3 Times. Once during a summer in college, again about mid thirties, and again about 2 years ago. The same with *ShoGun *and Nobel House. King Rat Twice. I enjoyed them all.
I like how his later books have minor characters from the other books. Example is the lady in Noble House that was a descendent of John Blackthorne from Shogun.
I recommend reading Samurai William. It is a non-fiction book about the actual historical person on whom Clavell based his fictional character “Blackthorne”.
As so often, history is stranger than fiction …
Drawn from James Clavel’s real life experience.
By the way, I am likely the only Doper who was in the film Taipan. I’m in a rickshaw in one early scene. Even though I was in it, I haven’t watched the entire thin. My rickshaw flashes on the screen for about a tenth of a second at the beginning so don’t blink. After I saw my bit, I lost interest in watching the rest of it.
I was also a stand in one day. A few months later I hung out for a day when the castration scene was filmed, and then joined a wicked cast party where one of the bagpipers came in and serenaded us. It was incredibly awesome as well as LOUD as fuck.
Filmed in 1985-86 in Guangzhou China, with the sex scenes filmed in Macau. I had just arrived in China for my epic adventure, hung out for about a week as an extra, and then headed out for Tibet. Taipan lead was Australian actor Bryan Brown. Really nice guy. He just came over to the extras and started shooting the shit. I didn’t meet Joan Chen until about 30 years later when we were both with our kids at a health club in Shanghai.
If I had stayed on the set, I probably would have ended up working on the Last Emperor as well.
To the OP: I liked Taipan a lot in a pulpy kinda historical way. I loved the ending when young Colin tells (my paraphrase) the hunchback Orlove to “fetch my wife.” "Fetch your wife, you say!?!?
I was particularly amused by the way he tied in Shogun.
A Japanese courier named Anjin shows up with an important bit of information. The protagonist (I forget his name) comments, “Anjin. ‘Navigator,’ an unusual name.” The courier shrugs, “Supposedly it was some white guy who washed up on shore a couple hundred years ago. I suppose it’s just a family story.”
You can watch the miniseries for free on the Internet Archive: Shōgun (miniseries) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
I’ve also read Gai-Jin (last written and 3rd in chronological order).
Would rank Tai-Pan and Noble House as my favourites and Whirlwind the least, it took a couple of attempts to complete.
Nitpick: Culum & Orlov respectively
Shogun and Gai-Jin are definitely my favourites, although Tai-Pan wasn’t a bad read either from what I recall.