book list, January 2020

[edenfalling]

It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in January 2020. Click on the cuts for summaries and reactions. I reserve the right to spoil all hell out of any book if spoilery bits are what I feel like talking about.

Minor Mage, by T. Kingfisher
-----In which a boy and his armadillo familiar set out (courtesy of pressure from a not-quite-mob of his neighbors, even though he was planning to go anyway) to break the drought that is slowly strangling his home village. Along the way they meet various obstacles and allies, and we consider the practical details of the old folk-song trope of making murderer-accusing harps out of a dead person's bones and hair. I liked this, but it badly needed more female characters.

The Seventh Bride, by T. Kingfisher
-----In which a miller's daughter is strong-armed into marrying a creepy noble, and discovers that she's gotten herself into the middle of a very nasty magical tangle that she and some of his other wives (look, I said he was creepy!) have to work together to resolve, hopefully without any additional deaths. I liked this one a lot! It is super-creepy in places, and acknowledges a lot of social pressures, and that people can dislike each other even when trapped in the same horrible situation, and that sometimes there's no wholly right choice, and that you still have to work together anyway because what else is there that makes us human?

Sovereign, by C. J. Sansom
-----Third installment in the Matthew Shardlake historical mystery series, in which Shardlake is tasked by Archbishop Cranmer with going to York to meet King Henry VIII's great Progress through the north of England, and escorting a prisoner back to London for questioning and torture. And then things get complicated. I enjoy this series a lot -- for the characters, for the historical daily life stuff, and I guess also for the mysteries -- and this installment lives up to the first two.

---------------

And now I will attempt to do useful things for an hour and a half before I have to leave for work. *wry*

Comments

[branchandroot]

You should check out Swordheart, from Ursula (er, T. Kingfisher, that is), if you liked Seventh Bride but wanted a little less creepy in with the social commentary. In which there is much adventuring and also an excellent heroine plus a devotee of the White Rat. Ze is wonderfully sarcastic. Clockwork Boys and its sequel (set in the same world) also has an excellent heroine, who is a criminal accountant, and has a medium amount of creepy. Actually, Jackalope Wives too, which has short stories with a wide variety of really excellent heroines. Creepy levels vary, but there's often some.

...I guess what I'm saying is that Minor Mage is a bit of an outlier for her in re lots of amazing women in many varieties. The creepy, on the other hand, is one of her common modes, and it's kind of hilarious to watch her flail on social media about not having /realized/ something was creepy until her readers come back with "wow, creepy!".

[edenfalling]

I know she's usually much better than that in re: female characters, which is why I was so annoyed by their lack in Minor Mage -- I wouldn't have minded so much if my expectations weren't high, you know? :(

Anyway, I've been working through Vernon's pseudonymous novels a few at a time, and the Clockwork world books are next on my list. (And the creepiness is generally a bonus in my opinion. :D )

[branchandroot]

Yeah, I really think Minor Mage triggered a bad habit her children's lit publisher ingrained in her, which is having to gender-target her stories.