The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)
The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi (Tor Books)
Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree (Tor Books)
Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom)
The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books)
I’ve only read two of these and bounced hard on the post-Gideon “Ninth” books. (Gideon was absolutely astonishingly good, but Harrow just never clicked - so I guess I need to try Nona) Glad I have several more books to go read!
Legends and Lattes - the podcast “Stories from Among the Stars” just serialized the audiobook. It was quite enjoyable. I think the term is “cottage core”. Low stakes, just a cozy, enjoyable low fantasy story with some entertaining bits, some fun characters, and coffee.
The Spare Man - someone said “The Thin Man movies, but in space”, and I had bought and was reading it 2 minutes later. Not deep, but a really solid murder mystery, IN SPAAAAAACE. Definitely The Thin Man (movies!!) with a lovely couple and their dog. It reminded me a bit of John Varley’s “The Golden Globe”, as the character’s backstory grows over the course of the novel, it was quippy and FUN. Lots of suspects, Kowal is really good with the page - I’ve read 1 or 2 other books of hers, but this book I’d buy 15 more of.
I’ve read both Nettle and Bone and Nona the Ninth, and while Nettle and Bone was a fun read at no point while reading it did I think “hey, this is Hugo Award material!” It’s firmly in Kingfisher’s romantic fantasy wheelhouse, and hits all the tropes that subgenre is known for. I’d say the romance is more subtly threaded through the main plot than in her Saints of Steel series, but I came away from it with the sense that it was just a very good piece of genre fiction.
In contrast, Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series (of which Nona is the third entry) has been such a delightful, genre-bending romp that I would put it well ahead of most anything else I’ve read in the last few years. It remains to be seen if Muir can land the plane with Alecto, but (while I admit it’s a challenging read at first) Harrow the Ninth in particular is just so masterful at spinning an arch-gothic space opera tale through the eyes of a very unconventional and insanely unreliable narrator, and it’s peppered with mad twists to boot. I’ll grant that it was up against stiff competition from Arkady Martine’s Teixcalaan novels in the last couple years, but I personally would still have given Nona the Ninth the nod over Nettle and Bone this year.
I hadn’t read any of the books you mentioned when you posted this comment, but now I’ve read Nettle and the first two locked tomb books. I actually just finished Harrow and searched Lemmy to see if anyone had talked about it; I laughed when I saw it was a comment in my own thread.
No one else will see this since the thread is so old, but I agree with you: Nettle and Bone was really enjoyable, but like you said, more just “a very good piece of genre fiction.”
I enjoyed Gideon immensely, and was really looking forward to Harrow. I didn’t enjoy the experience as much, honestly, though it’s a really well crafted book. The first half is so confusing with the altered events. Yes, it was clear that it was going to be something like it was, but that part was so protracted. I’m pretty good about putting confusion aside and letting the author take me where she will, but it was like two thirds of the way through a longish book before it started coming together, and that’s a long time to ask a reader to wait. I also felt like the end was unsatisfying.
That’s entirely fair. Harrow is quite a different book to Gideon, and while it’s exactly my brand of (literal) mindfuckery I can’t fault somebody else for not clicking with it, going in with the expectation that it was going to be a continuation of the narrative style of Gideon. If you do decide to continue on with the series, you should know Alecto continues to explore some of the same themes and story threads as Harrow, but isn’t quite as confusing a read. I also found it to have a bit of a non-ending along the lines of Harrow, but Muir is clearly building towards a conclusion with the fourth novel that I hope will be more satisfying.
Thanks for this response. I’d actually prefer to read something unusual that was challenging than just another formulaic throw away. I certainly didn’t hate the book, and might read Nona.
I just finished Spare Man the day before yesterday, and enjoyed it pretty well. It feels more like a murder mystery in a futuristic setting than a science fiction story about a murder somehow, but it was fun and light.
I’m halfway through Gideon the Ninth now, and it’s really good. Fun, interesting, and unusual. I’ll for sure give the rest of the series a try.
Heck, let’s break this up!
Best Novel
I’ve only read two of these and bounced hard on the post-Gideon “Ninth” books. (Gideon was absolutely astonishingly good, but Harrow just never clicked - so I guess I need to try Nona) Glad I have several more books to go read!
Legends and Lattes - the podcast “Stories from Among the Stars” just serialized the audiobook. It was quite enjoyable. I think the term is “cottage core”. Low stakes, just a cozy, enjoyable low fantasy story with some entertaining bits, some fun characters, and coffee.
The Spare Man - someone said “The Thin Man movies, but in space”, and I had bought and was reading it 2 minutes later. Not deep, but a really solid murder mystery, IN SPAAAAAACE. Definitely The Thin Man (movies!!) with a lovely couple and their dog. It reminded me a bit of John Varley’s “The Golden Globe”, as the character’s backstory grows over the course of the novel, it was quippy and FUN. Lots of suspects, Kowal is really good with the page - I’ve read 1 or 2 other books of hers, but this book I’d buy 15 more of.
I’ve read both Nettle and Bone and Nona the Ninth, and while Nettle and Bone was a fun read at no point while reading it did I think “hey, this is Hugo Award material!” It’s firmly in Kingfisher’s romantic fantasy wheelhouse, and hits all the tropes that subgenre is known for. I’d say the romance is more subtly threaded through the main plot than in her Saints of Steel series, but I came away from it with the sense that it was just a very good piece of genre fiction.
In contrast, Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series (of which Nona is the third entry) has been such a delightful, genre-bending romp that I would put it well ahead of most anything else I’ve read in the last few years. It remains to be seen if Muir can land the plane with Alecto, but (while I admit it’s a challenging read at first) Harrow the Ninth in particular is just so masterful at spinning an arch-gothic space opera tale through the eyes of a very unconventional and insanely unreliable narrator, and it’s peppered with mad twists to boot. I’ll grant that it was up against stiff competition from Arkady Martine’s Teixcalaan novels in the last couple years, but I personally would still have given Nona the Ninth the nod over Nettle and Bone this year.
I hadn’t read any of the books you mentioned when you posted this comment, but now I’ve read Nettle and the first two locked tomb books. I actually just finished Harrow and searched Lemmy to see if anyone had talked about it; I laughed when I saw it was a comment in my own thread.
No one else will see this since the thread is so old, but I agree with you: Nettle and Bone was really enjoyable, but like you said, more just “a very good piece of genre fiction.”
I enjoyed Gideon immensely, and was really looking forward to Harrow. I didn’t enjoy the experience as much, honestly, though it’s a really well crafted book. The first half is so confusing with the altered events. Yes, it was clear that it was going to be something like it was, but that part was so protracted. I’m pretty good about putting confusion aside and letting the author take me where she will, but it was like two thirds of the way through a longish book before it started coming together, and that’s a long time to ask a reader to wait. I also felt like the end was unsatisfying.
That’s entirely fair. Harrow is quite a different book to Gideon, and while it’s exactly my brand of (literal) mindfuckery I can’t fault somebody else for not clicking with it, going in with the expectation that it was going to be a continuation of the narrative style of Gideon. If you do decide to continue on with the series, you should know Alecto continues to explore some of the same themes and story threads as Harrow, but isn’t quite as confusing a read. I also found it to have a bit of a non-ending along the lines of Harrow, but Muir is clearly building towards a conclusion with the fourth novel that I hope will be more satisfying.
Thanks for this response. I’d actually prefer to read something unusual that was challenging than just another formulaic throw away. I certainly didn’t hate the book, and might read Nona.
I just finished Spare Man the day before yesterday, and enjoyed it pretty well. It feels more like a murder mystery in a futuristic setting than a science fiction story about a murder somehow, but it was fun and light.
I’m halfway through Gideon the Ninth now, and it’s really good. Fun, interesting, and unusual. I’ll for sure give the rest of the series a try.
The others are on my reading list.