OK, I admit it, I like this guy's work. The stuff is long, in some cases too long, and sometimes too forced to fit some bookseller's idea of mass marketability. So, I feel like I should dislike Clavell and his overproductive word processor and his mass-market output. But for some reason, probably the settings (time and location) and the decent human interplay, I eat this stuff up. Clavell can get you to dislike putting the book down.

These are an ongoing saga of westerners in Asia. You don't have to read them in order.

Weakest of the lot, this is after Japan reopened to the west in the late 19th century. The westerners are establishing their settlement in Yokohama; the Japanese and Westerners are trying to comprehend each other. Clavell seemed to have no story burning to get out; the whole thing seems forced and somewhat hollow.

POW camp in Singapore in WWII, some character overlap with Noble House. The story is interesting; it's about pure capitalism and personal power in a very artificial environment- those who can adapt to take advantage of the system can win big; those who cannot (even those in power) lose. And among winners and losers there are different ways of looking at it.

1970s Hong Kong, the Noble House still in competitive war, going public, M&A worries, fighting off the other trading houses and dealing with the Americans.

Japan, 1600, just as Tokugawa Ieyasu is about to re-unify Japan. An English pilot (Will Adams) is shipwrecked in Japan and gets involved with the samurai culture and Ieyasu's civil war. All the names are changed; this allows Clavell to take some pretty loose liberties with the history, especially an impossible love affair between a Japanese Lady and Adams. You do get a decent glimpse into the times, and the story is certainly fun.

Better, in a way, is Yoshikawa's Musashi.

19th century founding of Hong Kong by the British. Opium trade and so forth. The protagonist's trading house is the Noble House of the later book. Hardest to put down of the lot.