Isn't making an 18th Century samurai xenophobic sort of redundant? Now, if he were an Anglophile…

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but when I first read about the "Lovecraftian Samurai" I was hoping it meant a big-chinned samurai with an inordinate love of ice cream, cats and heroic couplets.

Song of Kali was the first Simmons I read, out of a deep fascination with Kali and Thuggee. At the time, I thought it was a brilliant sort of Lovecraftian horror story. When I revisited it recently, I was really put off by how every Indian character in the novel is obnoxious and/or deceitful. Except of course, for the…