Playing Go in Literature (Books, Comics, etc.)

The TV series Altered Carbon features Go rather heavily. I haven’t read the book on which it’s based, but I assume it must be there too.

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Billy Bat by Naoki Urasawa

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I read Altered Carbon a couple months ago in an SF book group and don’t remember go in it. Perhaps it was either minor furniture in the story or it was added by the TV series. Some group members said the series added a lot, as dramatizations often do. It’s a good book—basically a techno upgrade of Jack Vance’s classic, To Live Forever.

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I’ve read this now thanks to it being mentioned here and I enjoyed it tremendously. So thanks!

It’s the best looking male protagonist playing go against the most intelligent female protagonist. So easy to connect with these characters as a reader! :joy:

Only one thing was strange: Implicitly the text seem to suggest that sex is even better than playing go.

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Ah, nice :slight_smile:

From the book:

I doubt that there were precedents for the ceremonies that opened the Master’s last game. Black made a single play and White a single play, followed by a banquet.

It looks like this book is required reading for all correspondence players. :smile:

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It’s a very tiny quote, but this novel mentions Go.

My re-translation:
“Aenea was very good at chess, quite good at Go and scary at poker.”

Aenea is a 12 yo girl in that part of the novel.

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James S.A. Corey, “The Expanse”, book 2: Caliban’s War, p. 331

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@Atorrante also mentioned that book in the meme thread.

I was so disappointed by that novel!
It was lent me by one of our local go club members. He was absolutely enthusiastic and fascinated by that book.
Trohde called it “awesome”.
So I must be the only one that doesn’t like that book and that’s why I didn’t reply before. I really don’t like being a party pooper.

But every time that title pops out I feel the same bitterness. So I think I’ll say something about it to calm down my inner demons :smiling_imp:

Go is actually a notable part of the story and it’s also the best part. The main character spends years in a go master’s house, learning go and becoming a kind of family member.
There are some dramatic scenes that I won’t spoil, where the game, it’s vocabulary, it’s dynamics are key in a very intense way.
It’s evident that the writer knows well the game and loves it.
That’s actually awesome for a go player reading that.

The rest is a sort of “James Bond adventure” full of poor stereotypes about genders, countries, sex, intelligence agencies, human nature.
I stop here. My demons are having a noisy party right now. I could go on for hours complaining about all the different things that I didn’t like in this novel, but it really isn’t necessary nor useful.

If you’re less fussy and pedantic than me, probably you’ll enjoy at least the Go part.

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Couldn’t you have added a pedantry alert to this post?

:innocent:


More seriously

Reading books about something you know very well and are passionate about is a risky business. Hardly ever your expectations come true. Been there, done that.
Haven’t read the book, also have no plans of doing so.
But I liked the quote.

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If I remember well in this book go is also mentioned once.
Fascinating book by the way.

There’s a great page here Novels and Other Books Featuring Go | British Go Association with a list of books that feature/mention Go. On the same site there are similar pages about films and about manga/anime.

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A German graphic novel:
Dietmar Dath/Oliver Scheibler – “MENSCH WIE GRAS WIE
Illustrated by Oliver Scheibler

I promptly bought the book because I had already read books by Dath that I enjoyed a lot, but haven’t read this one yet (I always need a stash of unread books in the house).

Screenshots from the sample pages (PDF)

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Funny - It’s the Kitani Minoru vs. Shusai game, but with a few wrong stones. Hard to believe they made several mistakes in copying it, yet can’t see a reason for it to be intentional.

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Oh, thanks, being totally ignorant of “famous games” I would NEVER have known that without your comment!

Maybe, if I ever get to read that book, I will know. Hope I remember this thread then, and if I do, I’ll come back here and tell :slight_smile:

Turns out Hikaru No Go was the inspiration for a whole novel by Brandon Sanderson. He even named the main character Yumi, like the author of the manga :slight_smile:

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