Hiroto, an outsider, ventures into Yokohama Station with a temporary ticket. His mission is to free the leader of the Dodger Alliance. Will he make it out in time?

“Hiroto let Keiha finish her story, although at least half of it was beyond his comprehension.”

The above quote perfectly illustrates how I feel about science fiction in general. I think I thought this book was a graphic novel when I requested it, plus I’m always interested in reading works from Japanese authors. That being said, science fiction tends to go a little over my head. I feel like I’m a pretty smart person, but science fiction almost never seems to click with me.

I want to give this novel 3.5 stars. I would’ve rated it higher, even though some of it didn’t make sense to me, but it felt like something was missing. I know that something always goes missing in translation (this book was originally published in Japan in 2016), but this was different. A lot of things happened in Hiroto’s journey, but not a lot of things actively advanced the plot. There were also a couple of characters that seemed not-quite-pointless, existing only as a way to give background information (and a deus ex machina, of sorts).

There’s a map at the beginning, which is always useful. There’s also an appendix at the end that I wish I would’ve known about when I started the book (definitely my own fault for not checking the contents); it’s not necessary but definitely helpful.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Yen Press, LLC (and Kadokawa Corporation) for the ARC in exchange for an honest review (sorry it’s late. I’m finally catching up!).

After a self-replicating train station has taken over all of Honshu, Hiroto tries to track down the leader of a hidden alliance that’s determined to free humanity.

Yokohama Station SF by Yuba Isukari is a visionary sci-fi novel that explores our relationship to technology and … well, public transportation. The station itself is truly its own living, sentient character in this story and most of Japan is now dependent on it. At the age of 6, children have a Suica (a type of point card) installed in them. They use those points to buy things like food or to continue living in the station. Those who commit the most minor of infractions may be expelled from the station and left to fend for themselves.

It’s really a fascinating world that Isukari has built here, and I think it’s important to note this is a very conceptually-driven and exposition-heavy story. This is both its greatest strength and its weakness. Due to the novel’s short length, there isn’t room for much asides from learning HOW the world works. I wish we could have seen more descriptive imagery in regards to its setting and seen a little more from its human (and non-human) characters.

All in all though, I still definitely recommend this book if you’re looking for a short but sweet sci-fi with innovative worldbuilding and cool AI.

Can a city be classified as a living entity? If so, can it then be killed? That is the problem posed by this short novel. An interesting story peopled by surprising characters.

What a fun read! I couldn't put it down once I started it. Read it if you like sci-fi; can also be read by teens, if yours is into that kind of thing. Lots of fun characters (human, and other) and ideas.

It was overwhelming and difficult to concentrate on in the beginning. It needed to be stuck with for a couple chapters before I could get into a rhythm of reading the novel. I think this was mostly due to being dropped into the setting with so many terms and new lore thrown at the reader immediately. This isn’t always a disadvantage to storytelling, but it can be confusing with science fiction. I like figuring out things as I go without having the answers immediately, but I struggled with forming a cohesive mental imagery. This could be due to it being a light novel in Japanese, and translation can cause concepts to be lost in translation. I am excited to discover there is also a manga, and I want to read it to see if my mental imagery compares to the illustrations! There is commentary within the text on capitalism and the digital age.