The fourth book from this rather enjoyable series: at least it had been rather enjoyable up to this book.   But i’m beginning to feel that Toshikazu is beginning to get a bit repetitive and the cafe is beginning to become a little stale.

I think that Toshikazu is simply rushing out books and not really making any effort to create something new and interesting, which is a shame.   I really feel that what this series needs is for Toshikazu to just put it down for a while and not come back to it until he has something new and interesting to bring to the cafe.

That’s my thoughts on the matter, it really doesn’t need to be ruined to meet a deadline, either with the publisher or with Toshikazu’s bank account.

Bye for now.

Toshikazu’s Page

#scifi #japan #toshikazukawaguchi

The third book in the Before The Coffee Gets Cold series, and what a great book.

If you haven’t read any of this series yet then i really, whole heartedly, suggest you get back to the beginning and give them a go.   The time-travelling-chair-in-a-cafe really is such a great story telling device, especially with the rules that come along with it.

And it’s in those rules that the stories shine.   The main one being that you cannot change anything in the present by going back to the past.   This rule really does sort the wheat from the chaff and creates stories that are deep and meaningful for all of us.

This third book takes us away from the first cafe to another cafe in Japan with it’s own chair and ghost.   The owner has gone away so some of the crew from Tokyo have taken over because only a female over the age of 7 years, from their family, can pour the coffee.

A lot of this book is about death, and how we all deal with the death of a loved one, and the ending is incredible: Toshikazu really nailed the ending, it’s so perfect and so moving.   It’s not often that my eyes get soggy at the end of a book, but this one did it perfectly.   While the whole book is really good, it’s only when you get to the ending that you realise that it’s all been about building up the ending, where Toshikazu brings everything to a perfectly sharp focus.

And don’t forget, the next book in the series, Before We Say Goodbye, is coming out in September 2023, so be sure to put that in your diary.

Bye for now.

Toshikazu’s Page

#scifi #japan #toshikazukawaguchi

I soooo enjoyed Before the Coffee Gets Cold so i was really looking forward to some more tales.

And i wasn’t disappointed.

One thing that really stood out in this book was that all the niggly little questions that the first book raised got answered along the way: i won’t say what as it may spoil things.   So it was rather good that as i started the book and i had questions in my mind that as i went along all the questions got dealt with.   I imagine that Toshikazu had quite a few people asking these questions after reading the first book and it’s good to see that they all got answered.

Other than that, it’s pretty much more of the same as the first book whereby we have four people wanting to travel in time to make something right with someone.   We also get to know the cafe staff and regulars a lot more along the way.

So yeah, great sequel and i really hope that Toshikazu thinks up a few more in the future and keeps the cafe going: it really is a good stage within which to fit stories into.

I continue to add my gripe from the first book, in that, there’s a cat on the cover but no cat in the book whatsoever.   Toshikazu, if you ever read this, please put a cat in the next book.

Toshikazu’s Page

#scifi #japan #toshikazukawaguchi

Somewhere in Tokyo there’s a tiny basement cafe with no windows, three clocks telling different times, Mocha coffee, and has a special seat with a ghost that sits in it reading a book while drinking said coffee.   Once a day the ghost needs to go to the toilet and while she’s away from the seat anyone who sits in it can be served a coffee and travel back in time: but there are rules.

Rule 1: nothing you do in the past will ever change the present.
Rule 2: you cannot leave the seat.
Rule 3: you can only meet people who were in the cafe at the time you go back to.
Rule 4: you only get to use the seat once, no second chances.
Rule 5: you must finish the coffee before it gets cold.

If you don’t drink the coffee before it gets cold you become a ghost.   It doesn’t say whether you replace the existing ghost or if that’s how the existing ghost came to be, just best not let the coffee get cold.

The book is divided into 4 chapters, each with it’s own time travel escapade.   The character list is quite small as it only involves the staff and customers of the cafe — which is a very small cafe — this gives us a much more intimate relationship with each of them and their problems.

As the book builds so does the emotional level of each journey, getting deeper and deeper until the very last journey which i found to be quite a damper of ones eyeballs.

The main point of these stories seems to be that if you could go through time to meet someone but meeting them wouldn’t change a thing in the present what exactly would be the point?   This is where most temporal sci-fi falls flat on its face because we always get to the paradox of you wouldn’t have gone back in time if you changed the reason for going back in the first place: this book doesn’t make those temporal mistakes.

All in all, very enjoyable and emotionally moving.

My only gripe: why’s there a cat on the cover when there isn’t a cat in the book?

And the journeys don’t end in this book, there’s a sequel, Tales from the Cafe, which has another 4 characters and their respective journeys in time: maybe the cat gets a mention in this.   I’ll be sure to write a review when i get around to reading it.

Toshikazu’s Page

#scifi #japan #toshikazukawaguchi