Reading Wednesday

[redbird]

On Wednesday again, hooray!

Recent reading:

Nemesis, by Agatha Christie. This Miss Marple mystery is I think set later than usual in Miss Marple's life. The set-up is that she learns of the death of a rich man she met on holiday the previous year, and then discovers that he has left her a significant inheritance on condition that she investigates…something. The instructions are deliberately vague, but start with a letter saying he has paid for her to go on a coach tour of famous houses and gardens. Events unfold from there, and Marple in the end lives up to her deceased acquaintance's idea of her as "nemesis," one of the Kindly Ones. A couple of stereotypes are explicitly knocked down, and justice is eventually done. (Warning: there's a mostly-abstract discussion among some of the characters that is full of rape culture assumptions.)

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. This drew me in, in a way that relatively few books have in the last few years. (I don't know if that's becaues it's that good, or a hopeful sign about the future.) Maia is a lonely 18 year old who suddenly finds himself Emperor of the Elflands after his father and older half-brothers are murdered. He has a lot to learn, because it never occurred to his guardian that Maia would need to know much about politics, or much else. He has a realistic amount of trouble finding his footing, and a lot happens in a year. Part of what I liked about this book is that it's not a story about an obscure person who is the only hope for his people, or the world. He does want to be a good emperor, and not just because he's stuck with the job, and his definition of "good" isn't the same as the last few emperors', but it's one a lot of us could agree with, from concern for the well-being of his subjects to taking an interest in even dull-sounding legal issues. Also, there's a good scene with a steam-powered model bridge. (As a side note, if you find yourself lost in the sea of names and foreign terminology, there are glossaries and lists of characters at the back, which I wish I'd noticed before I finished the book.

This is on the Hugo ballot for best novel; if I don't vote straight "no award" in every category, I would be happy to vote for this, and think Monette deserved the award. (I need to give the Liu another try and see if I can get past the gory first chapter about the Cultural Revolution; I liked Leckie's Ancillary Sword but right now would rank this higher.) [If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it: it has nothing to do with the quality of this novel.]


(Nothing in progress)

What I plan to read next:

Past Forgetting, by Jill Robinson, a memoir about amnesia.

Comments

[tam_nonlinear]

I read The Goblin Emperor based on a bunch of recommendations where the people recommending it said something along the lines of "The people in this book are good! And smart! And mostly just trying to find their way through and do the decent thing! It's such a relief!".

Which it was. It's a very comfortable book. Particularly, it's a very grown up sort of comfortable book, in that it isn't going to pretend things are easy, but that the hard work is worth doing.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I loved Goblin Emperor - and first "read" it in audiobook format, while on the rowing machine, so the names were even more confusing and there was no glossary to check. I liked it enough to read book (well, ebook) immediately after.
In fact, not being a part of the con community myself, that's the biggest reason I'm upset about the whole Hugo thing: because this book deserves to win, and deserves to win cleanly. (Ironic, too, because what is Maia if not a social justice warrior?)

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

...a memoir about amnesia.

Oxymoron, anyone?

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I got past the first chapter of The Three-Body Problem, but gave up about 60 pages in. It seemed like lesser scientists-talking-to-each-other SF from the forties, which I read in the library when I was a kid because it was mixed in with the better stuff, and there wasn't much SF in books in those days. I expect I'll try again in a while.