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Title: Tai Pan is no Shogun
Review: Like many on this board, I picked up Tai Pan after reading Shogun. In my opinion Shogun is one of the top 5 novels written in the English language. Perhaps because of the expectation set by Shogun, I found Tai Pan to be a huge disappointment. Shogun was a story of empire-building and forbidden romance. Half way through Tai Pan, the "drama" centers around a pending beauty pageant and which two tea-carrying ships will dock first on a different continent six months in the future. I started, but was unable to finish, both Tai Pan and Noble House. For me at least, being a fan of Clavell turned out to be really just a fan of Shogun.
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