Shike

The two-volume Shike saga follows Jebu, a warrior-monk of the secretive Order of Zinja, and Shima Taniko, a noblewoman whose arranged marriage places her inside the politics of the imperial court. Their love develops during the struggle between the fictional Takashi and Muratomo clans, counterparts of the historical Taira and Minamoto. Jebu’s discipline and military obligations repeatedly separate them, while Taniko grows from a vulnerable bride into a political actor whose family helps shape the new warrior government.

Robert Shea deliberately compresses Japanese history so that the Genpei War, the creation of the Kamakura shogunate and Kublai Khan’s invasions occur within the protagonists’ lifetimes. The story moves between Heian-kyō, Kamakura, Song China and the Mongol court, combining clan warfare, court intrigue, romance and mystical training. Its renamed historical counterparts make Shike an expansive historical fantasy rather than a literal chronology of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Japan.