Recent reading

[luzula]

Ugh, very busy. Perhaps a life update soon, but for now, catching up on books.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (2020) and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (2020) by Nghi Vo
For book club. I think we all enjoyed these, but I enjoyed them more intellectually than on a gut level. Actually I tried to listen to the first one as an audiobook some time ago, but that didn't work for me--piercing together what was going on really required me to read it with my eyes. We all disagreed with the blurb, which said that these books are high fantasy. I mean, the story of the first one absolutely could have been high fantasy, if it had been told in a different way. It would have been a brick of a book showing all the battles and the sweeping struggle between the two sides.

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik (2022)
Novik's work is almost always compulsively page-turney for me, and this was no exception. I stayed up until 2 am to finish this, and I really shouldn't have. I was really impressed by the various world-building reveals, which I hadn't seen coming and which were set up very well in the earlier books. It all hangs together so well! Perhaps not the very end--I was all set for Orion to die, and I think it might actually have been a better ending. I mean, I'm not sure the analogy between Orion's personality and an enclave works? An enclave can be given a new foundation, but can Orion? His embryo was actually killed, so doesn't he correspond to the person sacrificed to make an enclave? And those people can't come back when the other mawmouths are killed. Also, how actually does he have a personality (and a body, for that matter!) if he died as an embryo? Okay, I'm going to stop picking that handwavy bit apart, because I enjoyed the creative world building a lot.

I also have thoughts about how the book talks about the unintentional consequences of everyday acts (how you get mals from everybody doing small bits of malia), and the knowledge that evil things are being done on which your own everyday life depends even if you aren't doing them yourself. Also, perhaps something was lost when El became so ridiculously superpowered--there was an interesting distinction earlier between having the capacity to do magic, versus the mana you needed to do it. Of course she has a huge capacity for the former, but there's never a moment where she lacks the latter. Also, Liesel, really? Did not see that coming, but I rather liked it.

Comments

[scribe]

I also have thoughts about how the book talks about the unintentional consequences of everyday acts (how you get mals from everybody doing small bits of malia), and the knowledge that evil things are being done on which your own everyday life depends even if you aren't doing them yourself.

This also definitely got me! Especially because I wasn't quite expecting that level of commentary at the end of the rollicking fantasy adventure.

Orion's situation did seem a bit handwavey, but honestly I found him such an uncompelling character through the whole series that I didn't much care what happened to him one way or the other. I was quite pleased that we did finally get some canon queerness, and I actually really liked the development of Liesel's character, which I wasn't expecting! And I hadn't thought about it while reading, but you're right about El becoming extremely superpowered- like the book had so much ground to cover in terms of the sweeping worldbuilding and mega conflicts that there wasn't really space for her to struggle with magic anymore, even when she isn't connected to other mana sources.

[luzula]

I do hope we get around to discussing this one in book club, because I'm sure it will make for great discussion! Yeah, I too was not expecting Liesel's character to get that much development--there's much less for Liu and Aadhya, who are more important characters in the previous books. But yeah, I liked it! If you're going to pair El with somebody, they better have a strong will of their own.

[chestnut_pod]

Interesting to hear your thoughts on the Singing Hills books! I love Cindy Kay's narration of them and listen preferentially to the audiobooks for that reason. I thought she made an amazing Tiger Queen, in particular. The first two actually worked better for me than the most recent third book in the series, but I could read a hundred of these like popcorn and so am glad that there are several more under contract.

[luzula]

If I were going to reread the books, I think listening to them would be a good idea, because I did like the reader! It's just that the narrative of the first book was a bit too complex for me to process as an audiobook--I needed to flip back and forth in the book.

[regshoe]

I'm intrigued by the idea of a book that isn't high fantasy but could have been if the same story had been told a different way! What is it, then—more of a small-scale perspective on a high-fantasy-ish world?

Aww, and I love the feeling of reading a book so compelling you stay up till silly hours to finish it (even if it's not a great idea...) :D

[luzula]

Yes, that's pretty much it. Although there doesn't seem to be any clear cut cosmic good and evil, like high fantasy books often have (though this, too, could be a function of storytelling style!) and the magic doesn't play a very large role. There are cool war mammoths, though!

The novella has a frame story of a cleric whose job it is to go around collecting stories. She meets an old woman who, when she was young, was the servant of a foreign queen who then seized power. So through her stories we get to piece together both the life of the queen and of the servant, while also learning something of the cleric.

Aww, and I love the feeling of reading a book so compelling you stay up till silly hours to finish it (even if it's not a great idea...) :D
Evening Luz and morning Luz just have different interests and priorities, which are difficult to reconcile. : )

[regshoe]

That does sound like a very cool way to frame a story. And war mammoths, wow :D

[osprey_archer]

I definitely enjoy the Singing Hills books more on the level of an intellectual meditation on the difficulties of translation and the way that stories change as they're transmitted etc. etc. - although the peril of Death by Tiger in the second book definitely made the emotional stakes feel a bit more immediate. Haven't read the third book yet and I'll be curious how I feel about that one!

[luzula]

Agreed on both counts! We also thought the threat of death by tiger made the second one more immediate. : )

[nnozomi]

I've read the first Nghi Vo book and concluded "it's not really my thing but it's beautifully done." Would read the sequels if they fell into my lap, not motivated enough to actually order them. I'm in two minds about "high fantasy"--the sense of the sweeping struggle (or the sweeping scope of individual lives?) is there even if the container is small? but my memory is not very certain.

[luzula]

Would read the sequels if they fell into my lap, not motivated enough to actually order them.
Yes, that's how I feel as well. If the third one fell into my lap I would read it, but if not, I have other books which tempt me much more immediately.