Administrator
Administrator, or Shiseikan in Japanese, took the Japanese SF community by storm when first published in 1974. Unlike traditional space opera, it pushed technology into the background to present a compelling portrait of colonial governors, the Administrators, trapped between the conflicting demands of Federation government, native inhabitants, and Terran colonists.This collection of four novelettes, the first volume of an extensive series of works set in the same universe, touches on key stages in the development of the Administrator system and the robots designed to support and protect it.
Details:
- vi, 218 pages
- Trade paperback 5” x 8” (127 x 203 mm)
- ISBN:
Softcover 978-4-902075-00-7
Ebook 978-4-902075-77-9 - Cover: Katō Naoyuki
- Amazon
- Amazon Japan
- Now available as an e-book for Amazon Kindle.
- Bookstores and university buyers (contact us directly)
Review
by Nick May, Editor, Go-Fubar.Mag
He’s about the unlikeliest “hero” you could imagine - the Administrator. Sitting alone—very alone—at the head of a hierarchy of robots, he has a kind of absolute local authority - but one severely constrained by those same robots. He mediates between a bureaucratic off-world “Federation” with off-world military forces anxious to supplant its authority on the one hand, and on the other the conflicts between and conflicting rights of the sometimes primitive native inhabitants and off-world settlers. For he is not just an administrator, he’s a colonial administrator, part of a system to administer worlds after a period of extensive war and conquest.
Read the complete review
The Administrator Series
Shiseikan (Administrator), published 1974, including:
- Haruka naru Mahiru (A Distant Noon)
- Honō to Hanabira (Flame and the Flower)
- Iseki no Kaze (Wind in the Ruins)
- Genkai no Yanus (Two-Faced Janus)
Shōmetsu no Kōrin (Vanishing Halo), published 1979 in 3 volumes
Nagai Akatsuki (Long Dawn), published 1980, including:
- Nagai Akatsuki (Long Dawn)
- Terikaeshi no Oka (Reflecting Hill)
- Tobira no Hiraku Toki (When the Door Opens)
Hikishio no Toki (Time of the Ebb Tide), published 1988 in 5 volumes
(Kurodahan Press is currently reissuing this series in Japanese.)
(real name: Murakami Takuji). Born in 1934, he made his first appearances in professional magazines in 1961, and has won numerous awards since. Drawing on his experiences as a “salariman” (salaried worker) at a large manufacturer, he has written extensively on the depersonalization that bureaucracy forces on individuals.
He is currently a professor at the Osaka University of Arts, in Osaka, Japan.
read more about Mayumura Taku here