his restrictions as a boy. This world of war starts off as a game to him and he learns, very quickly, that life isn't just a series of virtual worlds that only require another yen to start over. He's forced into heartbreak and anger, and it fuels him to become the strong, committed soldier and friend he is in the end. He's surrounded by these confident students who show no fear, by soldiers who willingly give their lives for their country. Instead of confidence, Makoto shows fear and indecision as he weighs each decision for the life-and-death situation it is. There's an air of flawed humanity to him that is almost poetic.

WELL-DEVELOPED ALTERNATE WORLD

If you've read Man in the High Castle, you'll see a lot of similarities in the makeup of the world. The focus lies mostly on the United States of Japan, and it's assumed that the rest of the world lies under Nazi or Japanese rule. Whereas Dick's novel focused more on the politics and the working man, Mecha Samurai Empire delves into the daily culture of the world and the experiences of its youth. A sense of wonder pervades the opening chapters, showing us a high-tech digital world where video games reign supreme, where multi-cultural food concoctions delight around every corner. I loved the use of Japanese culture in every aspect of this world. Rendering the fighting machines as samurai was a brilliant choice, adding the sense of awe and respect deserving of the most epic of warriors from world history.

EPIC MECHS

The tech in this novel was astounding and I found myself continuously geeking out over the seemingly endless varieties of machines. There's a little bit of everything thrown in here, reminding me of Star Wars, Fallout, and Wolfenstein, all in one. The fight scenes are epic, thanks to these machines, and Tieryas is a masterful battle writer, making a thirty page battle scene seem as though it were over in a flash. It's exciting and compelling, and I was amazed at his ability to draw me into these conflicts.

GOOD VS EVIL

At the core is a conversation on good versus evil. It's fascinating to imagine historical events turning out differently, to see the many ways our world could be reshaped from its current boundaries. It's easy to focus on the new technologies and cultures that may have emerged, but what of the atrocities? The world of Mecha Samurai Empire is a dark place, and Tieryas doesn't shy away from showing us how scary the world has become without the moral restrictions resulting from an allied victory during WWII. Nazi experimentation, deep-seated racism and a complete disregard for the value of human lives has become a part of this culture that rules half of the world. It's terrifying to imagine and shows just what's at stake for the USJ. This underlying sense of dread, of supreme evil, fuels the story and the characters, giving them something important to fight against.

THE LITTLE THINGS

To end, it's the little things that take a novel from good to great. There are so many threads woven into this narrative that make it a complete world. You've got the great video games with warrior cats and a pair of girlfriends fighting their way through enemies together. You've got the portical method of communication that sounds amazing. Most importantly, there's a rich thread of culinary exploration from start to finish, highlighting Japanese dishes I wasn't aware of. I loved this infusion of culture, and the book's ability to make me hungry at random times. Combined with the above points, Tieryas has created a robust novel that entertains, inspires, and teaches the values of humanity in the midst of strife.

CONCEPTS

Alternate History, War, Japanese Culture, Mechs, Robots

Happy book birthday to "Mecha Samurai Empire," the alternate-history heir to "Pacific Rim" and "Ready Player One" you never knew you needed, but you very definitely do. I haven't read any of Peter Tieryas' work before, but I do know that this book takes place in the same universe as one of his earlier releases, "United States of Japan"; as with many other recent alternate histories of note (I'm thinking of the Amazon original show based on Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" as well as Robert Harris' exceptional" Fatherland") Tieryas constructs a world in which Britain, France, the United States, and the other Allied Forces did *not* win WWII, but rather German and Japanese forces have carved up thoroughly subjugated European and American continents. As with these other works, "Mecha Samurai Empire" doesn't let its characters spend much of their time agonizing over how different things could have been, while also allowing those same characters to grapple with their various roles and complicities in the ascendant Japanese Empire. While Tieryas skews his voice to appeal to younger readers—the tone here would fit as comfortably in the Young Adult section of our library as it would in our adult Science Fiction section—he takes full advantage of the nuance and sophistication that YA's more immediate methods of storytelling enable.

"Mecha Samurai Empire" is written in the first-person voice of Makoto Fujimoto (AKA "Mac," AKA "Cream"), a war orphan raised within the United States of Japan (USJ), a teenager deeply motivated to honor his mecha navigator mother's and mecha mechanic father's deaths by becoming a mecha pilot himself—but as a ward of the state struggling to get by (and into a profession which would earn him a living wage) he is also keenly aware of the cracks in the USJ's facade. The USJ is on the cusp of war with its sometimes-ally, Germany, and even the slightest misstep might escalate into a full-fledged nuclear conflict. Makoto, an unknowing pawn, makes a few of those missteps—only to realize he has been placed at the heart of the conflict by powers beyond his understanding. For the remainder of the book, he does his best to untangle the relationships between the various powers and find his place in the conflict, all while training to become a mech pilot and building his very own found family from among the young men and women who are likewise training to fight with the mechanical behemoths.

There's a good crunch to this novel; there are plenty of mech-on-mech battles to satisfy lovers of the cinematic, and there are real stakes: Characters die, despite the protections provided by their mechs. There's also a satisfying pithiness to the teenagers' conversations about politics, military hierarchies, and race relations. Tieryas pushes back against reductive interpretations of all of the above, and while the occasional over-reliance on acronyms and telling rather than showing does drop this down a half-star for style, I can think of at least five people I'd recommend this book to *today,* and that's the best kind of book.

Mecha Samauri Empire by Peter Tieryas
As a librarian, I always encourage people to take chances with their reading. Mecha Samauri Empire was definitely a step out of my comfort zone. And while it was not a typical read for me it was an adventurous and surprisingly thoughtful novel. This novel is a sequel to Tierya’s novel, United States of Japan but can be easily read as a standalone.
Makoto Fujimoto grows up a war orphan in California and dreams of becoming a mecha pilot. But with no parents to speak for him, no connections and a lackluster scholastic performance, his chance of success seems slim.
When a series of events sets Mac on a course to achieve his dreams, he has to consider if his dreams are worth the cost.
This alternate history novel supposes that Japan and Germany won World War II and established territories in the United States. While Germany occupies the Eastern half of the US, Japan rules most of the West. An uneasy truce exists between these super powers and society is organized around military might and sophisticated weaponry. Specifically the giant Mecha and Biomech fighting machines.
The pace of the book was a bit choppy punctuated by periods of intense action and battle mayhem with slower periods of suspense and philosophical musings. There is a strong message of the futility and waste of war and that politicians and military leaders aren’t concerned about the individuals.
The battle scenes were well choreographed and exciting but at times I felt like I was watching a cross between Transformers and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Gaming references abound. And lots of lots of references to Asian foods that I found a bit odd in an action novel. I think this is somewhat of a niche read but has enough action to entice a variety of SF readers. 3 stars.

4.5

It's 1995 in an alternate universe in which the Axis won. It's the second in a series, but new readers can start here with no problem.

The story will inevitably evoke The Man in the High Castle for many readers, which draws on a similar idea. Our first person narrator is Mac, or Makuto Fujimoto, who is a high school student when the story opens. He's a typical gamer nerd, living on ramen and already pauchy from spending all his time on games; he longs to become a mecha pilot, as his parents were before they were killed.

The Empire takes care of him, as the son of heroes, but while he gets a stipend until he graduates, his adoptive family are abusive to him, as is the homeroom teacher at his high school. He has friends, one of them a half-German student. He and his bestie realize that their chances of passing the exams to get into the elite war college at Berkeley are slim, but they're going to try--one way or the other.

And so we discover early on that nobody is safe. The body count is very high in this gripping tale. There are vicious fights--even when Mac and his friends are in mecha, there is physical damage. On top of the mental and physical damage in training, and because of political turmoil. But Mac is determined to push on until he either succeeds or dies.

The plot is one that longtime readers have seen ever since Captains Courageous. As it happens, I really like this plot, and I liked this book because I believed in Mac, who is by nature more of a beta than an alpha, though he longs to become a pilot, which seems to demand an alpha's focus and dedication.

All along the way he tries to find the moral path in a world that seems to reveal more horrors each time he advances. But that is not going to keep him from trying, and staying loyal to his friends as he hones his talents.

The worldbuilding in the Japanese part is fantastic. I loved the savory descriptions of the food, and the customs and the culture, which draws directly on what I understand of the empire's culture leading up the WW II, with roots going back to Edo and even earlier.

Less satisfactory was the German side of things. We only glimpse Nazi atrocities; the bits of German language we get were almost all incorrect. But the main focus is on Mac and his Japanese friends, except for Griselda, his half-German friend. There, the book is strongest, and so engaging. Tieryas does a terrific job making the reader care for the characters, which makes losses hit the harder.

I suspect there were a number of Easter Eggs for gamers (I thought I saw one, and I have never played a video game in my life). What I appreciated were the historical references, including the revamping of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, which was very effective in setting up this culture, while evoking the gorgeous music as I read.

I finished the book halfway through the night, intensely involved with Mac, and wondering what is going to happen next politically, and personally, with Griselda, the Tigers, and will he encounter his abusive family again.

I will be keeping an eye peeled for the next in this series.

The Man in the High Castle meets Pacific Rim - if that doesn't catch your attention I don't know what will. That's the underlying presence behind Mecha Samurai Empire by Peter Tieryas. This book is the story of a young man in the United States of Japan (Japan and Germany won World War II). He isn't a great student but he dreams of becoming piloting giant robot war machines.

Mecha Samurai Empire is an entertaining and action-packed novel about friendship and personal goals. But it also explores politics and war. At one point, I was even reminded of All Quiet On The Western Front. In this alternate history, though Japan and Germany were allies that relationship is at odds as they fight for control of the "Americas" causing troublesome interactions because of the friendship between our main character and a German woman. Race is also an issue that comes up, but sadly is not explore further in this book. However, this book does set up a series that will hopefully dive into that more.

Peter Tieryas sets up an intriguing new world based on the alternate history. The detailed attention given to this new timeline, even the "patriots" and terrorists groups in this world, grabs your attention and makes you think. And consider the adage about history being written by the winners. While all of this could make the book heavy and drag, it doesn't. It's a swift and fun read. Hello giant fighting robots!

Mecha Samurai Empire is available from Ace Books on September 18.

The boys act a little young for their stated ages and experience, possibly this could be a difference between their world and ours. A very standard plot, with echoes of every Big Robot anime and book that I’ve ever seen. If that was the author’s plan, then he succeeded!

This is a fantastic crossover novel for any sci-fi/fantasy fans, manga and anime fans, and alternate history fans out there. I did NOT want to put this one down!

The backstory: The AXIS powers (primarily Germany and Japan, for purposes of this novel) won what we know as World War II. America is now known as the United States of Japan, and Germany shares control to some degree, of the American territories. It's an uneasy alliance between Japan and Germany, and the terrorists known as the George Washingtons are always ready to fight.

Now: Makoto Fujimoto is a young man born and raised in California, orphaned by war and raised by an abusive foster home, now a student with one goal: to attend the Berkeley Military Academy and become a mecha pilot. His awful grades threaten his dream, but a chance to work as a civilian mech pilot gives him a chance to get into shape and learn some skills. When his squadron comes under attack by Nazi bio-mechs, he and his surviving squadmate land two spots at the Military Academy, just in time for tensions between the USJ and Nazi Germany to hit an all-time high. There are traitors everywhere... maybe even among Makoto's old friends.

I LOVED this book. I haven't read the first book, United States of Japan, and you don't need to - this adventure takes place in the same universe, but Makoto's story is entirely his own. (You can bet that I've just requested it for myself, and put both books in order cart for the library, though.) There's fantastic action and world-building; gratuitous mech battles; intrigue, and strong characters. Peter Tieryas creates some wonderfully strong, intelligent female characters and gives his male characters empathy and feeling. Pacific Rim fans, Harry Turtledove fans, and Man in the High Castle fans will dive right into this series, and so will your anime and manga fans. I've already booktalked this one to a teen at my library; he fully expects this to be waiting here for him when it hits shelves on September 18th.

Get your geek on and booktalk/display with Garrison Girl and some gundam manga.

Some of the very first anime I ever remember watching were the ones involving giant robots - mecha - battling it out against aliens trying to invade Earth for one reason or another. I remember watching Voltes V (Chōdenji Machine Voltes V), Daimos (Tōshō Daimos), Combattler V (Chōdenji Robo Combattler V), and the first Voltron (Beast King GoLion). For some odd reason I missed out entirely on Robotech while growing up - or it could be that I did catch some of it, but didn’t get to see enough of it for it to make an impression.

However, of the aforementioned anime, the one that sticks out the most, not only in my personal memory, but in the memory of an entire generation of people, is Voltes V. It might seem silly to think of an anime being historically significant, but in the case of the Philippines, Voltes V is precisely that. Voltes V launched in Japan in 1977, and then a Philippine broadcast network started airing an English dub in 1978, becoming immensely popular while it was on the air. But, when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law the following year, Voltes V (which was just a few episodes shy of the finale) and other shows with similar themes were soon pulled off the air. The official government explanation for the pullout cited “excessive violence” as the reason, but many suspected that the ban was due to the themes of uprising and revolution that underpinned many such anime. Marcos clearly did not want his constituency getting any bright ideas while he was in office.

When Marcos was finally deposed in 1986, TV networks started broadcasting all the shows that had been pulled out eight years prior, Voltes V among them. As a result, Voltes V remains popular in the pop culture consciousness and history of the Filipino people: a reminder that oppressors are afraid, not of aliens or giant robots, but the will such threats can inspire in those they seek to grind under their heel.

Peter Tieryas’ Mecha Samurai Empire plays with similar themes, albeit not in the same direct, straightforward manner as Voltes V and the other mecha anime of my childhood. Set in the same world as, and conceived as an indirect sequel to, United States of Japan, Mecha Samural Empire follows Makoto “Mac” Fujimoto as he follows his dreams to become a mecha pilot. The only problem is: Mac isn’t exactly the best candidate for the job. He’s not up to snuff physically; his grades are terrible; and just about the only thing he’s really good at is playing portical games (especially one called Cat Odyssey). Despite this, Mac and his friend Hideki cling to the vague hope that maybe their expertise in portical games will give them just enough of an edge to make it by the skin of their teeth into the training program for mecha pilots at the prestigious Berkeley Military Academy, or BEMA for short.

However, when Hideki tries to cheat on the military exam and gets caught, Mac fails out too, ruining his shot at entering BEMA and becoming a military mecha pilot. Still, that doesn’t mean he has to totally give up on his dream: he can always pilot mecha for any number of civilian outfits that run the dangerous border between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, safeguarding cargo and civilian transports. Might even be safer, given that, as a civilian pilot, it’s unlikely he’ll be called to fight any battles.

But all is not as well as Mac thinks. Something is going on behind the scenes between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, and things will soon turn explosive - forcing Mac to make some very difficult decisions about his life, and the people he surrounds himself with.

The first thing readers need to know about this novel is that it is not necessary to read United States of Japan before starting this one; the novels can be read in any order the reader chooses, though for narrative chronology reasons it is best to read United States of Japan before reading Mecha Samurai Empire. However, some readers might find the latter easier to get into than the former, for reasons I will now discuss.

One of the complaints reviewers had about United States of Japan was the lack of any significant mecha battles despite the novel’s cover suggesting that such battles would be a central focus of the story. A mecha does put in an important appearance in the novel, but if the reader was imagining epic confrontations a la Gundam or even Pacific Rim, then he or she may find himself or herself rather underwhelmed by the battles in the novel.

That is definitely not a problem in Mecha Samurai Empire, which delivers on the promise of its title and cover. There are several important mecha battles in this novel, and more than a few of them were sufficiently epic to have me reaching for my earphones so I could listen to the Pacific Rim theme while I read. And while Pacific Rim is an obvious (especially to Western audiences) referential touchstone for the battles, there are references to other mecha anime, including the ones I have already mentioned plus Neon Genesis Evangelion. Anyone who has grown up watching anime and reading manga in this particular genre is sure to find something that nods at or points to a show he or she has seen and likely enjoyed.

However, while the battles are definitely fun, it’s the bits in between the battles that I enjoyed the most. There is something about the plot and character interactions that are strongly reminiscent of the Persona video games, with character interactions shaping the protagonist even as he, in turn, learns more about his friends, all while uncovering the truth hiding underneath the reality he thinks he knows. This is very different from the mystery plot at the heart of United States of Japan, and might make Mecha Samurai Empire a bit more accessible to readers who are not particularly interested in crime thrillers.

The characters of Mecha Samurai Empire might also be easier to get into than the characters of United States of Japan. There’s more of them than there were in the first novel, from different walks of life and even from different factions. They are also utterly intriguing to read about, for the most part - with the occasional exception, perhaps, of Mac himself, which is rather unfortunate because, as the narrator of the story, he’s impossible to escape. His lackadaisical attitude has some echoes of Beniko Ishimura, the protagonist from United States of Japan, but where Beniko’s attitude comes off as droll in a sarcastic, self-mocking way, Mac sometimes comes off as just a little bit boring sometimes. I suspect this is a result of the rather dry nature of the narration - which may be an attempt to characterise a memoirist trying to put distance between himself or herself and the memories of some very horrible, very tragic events. And given the things that happen to Mac in the course of this novel, I cannot say I am entirely surprised by such a stylistic choice.

If there is one thing that Mecha Samurai Empire shares with United States of Japan, though, it’s the themes of the story. Both novels are about seeing the truth through the smokescreen of propaganda, and about taking action against an oppressive regime. The difference comes from the perspectives of the characters involved. In United States of Japan, the characters are government employees who realise that the system they serve is utterly broken, and in order for that system to change they need to take action. They also have an external opponent in the form of a terrorist group called the George Washingtons, but that enemy does not play as significant a role as the enemy within, so to speak.

In Mecha Samurai Empire, it’s different in that it is about a group of young people who realise that they face not only the threat of an outside enemy, that their own government might be an enemy as well. In a way, they are fighting a war on two fronts - and in doing so, many of them will die for a government that does not really care for them anyway. This is something Mac and his friends realise, and then try to change in their own way. Whether or not they succeed is uncertain, because by the end of the novel it is clear that this is only the beginning, and that things are only just getting started.

Overall, Mecha Samurai Empire is an excellent extension of the story begun in United States of Japan, building upon the world-building done in the first novel to spin a coming-of-age tale where young people are thrown into the gristmill of war by an uncaring government more concerned with its prestige than with the wellbeing of those that defend it. Despite the occasionally dry narration (which has the unfortunate effect of making the protagonist come off as a mite more boring than he actually is), the other characters and slice-of-life moments interspersed with action-packed mecha battles will likely keep the reader going all the way to the end. There is also setup for the next book in the series, and I cannot wait to see what happens next.

This review is based on an ARC given to me for free by the publisher via Netgalley. This does not in any way affect my review.

In this complex story of alternate history in which Japan and Germany have conquered the world, teens in the United States of Japan are studying hard for their exams, hoping to finish high school and become mecha pilots. Being accepted as a crew member for one of the enormous combat robots is an incredible honor and highly competitive. Makoto Fujimoto is an orphan whose parents both served on mechas and died in combat. He and his friends spend their time playing video games on their porticals (a wireless device) when they aren't doing homework. In class they learn about things like "Abraham Lincoln, an old American warlord who savagely crushed a rebellion started by the southern half of the United States." What they don't seem to realize is how political the appointments to the military academy are, or how very slim their chances of earning a spot.

As readers follow the fates of Mac (Makoto), Hideki, Griselda, Nori, and the others, the events that led to this alternate version of the U.S. are slowly revealed. There are rebels like the "George Washingtons" who want to free the states from Japanese rule, and there are tensions between the Japanese and German forces who divided North America after WWII. The Nazis have their own combat devices known as biomechs, which operate differently from the mecha warriors of the USJ. Not as much is disclosed about the biomechs since the story is told from a USJ citizen's point of view.

Between the historical changes, the resulting cultural changes (Vegas with a Japanese makeover for instance), and watching the struggles of an orphan without connections trying to compete with students who come from prominent families - there is plenty to hold the reader's attention. It may also cause some questioning and wondering what our world would look like today if WWII had ended differently.

Anyone who enjoys stories with a military setting, alternate history, or robot battles (major robot smackdowns), should give this a try. Recommended for ages 12 and up.

I gave this a good effort, and I even finished it, but I just wasn't down with it. People have described hating Ready Player One because it was like reading about watching someone play a video game, and that's kind of how I felt about this book--like reading about someone watching Pacific Rim. Except Pacific Rim in Starship Troopers, because a lot of the book was much more Army life than battle scenes.

That being said, this wasnt a bad book. I actually liked the passages describing life in the United Stated of Japan. I really liked how the female characters were written. I just never felt really invested in the protagonist, and a lot of the dialogue didn't flow naturally for me.

Will misfit Makoto Fujimoto realize his dream of being a mecha pilot, with his abysmal grades and war between the United States of Japan and Germany looming in the background?

I really enjoyed United States of Japan but wanted more mecha action. Thankfully, this popped up on Netgalley not very long ago. I'll probably grab a physical copy to keep on my shelf beside United States of Japan because I liked it quite a bit.

Mecha Samurai Empire is part alternate history tale, part coming of age tale, with a generous helping of mecha action. Makoto Fujimoto is a misfit when the tale starts, a video gamer war orphan whose dreams of being a mecha pilot keep him going. Eventually, he gets there, and sees it isn't quite what he thought it was.

Since United States of Japan laid most of the groundwork, this one was more of a character story, believe it or not. Mac goes from being a callow kid to a pilot over the course of the book, making friends and blowing a lot of shit up along the way. My main gripe with USJ was the lack of mechas. This one had about 77% more mecha content and it was just the book I wanted to read.

Mac was a little passive but a big improvement over Ben Ishimura in the last book. Also, it was nice to see Agent Tsukino again. Griselda, Nori, Kujira, Kazu, and Chieko made for an interesting supporting cast, all the mecha pilots having fairly colorful personalities. I would have strangled Kujira!

There are all sorts of video game and pop culture Easter eggs, focused through USJ's alternate history lens. I caught references to Super Mario Bros 3, Madame Butterfly, Double Dragon, and Megaman II and that was just the tip of the iceberg. The mecha combat brought back fond memories of watching Voltron and Robotech after school.

Mecha Samurai empire is where Peter Tieryas breaks free of his Man in the High Castle roots and runs wild. I'm already looking forward to the next book. Four out of five stars.

I received an advance ebook through NetGalley.

The best way to summarize this series is <i>Man in the High Castle</i> with mechas. These books are alt history, sci-fi, and horror all at once, awesome and yet disturbing.

I loved the first book,<i>United States of Japan</i>, and I was excited to read the second book <i>Mecha Samurai Empire.</i> To my delight, it was even better than the first book. I immediately connected with Mac and wanted him to succeed in his goal to be a mecha pilot, even as I remained horrified the whole time at the vision of the western United States under Japanese rule. But as awful as life there us, things are a lot worse with Nazis living next door. Their foul experiments have resulted in mechas with a biological twist.

The book is largely a coming-of-age story like classics such as <i>Ender's Game,</i> but with a lot of trope-bending twists. Mac is not naturally gifted as a pilot. He works at his goal with grit and determination, like a McDonald's employee starting as a janitor and working up to company manager. If you read <i>United States of Japan</i> but wanted it to have more mecha battles, you get your wish here! The book reads incredibly fast thanks to great banter, interesting characters, and well-paced action sequences. Plus, as someone who grew up with many of the same video game and anime influences as the author, I geeked out over the Easter eggs scattered throughout.

Mecha Samurai Empire takes place in an alternate universe where the Germans and Japanese won the second World War. The main character wants nothing more than to be a Mecha pilot for the Japanese, following in the footsteps of his dead mother. Unfortunately, he does not have the grades to get into the military academy and ends up enlisting in a quasi-police group.
The storyline of an average human who suddenly is able to pursue their dreams due to hard work and knowing the right people should feel familiar to many readers. It clear from some of the later scenes that our hero is in over his head. He limits his mecha's abilities due to his own limitations which were showing up in his average grades in school, and that should have kept him out of the pilot's seat in the first place.
The created universe is fun, the characters are engaging, but I had a hard time believing in the main character.

I do not read any manga, but I really enjoyed this book! Wonderful, adventurous book with action and likable heros! Great book for teens or adults that like fantasy, sci-fi, or manga.