Posts Tagged ‘murder mystery’
This week’s reading progress
Posted on: April 15, 2019
I’ve been dabbling in a lot of books this week. Making slow progress, but not quite going all in on anything.
I finished reading Exit Strategy by Martha Wells, and I want to give this another read through before I write a review. I feel like I rushed through the first half of it. Although knowing me, my entire review will be some version of “This is why we shouldn’t build humanoid robots. We’ll keep assuming that since they look sort of human that they want human things, and when it turns out that they don’t want human things, our feewings will get hurwt. But like, we couldn’t have respected their answer when they said ‘don’t want human things, thanks’?”
And I’ve been bouncing in and out and around these three titles. If I’m “all in” on anything, it’s definitely the supernatural thriller by Aliette de Bodard. The end is super intense, I’ve probably got 70 or so pages to go!
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette De Bodard is a supernatural thriller/murder mystery that takes place in the ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. The investigator of the maybe-murder is the Priest for the Dead, and the accused murderer is the priest’s brother. There’s all sorts of dirty politics and infidelity and secret children and judgy parents and oh, the Aztec gods are real. You can talk to them, and they’ll tell you what they require as sacrifice and/or worship. and then they might kill you. I like stories where the gods are real. intense stuff! You like de Bodard’s Xuya stories right? you’ll like this!
the weirdly titled The History of Soul 2065 is a mosaic novel by Barbara Krasnoff, available later this spring. As soon as I saw that “Sabbath Wine” was in the table of contents, I knew I had to read it, cry for an hour, and then keep reading. These interlinked stories follow two families across generations and continents. I’m not far into the book yet, but I can already see how their family trees intertwine. I like mosaic novels. I may do a dramatic reading of “Sabbath Wine” while I’m seeing my family for Passover this coming weekend. If you hearing sobbing coming from Maryland, that’s my fault.
If any of these get DNFd it’s mostly likely going to be Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovksy. I LOVE the concept of this post apocalyptic novel – the end came, so everyone hid in the subway stations of Moscow, and somehow survived on pigs and mushrooms. many of the subway tunnels are haunted, different political groups have taken over different stations, gun cartridges are money, people will do anything to survive. The concept is compelling, the execution is . . . pretty boring actually. I don’t know if it is an artifact of the translation, or if this is the style of the writer, but I am skimming the text a lot because it is so repetitive.
What are you reading this week?
Good Guys, by Steven Brust
Posted on: May 20, 2018
Good Guys, by Steven Brust
published March 6th 2018
where I got it: Purchased new
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What can you do with magic? Pretty much anything you can do without it, except magic makes things much easier, and much faster. Students at the Foundation learn chemistry, molecular biology, and physics. They need to know how everything in the natural world works, so they can learn how to properly manipulate it for the results they want. The applied science of magic is a lot of knowledge, even more practice, and boat ton of will power.
Steven Brust’s newest stand alone novel, Good Guys, is Dresden Files meets Columbo, meets a study in the glory that is non-verbal communication. Donovan Longfellow heads up the American field team for the Spanish Foundation, a secret society staffed by magicians, sorcerers, recruiters, researchers, and assorted administrative staff. As the story opens, Donovan is breaking in his new field specialist, Marci. Fresh out of training, and still thinking she can have a healthy relationship while working for The Foundation, Marci is bright eyed and bushy-tailed, reminding me a little of Gwen from Torchwood. The team is rounded out by Susan the acrobatic ninja, and yep, the three of them are the entire American field team for the Spanish Foundation – saving the world by day, and often working 2nd jobs on the side to make ends meet. They might be saving the world, and the Foundation offers pretty good health insurance, but the hourly wage sucks.
The novel opens with a murder committed by magical means. Donovan’s team is put on the case, and as the murders stack up, the killings become more and more gruesome. None of the people who are murdered were particularly nice people. Someone is trying to send a message, but what are they trying to say, and why? The Foundation tends to frown on people using magic for selfish or violent reasons, so why should they care that a bunch of assholes are getting knocked off? Other than the fact that he’s getting paid for it, why should Donovan care?
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