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Reading Friday
Nov. 27th, 2015 02:37 pmJust finished:
A Banquet of Consequences, Elizabeth George. 19th in the series. Starts with a suicide and then, three years later, with the death in suspicious circumstances of a feminist academic, who is employing the mother of the suicide as a PA and general dogsbody. I liked this more than the last two for being more contained and also for having more Havers and less Lynley, and a Havers who is at least trying not to trample over all the lines. I am also relieved that it left the Italian detective off-stage for almost the entire book, even though I want to see him again. Does a pretty good job of living up to the title.
( Spoilers for ending )
The Traitor, Seth Dickinson. Has an additional "Baru Cormorant" in the US edition, which I think I prefer. I liked this more than I thought I was going to, but it still didn't really connect with me - one of those books that sounds much better on paper (queer brown female savant takes on the empire that has colonised her homeland, by joining it and working from the inside) and what I said in my last post about twists definitely applies here. Part of the problem is definitely that this whole story plays out on a third stage - neither Baru's homeland nor that of the Empire - and it makes the stakes feel a little too much like a game without that personal connection.
In progress: Yuletide-relevant material. Lemon Drop & Martha's Distant Journey, Unknown Lands epic Sentinel fanfic, which is atmospheric and creepy and good for summer.
Up next: I do have Kameron Hurley's Empire Ascendant, but I think it and the next Ancillary book are going to have to wait until later, possibly until I have their respective third volumes.
Also, I picked up H.M. Hoover's This Time of Darkness from a booksale, in a paperback version of the hardcover one I read repeatedly as a child, and I
A Banquet of Consequences, Elizabeth George. 19th in the series. Starts with a suicide and then, three years later, with the death in suspicious circumstances of a feminist academic, who is employing the mother of the suicide as a PA and general dogsbody. I liked this more than the last two for being more contained and also for having more Havers and less Lynley, and a Havers who is at least trying not to trample over all the lines. I am also relieved that it left the Italian detective off-stage for almost the entire book, even though I want to see him again. Does a pretty good job of living up to the title.
( Spoilers for ending )
The Traitor, Seth Dickinson. Has an additional "Baru Cormorant" in the US edition, which I think I prefer. I liked this more than I thought I was going to, but it still didn't really connect with me - one of those books that sounds much better on paper (queer brown female savant takes on the empire that has colonised her homeland, by joining it and working from the inside) and what I said in my last post about twists definitely applies here. Part of the problem is definitely that this whole story plays out on a third stage - neither Baru's homeland nor that of the Empire - and it makes the stakes feel a little too much like a game without that personal connection.
In progress: Yuletide-relevant material. Lemon Drop & Martha's Distant Journey, Unknown Lands epic Sentinel fanfic, which is atmospheric and creepy and good for summer.
Up next: I do have Kameron Hurley's Empire Ascendant, but I think it and the next Ancillary book are going to have to wait until later, possibly until I have their respective third volumes.
Also, I picked up H.M. Hoover's This Time of Darkness from a booksale, in a paperback version of the hardcover one I read repeatedly as a child, and I
