While Coldplay's new song is exploitation of exoticism, Shogun has a sailor from the west acting as a savior of people during 16th century Japanese civil war. Seriously. UGH. 
 It's very hard to like a book when one of its main protagonist starts by being annoying and evolves to be an absolute douche. Not just a run-of-the-mill douche but the one I really want to punch in the face variety. Everything is convenient to the character and the secondary characters (that are all Japanese) exist to show us how awesome this main character is. Really. 
 Blackthorne falls under the familiar archetype of strong-white-manly-man-of-honor (honor thing is quite questionable) who saves the day by merely existing. Everything works out for him in a way that stops being believable after first hundred pages. Guess who speaks English in the entire region? Yes, the prettiest woman in the county who is married to an asshole. Guess who she falls in love with? Yep, this guy. And what about the bunch of wars going on? Guess who will help those poor people? Absolutely this guy. Clavell doggedly projects Blackthorne throughout this book as someone whose values and opinions are morally absolute and definite. Which isn't true at all. As a cliche, this is all fine. With alpha male protagonists this is to be expected. They are even enjoyable when done well. But when it becomes obvious that everyone else in the book is unimportant or doesn't measure up to whatever standards Clavell has set, then we have a problem. 
 Its a roller coaster ride for sure. Lot of things happens with pointless exercises in various points of view, dramatic interventions and cringe-worthy interludes. However, Clavell does a splendid job in narrating the setting, geography, customs which isn't an easy task considering the period. Props for that. It's the third act of the book that made this book a tedious chore. 
 Use this book to exercise speed reading techniques. Its super easy and if you skip few words or sentences or paragraphs, no one cares.