According to its cover, this book is “the greatest Japanese science fiction novel of all time.” They didn’t attribute that quote to a source, but it’s impressive sounding nonetheless.
Ten Billion Days and One Hundred Billion Nights by Ryu Mitsuse is a bizarre book. It covers a huge amount of ground in just under 300 pages. Starting from the origins of the universe and the formation of our planet, the novel takes us through major philosophical and religious milestones of our species: after describing the evolution of life, we’re introduced to Plato, then Siddhartha, then Jesus. The book continues well beyond that, ending up near the heat death of the universe.
Mitsuse isn’t content with simply blasting through history. The main hook of this novel is the mixture of religion with razor-sharp hard science fiction. Without giving too much of the plot away, the novel tells a story of an alien influence on the growth and development of humanity, and how it has manifested itself in different religions and philosophies throughout history. These are the parts of the novel in which Mitsuse is at his best. The writing for each time period resembles the religious and philosophical texts of the time, and the reactions of the characters to the science fiction elements of the plot are interesting and revealing. It brings to mind one a famous quote from Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Perhaps we could substitute out “magic” for “divine intervention.”