LRRC Week 21
I briefly forgot how math worked and thought this was the halfway point, and had a minor panic attack about the movement of time and also the fact that I should've by all accounts been at book #52 this week. But it's okay, it's all good.
#41: A STUDY IN BRIMSTONE by G.S. Denning
I forget where I saw a rec for this book, but I genuinely found it to be quite charming and funny. I love a good Sherlock Holmes retelling, and this one was really not afraid of pulling its punches when it comes to gently mocking the original. The general tone and attitude reminded me somewhat of a Discworld novel, and while nobody is as good as Terry Pratchett, Denning is far better than a lot of other would-be Pratchetts I've read.
The main conceit, that Holmes is magical and that Watson is the one with actual deductive ability, was fun, though it does at times seem like Holmes is a little bit useless within the story. However, it also makes him vastly more likeable and less of an outright asshole than many other versions, so I could live with it. Also, the supernatural twists to the well-known stories are pretty enjoyable, if none of them are truly great mysteries on their own.
The one thing that did bother me, and which I would warn for, is the presence of a scene in which the villain dresses as a woman as a disguise. It definitely at least toes the line with casual transphobia, if not jumping entirely over the line, and it's frustrating in a book that otherwise doesn't stoop to those lows. It's also a little shocking in a book that was published in (checks notes) TWENTY SIXTEEN!!!
Like, hi, writers? Please stop doing this thing??
#42: WICKED SAINTS by Emily A. Duncan
This book for me fell very squarely and very comfortably in a middle of the road kind of mark. I'm not sure that I ever got super attached to the characters, though I also didn't dislike any of them particularly, and the plot moved a little bit too fast for me to really get invested in the outcome or the character motivations, but also, it didn't frustrate me. I wasn't mad about it.
The real winner in this book is the aesthetic and the general world-building details. There's a lot of blood magic, and a lot of people's bodies shifting in fun and terrifying ways, and listen, I'm always here for monsters, okay? I liked the way that the magic worked, and the distinction between the godly magic and the heretical magic, that all worked for me.
Also, the politicking was kind of fun, though see the first paragraph that I kind of wish there had been more time to really sink my teeth into it. There's a decent amount of characters and things going on here, which is fine, but I felt like sometimes it became a little bit overwhelming to the actual detail of the plots.
Anyway, I'll definitely check out the next book (and not only because I accidentally checked them both out of the library at the same time), and I am interested to see where the story and the characters go from here. Also, though all the names were Eastern European and I doubt my ability to pronounce a lot of them, I had a pretty easy time keeping the characters separate, which is always good.
NEXT WEEK'S AGENDA:
#43: Ruthless Gods by Emily A. Duncan
#44: When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey