This took me a while to finish, because it was trying to do two different things and ended up doing neither very well. It seems like this book wants to be an exciting historical fiction, about a warrior entering a strange country where his appearance and skills propel him to the heights of power; it also wants to be a serious historical look at Yasuke's life and era. Unfortunately, the historical discussions keep the narrative from building up to much, and the attempts at a colorful narrative make the history seem slanted towards racism and exoticism. My favorite part of the book was the last sixty pages or so, after the conclusion of Yasuke's story and which of the six black guys in Japan he might have ended up as (which is as awkward as that sounds) -- we get a series of end notes about each chapter where the author explains details about his sources, historical asides that didn't make it into the 'text,' and the thought processes that went into the research, all in a very nice conversational style. I can't say that I really learned anything from reading this -- beyond the fact of Yasuke's existence, I can't shake the feeling that any or all of the details might have been made up for dramatic effect -- but I enjoyed the historiography, and those end notes might be worth consulting for other sources if one was interested.