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Jul. 4th, 2025 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseThe Tainted Cup (Robert Jackson Bennett) (2024): murder mystery in a secondary world empire where biological husbandry seems to have beat out chemical synthesis, also there are kaiju leviathans. It's likely the leviathans are linked to the bio-engineering in ways that are glossed over in this novel, from the shape of the this novel and what I know of the sequel. (Only one sequel so far.) The detective-apprentice duo namechecks Holmes and Watson, which is a crime-solving template whose use I'm neutral to dubious about seeing, but Ana and Din mostly stand on their own.
Cup has a pretty speech about "when the Empire is weak, it is often because a powerful few have denied us the abundance of our people," which is a nice summing-up of one of the major themes. (I am all for compelled offering of that abundance, but later.)
Worldbuilding, plot, and characterization very much in a Hugo tradition from the '90s or '00s. I'd put money on Cup getting high marks in some circles.
Someone You Can Build A Nest In (John Wiswell) (2024): "cozy horror", which is a new to me subgenre, where human-eating monster Shesheshen falls in love with a human. And also eats people.
I forgot about the bonkers body count until I tried to fillcahn in on the ending. So let's start there.
Major plot spoilers: Shesheshen's mother killed Homily's father and put her eggs in him, as part of a long term plan to eat her child's eggs at some future time. (Monsters get one shot at kids, or they can eat the eggs and gain super longevity. By monster logic, you lay your eggs and take their eggs.) At the same time she killed Homily's mother and masqueraded as the Baroness. As the monster-pretending-to-be-a-Baroness, she deliberately (?) screwed up Homily and her siblings, turning the oldest brother Catharsis into a jerk, Homily into an abused doormat, Homily's younger sister Epigram into a psych case with a taste for cathartic (heh) semi-consensual nonsexual (?) knifeplay with Homily, and Homily's youngest sister Ode into a baby tyrant. In the course of the novel, Shesheshen kills Catharsis and the Baroness-monster, Shesheshen's accidental asexually produced offspring kills Ode, and Homily kills Epigram when Epigram threatens to kill Shesheshen. Homily and Shesheshen move back to the ruined castle, which was the baronial estate pre-everything, Homily names Shesheshen's accidental baby Epilogue, and happily ever after is intimated.
It was probably a mistake to read this after Time and Cup, which are both on top of their PoV constraints. Nest has a protagonist who is potentially (probably) neurodivergent, and definitely not socialized as a human being. But Shesheshen didn't strike me as particularly impacted by her limited socialization. Even though she hatched without parental supervision and ate her siblings, she's shown as insightful on the Wolffire family dysfunction, and specifically on Homily's damage and trauma. One could hand-wave the Shesheshen's mother masquerading as the Baroness as an underlying reason - nonhuman manipulation being recognized by another nonhuman - but I'm not engaged enough to handwave that much. There's some kind of monster independent offpsring thing going on that I'm not sure Wiswell cares about as much as I care about it.
The tone in the middle sections of the Wulfyre hunt for the Wyrm of Underlook reminded me strongly of the castle siege in Naomi Novik's Uprooted, specifically the sense of a set piece (or set pieces) which were mostly there to knock down the number of Wulfyre and back our PoV character and her love interest into a plot corner. Though the plot corner in Uprooted was "more bloodshed won't solve this", and the plot corner in Nest seems to be "very specific bloodshed of the bad / wrong people will solve this". The theme of monstrously abusive mothers, and the development of the theme, notably overlaps with Kingfisher's novel. Is it a "two nickels" situation? Probably not. But it's interesting two of this year's six Hugo nominees for novel feature female primary characters getting sympathetic allies as they recognize their mother's monstrous abuse and destroy their irredeemable mothers. (Two nickels: "If I had a nickel for every time [event / situation], I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.")
I do not think naming the baby Epilogue is cute. It implies the child's entire life is the wrap-up, the afterthought, the extra bit. Sequel would have been more kind. That "moment of the story" approach is in line with how the very sweet story about Shesheshen rescuing Homily from family abuse and giving Homily space to heal, while the narrative and author voice stroll past a murder count worthy of Hamlet. (Narrator voice does not have to be author perspective, do not make me hit someone with Lolita, it's embarrassing when I have to use books I haven't read.)
Since this won a Nebula, clearly I am missing something. Maybe I'm getting hung up on the baroque Wulfyre murder-hookup chart and how the precocial biology works when I'm supposed to be getting "they're all monsters, we're all monsters, monstrous is as monstrous does" as the message and moving on. Am I just supposed to assume "Bloodchild" is in the DNA and move on? I am so baffled.
Service Model (Adrian Tchaikovsky) (2024): DNF. I started the audiobook, I stopped one sentence in. I tried the ebook, I stopped two sentences in. I did not have a good time slogging through Alien Clay and a survey of reviews tells me I'm not doing that to myself again.
The recurring theme of the 2025 Hugos (so far) seems to be people using other human beings as depersonalized tools. Literal robots (Service Model); totalitarians ship people off to labor camps (Adrian Tchaikovsky's Alien Clay); mother uses daughter as abused pawn in her avaricious plots (T. Kingfisher's A Sorceress Comes To Call); ditto Someone To Build A Nest In; The Ministry of Time going full spy-thriller tropes; to a lesser extent Din's apprenticeship with Ana in The Tainted Cup, but since there's a big empire, a murder investigation, elective (or "elective"?) biological modification of imperial subjects, and city-destroying toxic monsters periodically attacking, I am willing to read on in the suspicion someone is using someone horribly as their tool.
Quick ETA: Cup audiobook narrated by Andrew Fallaize, Nest audiobook narrated by Carmen Rose. When googling "someone you can build a nest in audiobook", the second hit is libro.fm, visible content An adorable romance of people falling in love for the first time set in a wonderful fantasy world, this book is perfect for you! ...wow.
Cup has a pretty speech about "when the Empire is weak, it is often because a powerful few have denied us the abundance of our people," which is a nice summing-up of one of the major themes. (I am all for compelled offering of that abundance, but later.)
Worldbuilding, plot, and characterization very much in a Hugo tradition from the '90s or '00s. I'd put money on Cup getting high marks in some circles.
Someone You Can Build A Nest In (John Wiswell) (2024): "cozy horror", which is a new to me subgenre, where human-eating monster Shesheshen falls in love with a human. And also eats people.
I forgot about the bonkers body count until I tried to fill
cahn in on the ending. So let's start there. Major plot spoilers: Shesheshen's mother killed Homily's father and put her eggs in him, as part of a long term plan to eat her child's eggs at some future time. (Monsters get one shot at kids, or they can eat the eggs and gain super longevity. By monster logic, you lay your eggs and take their eggs.) At the same time she killed Homily's mother and masqueraded as the Baroness. As the monster-pretending-to-be-a-Baroness, she deliberately (?) screwed up Homily and her siblings, turning the oldest brother Catharsis into a jerk, Homily into an abused doormat, Homily's younger sister Epigram into a psych case with a taste for cathartic (heh) semi-consensual nonsexual (?) knifeplay with Homily, and Homily's youngest sister Ode into a baby tyrant. In the course of the novel, Shesheshen kills Catharsis and the Baroness-monster, Shesheshen's accidental asexually produced offspring kills Ode, and Homily kills Epigram when Epigram threatens to kill Shesheshen. Homily and Shesheshen move back to the ruined castle, which was the baronial estate pre-everything, Homily names Shesheshen's accidental baby Epilogue, and happily ever after is intimated.
It was probably a mistake to read this after Time and Cup, which are both on top of their PoV constraints. Nest has a protagonist who is potentially (probably) neurodivergent, and definitely not socialized as a human being. But Shesheshen didn't strike me as particularly impacted by her limited socialization. Even though she hatched without parental supervision and ate her siblings, she's shown as insightful on the Wolffire family dysfunction, and specifically on Homily's damage and trauma. One could hand-wave the Shesheshen's mother masquerading as the Baroness as an underlying reason - nonhuman manipulation being recognized by another nonhuman - but I'm not engaged enough to handwave that much. There's some kind of monster independent offpsring thing going on that I'm not sure Wiswell cares about as much as I care about it.
The tone in the middle sections of the Wulfyre hunt for the Wyrm of Underlook reminded me strongly of the castle siege in Naomi Novik's Uprooted, specifically the sense of a set piece (or set pieces) which were mostly there to knock down the number of Wulfyre and back our PoV character and her love interest into a plot corner. Though the plot corner in Uprooted was "more bloodshed won't solve this", and the plot corner in Nest seems to be "very specific bloodshed of the bad / wrong people will solve this". The theme of monstrously abusive mothers, and the development of the theme, notably overlaps with Kingfisher's novel. Is it a "two nickels" situation? Probably not. But it's interesting two of this year's six Hugo nominees for novel feature female primary characters getting sympathetic allies as they recognize their mother's monstrous abuse and destroy their irredeemable mothers. (Two nickels: "If I had a nickel for every time [event / situation], I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.")
I do not think naming the baby Epilogue is cute. It implies the child's entire life is the wrap-up, the afterthought, the extra bit. Sequel would have been more kind. That "moment of the story" approach is in line with how the very sweet story about Shesheshen rescuing Homily from family abuse and giving Homily space to heal, while the narrative and author voice stroll past a murder count worthy of Hamlet. (Narrator voice does not have to be author perspective, do not make me hit someone with Lolita, it's embarrassing when I have to use books I haven't read.)
Since this won a Nebula, clearly I am missing something. Maybe I'm getting hung up on the baroque Wulfyre murder-hookup chart and how the precocial biology works when I'm supposed to be getting "they're all monsters, we're all monsters, monstrous is as monstrous does" as the message and moving on. Am I just supposed to assume "Bloodchild" is in the DNA and move on? I am so baffled.
Service Model (Adrian Tchaikovsky) (2024): DNF. I started the audiobook, I stopped one sentence in. I tried the ebook, I stopped two sentences in. I did not have a good time slogging through Alien Clay and a survey of reviews tells me I'm not doing that to myself again.
The recurring theme of the 2025 Hugos (so far) seems to be people using other human beings as depersonalized tools. Literal robots (Service Model); totalitarians ship people off to labor camps (Adrian Tchaikovsky's Alien Clay); mother uses daughter as abused pawn in her avaricious plots (T. Kingfisher's A Sorceress Comes To Call); ditto Someone To Build A Nest In; The Ministry of Time going full spy-thriller tropes; to a lesser extent Din's apprenticeship with Ana in The Tainted Cup, but since there's a big empire, a murder investigation, elective (or "elective"?) biological modification of imperial subjects, and city-destroying toxic monsters periodically attacking, I am willing to read on in the suspicion someone is using someone horribly as their tool.
Quick ETA: Cup audiobook narrated by Andrew Fallaize, Nest audiobook narrated by Carmen Rose. When googling "someone you can build a nest in audiobook", the second hit is libro.fm, visible content An adorable romance of people falling in love for the first time set in a wonderful fantasy world, this book is perfect for you! ...wow.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-07-05 08:39 pm (UTC)(Monsters get one shot at kids, or they can eat the eggs and gain super longevity. By monster logic, you lay your eggs and take their eggs.)
I guess this makes sense... but only if you've ascertained that more than one of your kids has survived, no? Otherwise I don't see how this behavior is evolutionarily useful... wait, I'm overthinking this again, aren't I.
Though the plot corner in Uprooted was "more bloodshed won't solve this", and the plot corner in Nest seems to be "very specific bloodshed of the bad / wrong people will solve this".
One of these I feel is a societally helpful message, and the other is... not. Not, I suppose, that everything has to be societally helpful, but... I guess that for me there's a difference between "let's play with these ideas even though I-the-author don't necessarily believe them" (I don't really believe that Stephen King believes that horrific bloodshed is the answer to anything) and "I-the-reader can't tell if you actually believe this is a good idea."
I do not think naming the baby Epilogue is cute.
Wow, yeah!