I read largely sff, some romance and mystery, very little non-fiction. I'm trying to write at least a little review of everything I'm reading, but it's a little bit of an experiment in progress.
This is the final book in the Lady Astronaut series, with Elma York landing on Mars to help establish a base. This book has the mix of space stuff, politics, relationships, and technical trouble that you would expect from the rest of series, but fundamentally, this book is about Elma learning to be a leader and it's a good capstone on her emotional and professional journey.
Unfortunately, most of the action in this book takes place off page. Early on Elma realizes people are covering something up, but that event has already happened. There's some feint that maybe more problems from Earth First terrorists could happen, but this does not materialize. And sure, there are some real consequences from the coverup, but the majority of them also happen off page. It is not as if I am reading the Lady Astronaut series for action and adventure, but it's hard not …
This is the final book in the Lady Astronaut series, with Elma York landing on Mars to help establish a base. This book has the mix of space stuff, politics, relationships, and technical trouble that you would expect from the rest of series, but fundamentally, this book is about Elma learning to be a leader and it's a good capstone on her emotional and professional journey.
Unfortunately, most of the action in this book takes place off page. Early on Elma realizes people are covering something up, but that event has already happened. There's some feint that maybe more problems from Earth First terrorists could happen, but this does not materialize. And sure, there are some real consequences from the coverup, but the majority of them also happen off page. It is not as if I am reading the Lady Astronaut series for action and adventure, but it's hard not to feel like there's a more engaging story being told next door. (To that end, I wonder if this book would have been better told from Leonard's perspective.)
One thing I do really appreciate about this book is seeing Elma and Nathaniel's relationship continuing to grow. For me, Mary Robinette Kowal's writing excels at telling a story with believably married characters who each have their own foibles and needs, and I feel like that's the case both here and in her Glamourist Histories series. It's nice to see the two of them care about each other, but also argue and disagree and be understandably frustrated with each other in a way that I don't see many books engage with.
Becky Chambers meets Miss Marple in this sci-fi ode to the cozy mystery, helmed by …
Murder by Memory
3 stars
This cozy starship mystery novella was billed to me as "Becky Chambers meets Miss Marple" and, sorry book, but I'm going to go with no on both counts. It has vibes of all of these things, but no depth to the mystery, characters, or worldbuilding.
The worldbuilding is a bit wild. I appreciate (but also laugh at) the way that the starship quite explicitly has no cops, only detectives with investigative power as a way to get around cop-centric detective fiction. The book also has UBI, which is a weird concept to extend forward in time to an intergenerational starship that has mind upload. It's all just a little too light that it doesn't hang together.
Ultimately, the mystery is too easily unraveled by the protagonist, but the details are not something the reader could have known about ahead of time. Largely, this feels like it comes from the complication …
This cozy starship mystery novella was billed to me as "Becky Chambers meets Miss Marple" and, sorry book, but I'm going to go with no on both counts. It has vibes of all of these things, but no depth to the mystery, characters, or worldbuilding.
The worldbuilding is a bit wild. I appreciate (but also laugh at) the way that the starship quite explicitly has no cops, only detectives with investigative power as a way to get around cop-centric detective fiction. The book also has UBI, which is a weird concept to extend forward in time to an intergenerational starship that has mind upload. It's all just a little too light that it doesn't hang together.
Ultimately, the mystery is too easily unraveled by the protagonist, but the details are not something the reader could have known about ahead of time. Largely, this feels like it comes from the complication of telling a light science fiction story in the space of a novella, and needing to explain the parameters of the world to the audience (as well as that of the mystery) in that small space.
Tangential musings:
* is it a requirement of a cozy mystery to include knitting, even if it's on a spaceship?
* furthermore, where does fiber for a knitting shop come from on an interstellar generational starship?
* surely other people see the horror in "oh well my previous body died I'll just download into another body with a copy of my memories"?
* how do you simultaneously have a world with (faulty) memory-based replicators (hope you remember all the zipper, pleat, and hem details for your clothing!) but also (somehow trustworthy) mind backup of your memories?
Thara Celehar has lost his ability to speak with the dead. When that title of …
The Tomb of Dragons
5 stars
The Tomb of Dragons is the third book in the Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy. The first book in this series felt like a straight mystery in a fantasy setting, but by the time we get to this third book, the mystery portion gets balanced out by more politics and interpersonal growth and the story is stronger for it. I appreciate the way a number of plot points and characters from the previous books (including Goblin Emperor) all get woven into this story. The plot is just messy enough in a way that's believable, but tight in a way that makes events (especially of the first book) feel even more relevant. I loved it enough that I finished it and immediately reread Goblin Emperor because I wanted to be in the world a little bit more and revisit Thara back at the beginning.
In the previous book, Thara has lost his …
The Tomb of Dragons is the third book in the Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy. The first book in this series felt like a straight mystery in a fantasy setting, but by the time we get to this third book, the mystery portion gets balanced out by more politics and interpersonal growth and the story is stronger for it. I appreciate the way a number of plot points and characters from the previous books (including Goblin Emperor) all get woven into this story. The plot is just messy enough in a way that's believable, but tight in a way that makes events (especially of the first book) feel even more relevant. I loved it enough that I finished it and immediately reread Goblin Emperor because I wanted to be in the world a little bit more and revisit Thara back at the beginning.
In the previous book, Thara has lost his ability to speak with the dead, and this book is partially about him dealing with understanding who he might be when he is unable to do the work that he has been called to for years. But, it's also about witnessing for a dragon genocide against an overwhelmingly powerful mining corporation, and about Thara learning to accept being cared for. It's got a lot going on.
One thing I always forget about these books are how name dense they are. Everybody has fantasy titles and surnames and personal names and get referred to in multiple different ways. It makes the world feel much more real, but foof does it create some friction to get back into it after a while away. Sometimes it also breaks out fantasy words like "revethvezvaishor’avar" which I can only assume is meant to be half joking, but it can feel like a lot.
If I have any real quibble with the book, it's that the legal climax of this book is a little underwhelming; however, the personal and emotional elements land perfectly for me. (The multiple hand holding scenes!!!)
On this note, the conversation with Iäna midway through the book is absolutely incredible. This moment has been building the entire trilogy, between Iäna's escalating kindness to Thara and Thara's inability to accept care for himself. It gets to be too much for Thara, where he just can't understand why Iäna is being so nice, and it turns into an incredible conversation hashing out what they mean to each other, the nature of friendships, and love. Honestly, Iäna is such an incredible role model.
The eccentric detective Ana Dolabra matches wits with a seemingly omniscient adversary in this brilliant …
Malo picked up a coin and eyed it. “That, or your immunis was right—once she’d made one deal, they had enough to blackmail her into more service. Which makes sense. They often favor threats above gifts.”
“They? Criminals, you mean?”
“No.” She handed the coin back to me. “Kings, and those who rule with them. But perhaps there is little difference between the natures of such men and criminals.”
The eccentric detective Ana Dolabra matches wits with a seemingly omniscient adversary in this brilliant …
A Drop of Corruption
4 stars
This book reminds me a lot of the second book in Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy. Both are set out in the hinterlands, with a different focus and locale than the first book, but crucially both are there to establish the thematic question for the series. Here, that question is around the human nature of kings and emperors, and the complicated human desire for them.
Unsurprisingly, this series continues to be solidly in the mystery genre despite being blended with kaiju fantasy worldbuilding. It opens with a locked room murder mystery (and a missing body), has a brilliant Moriarity-adjacent mastermind, and ends with a dramatic reveal. This was true in the first book as well, but I quite appreciate how the details and clues are meticulously laid out for the reader to spot; even when there is a "our investigator must go into a fugue state to find answers" …
This book reminds me a lot of the second book in Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy. Both are set out in the hinterlands, with a different focus and locale than the first book, but crucially both are there to establish the thematic question for the series. Here, that question is around the human nature of kings and emperors, and the complicated human desire for them.
Unsurprisingly, this series continues to be solidly in the mystery genre despite being blended with kaiju fantasy worldbuilding. It opens with a locked room murder mystery (and a missing body), has a brilliant Moriarity-adjacent mastermind, and ends with a dramatic reveal. This was true in the first book as well, but I quite appreciate how the details and clues are meticulously laid out for the reader to spot; even when there is a "our investigator must go into a fugue state to find answers" moment, her revelations are all something the reader could have intuited themselves.
One friend who has been reading this series (and crucially has not read any mystery books) has been disappointed at the "small-ness" of the plot threads, where the climax is a mystery rather than a fantasy escalation, and the terror of the leviathans only looms in the distance. These books certainly do not have the escalation of ideas from his previous series The Founders Trilogy. However, following the Divine Cities example above, my prediction is that the final book is going to satisfyingly tie together the themes from the first two books while answering our questions about the nature of the leviathans and the silent Khanum emperor.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
Enjoyable.
3 stars
I found this to be enjoyable, but it jumped around between the genres too much for my liking.
It really irked me that the MC never gets named. It was at least bearable due to the perspective being almost entirely from her point of view, but with how much she interacts with the other characters, it drove me a little bonkers that she was never called by any name.
I'm glad that I read this still, but it's not one that I'm ever going to have an interest in revisiting.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
The Ministry of Time
4 stars
I really enjoyed The Ministry of Time.
I was frustrated with the protagonist for big chunks of the book for not realizing obvious things. The author repeatedly tried to defend this with "I bet you're thinking 'I would have realized this right away', but" and in a world where I know time travel exists,I absolutely would!
However, the writing is very good, and it kept me engaged. The combination of themes around time travel, colonialism, and refugee life really worked, and I feel like it allowed them to be explored from different angles.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
The Ministry of Time
4 stars
Overall, I love this novel's ideas but the genres it mixes together work against each other rather than being stronger for the combination.
(also please name your protagonist, it's so awkward, thank you)
I found the writing here to be surprisingly funny and engaging. The dialogue between the protagonist and Graham continually made me laugh, and the book is peppered with delightful drive-by analogies like "he looked oddly formal, as if he was the sole person in serif font" or "I lay in my own body like a wretched sandbank".
The strongest part of the book to me (and the part that I found the most engaging) was the relationship and dialogue between the protagonist and Graham. A 19th century sailor is a great foil for modern London life; however, it also does a good job of making both the protagonist and Graham real, fallible characters who each make incorrect …
Overall, I love this novel's ideas but the genres it mixes together work against each other rather than being stronger for the combination.
(also please name your protagonist, it's so awkward, thank you)
I found the writing here to be surprisingly funny and engaging. The dialogue between the protagonist and Graham continually made me laugh, and the book is peppered with delightful drive-by analogies like "he looked oddly formal, as if he was the sole person in serif font" or "I lay in my own body like a wretched sandbank".
The strongest part of the book to me (and the part that I found the most engaging) was the relationship and dialogue between the protagonist and Graham. A 19th century sailor is a great foil for modern London life; however, it also does a good job of making both the protagonist and Graham real, fallible characters who each make incorrect assumptions about the other. One other way this relationship also works for me is that it lets the book delve into the parallels of being an expat forced into a new time versus a new place work really well, or of not being be able to go "back".
However, the construction seams of this novel show, and that's where it gets weak. The more "serious" time travel and time war shenanigans feel tacked on, and thematically don't really integrate with the rest of the story (tonally or thematically). As a time travel story, it's not doing anything particularly novel here, and these bits weaken the rest of the novel.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
The time-travel project was the first time in history that any person had been brought out of their time and into their far future. In this sense, the predicament of the expats was unique. But the rhythms of loss and asylum, exodus and loneliness, roll like floods across human history. I'd seen it happen in my own life.