Countdown: seven reviews left to write

A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee. A YA novel starring Monty, eldest son of an Earl in mid-1700s England, his childhood neighbor/best friend Percy, and his sister Felicity. The three of them are just about to begin a Grand Tour of Europe, their last summer of freedom and fun before Monty has to buckle down and behave like a noble heir, Percy starts law school, and Felicity is shipped off to a finishing school.

Unfortunately none of them are particularly looking forward to their futures. Monty is very cheerfully bisexual, and has engaged in romps, gambling, drinking, and drugs to the point of being kicked out of Eton. Percy is mixed-race (the son of a plantation owner, though raised by his aunt and uncle, minor gentry) and though he's tolerated, his existence isn't always well-regarded in their circles. Felicity is pissed off about being doomed to learn embroidery and manners instead of going to medical school to become a doctor.

Oh, and Monty is desperately in love with Percy, but is afraid to tell him and lose his friendship. This is just the beginning – as the book gets going, there are also revelations about epilepsy, child abuse, insane asylums, and more.

It's not all serious, though. In fact, most of the book is light-hearted fun: there are encounters with highwaymen, battles with pirates, parties at Versailles, Carnevale in Venice, villas on Greek islands, operas, fortune tellers, hostage exchanges, escaping thieves, and basically every adventure one could imagine in 18th century Europe. There's even a plot about alchemists and an elixir of immortality which, to tell the truth, felt a bit out of place in the otherwise historically-based book. And, of course, there is lots and lots of pining as Monty and Percy engage in the most excellent sort of romantic-comedy suspense, yearning and avoiding telling the truth about their feelings. A++, that bit.

My main complaint with the book is that Lee tries very earnestly to handle appropriately the issues of social justice she includes (racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia), but every one of the ensuing conversations feels very 2017-approved, with every term the correct vocabulary, every checkbox checked, every privilege painstakingly unpacked. Not that such views couldn't – didn't! – exist in the past, but the way Lee portrays them doesn't seem to relate to the characters or setting at all. They don't arise out of the environment of the book, but are dropped in wholesale from an outside perspective that wants to be sure we know the right way to think. And then there's the moment where one character tells another about how the Japanese mend broken pottery with gold seams, see, so that the broken places end up more beautiful than the whole, and it's meant to be a profound moment but it's just so embarrassingly like this person in the 1700s is reading off a tumblr post.

But nonetheless it's a funny, sweet book, if not quite as good as I expected when I heard "Gay Roadtrip through 18th Century Europe". What it reminds me most of all is reading an AU from a fandom you don't know. Maybe the characterization and setting isn't always that great but you don't care because it's not your fandom. It has the tropes you love and you can't wait to see the couple get together at the end, so you stay up late reading it on your phone. A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is that experience in original fiction.


Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer. The sequel to Too Like the Lightning which I absolutely LOVED. However I really should not have waited seven months to read this one, because I'd forgotten some of the characters and plots and this is a series jam-packed with multitudes of characters and plots, and you better have every miniscule bit of such details ready at your fingertips to have a chance of following the action.

To briefly summarize the plot (a task that's probably impossible, but I'll try to hit the main points) in the 25th century the world has more or less become a Utopia. Nations have been abolished, religion banished to the private sphere, and gendered distinctions made it illegal; to all outward appearances, it is a world with no reason to go to war. Unfortunately it turns out that all of this has been made possible through carefully targeted assassinations, picking off key individuals to guide the world away from war, riots, major economic downturns, etc. Not many – about nine a year, on average, for the last two hundred years. This information sets off a flurry of activity as the characters take sides, variously trying to figure out the conspiracy behind it, hide the perpetrators, uncover proof, keep the public from finding out, and broadcast the secret to as many people as possible. When several world leaders turn out to be involved, chaos breaks out worldwide. It's not just drama, though; behind the action scenes is the frequently repeated question of if it was such a bad plan after all. Is it worth losing a few lives to prevent the millions of deaths that would happen in war?

Seven Surrenders is all about the philosophical dilemma. In addition to the one above, we get multiple debates over the riddle, 'would you destroy this world to save a better one?', and 'If God has revealed proof of His existence, why did He chose you above every human who's ever prayed to believe? And, more importantly, why now?' There is speculation about the power of gender, of sexual attraction, of the effect of raising children as experiments, of the role of Providence in life, of what it would mean for two Gods to meet, of how one conducts a war when there are no living veterans to teach the next generation. But there's plenty of action too – the book includes revelations of secret parentage, long-lost loves, a revenge story worthy of the Count of Monte Cristo, bombs, murders, resurrections, suicide attempts, cute kids, so many disguises, sword fights, gun battles, horse chases, and more.

Ultimately I didn't like it as much as Too Like the Lightning. It just didn't feel as deep or as grand, possibly because so much stuff was happening that none of it got enough exploration. One of the most best character arcs (Bridger's) happened mostly offstage, and many of the other characters were too busy reacting to the constantly changing political winds to have a real arc. I still recommend it, because it's just so different from everything else and I have to support an author who mashes up transportation science with Diderot's philosophy. But if you read it, definitely don't wait months between books.


The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry. A murder mystery, the first in a series set in Victorian London. Charlotte is the middle daughter of a middle-class family, believed by all to be firmly unmarriageable but happy enough with her staid life. The book opens with the murder of a young well-off woman, then Charlotte's maid is also murdered, as are several others. There is no apparent connection between the victims except that they're all young woman, all live nearby, and all were strangled. Inspector Thomas Pitt is assigned the case, and he begins to spend a great deal of time talking to Charlotte – first just to interview her regarding the murders, but then for her own sake. But will Charlotte's family allow her to marry a... policeman???

There are several interesting things about the book. Set very specifically in 1881 (which is to say, before Jack the Ripper) the very idea of a serial killer – as opposed to a thief who murders for money – is new and shocking to most of the characters. So is the concept that such a criminal could appear "normal", that rather than being a dirty, lower-class raving lunatic, it could be a respected neighbor or even a member of their own family. These are such self-evident ideas to modern people (and most characters in mystery books) that seeing Charlotte and the others wrestle with them, discuss their ramifications, and feel guilty for suspecting their husbands and fathers was pretty fascinating. I also liked that the family was so solidly middle-class. Historical fiction has a habit of gravitating toward extremes: everyone is either upper aristocracy or enduring the most grueling poverty. A family of boring bank clerks actually made for a refreshing change.

Unfortunately those are the only good things I have to say about the book. The middle 2/3rds of the story drags along interminably, as nothing happens except for characters having the same few discussions over and over again. Charlotte suspects her father! First she must have a conversation about it with her mother. Then her younger sister. Then her older sister. Then her mother and the older sister talk. Then the older sister talks about it to her husband. Then...

Well, you get the idea. And it's not as though each new character was bringing a fresh perspective and insight to the issue! No, we just get the same few protests and agreements recycled over and over in slightly different wordings. It's such an awful slog that I nearly abandoned the book. However, I stuck it out to the end, only to be rewarded with the reveal of the killer (warning for spoilers, I guess): a lesbian who has been driven mad by repressing her sexuality! You know, I don't think I've ever actually encountered this awful cliche in the wild before. It would almost be exciting, if it wasn't so offensive. Though there's not a lot of time to be offended, because the reveal, motivation, attack on Charlotte, rescue, and arrest all happen in the last two pages (literally) so none of it is exactly dwelt on.

It's probably all for the best that I disliked this book. It's the first in a 32-book series, and now I don't feel any desire to read the rest.

Countdown: three reviews left to write

The Sellout by Paul Beatty. I didn't get it. I'm embarrassed to admit that, but it's honestly my main reaction to this book. I want to say that it's a tired retread of better jokes, an attempt at satire that has no idea of what it's trying to say, but hell, it won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, so there must be something here. But whatever it is, I didn't get it.

The plot is generally described this way: in Dickens, a neighborhood in modern-day LA, an unnamed black man (we only ever learn his nicknames, Sellout and/or Bonbon) enslaves his neighbor, an elderly black man named Hominy, and re-institutes segregation in the local buses and school. The rest of Dickens alternatively ignores or supports him, but he is eventually caught by an outsider and the ensuing civil rights case makes it all the way to the Supreme Court.

That's what everyone is talking about, but it's a summary that doesn't remotely capture the experience of reading the book. The issue of slavery doesn't even come up until well after the first hundred pages, and segregation until significantly after that. Even once these issues make it onto the page, our narrator doesn't have much motivation or reason for them; Hominy insists that he wants to be a slave and browbeats the narrator into accepting it, although they both continue to live normal lives barely different from before. What does happen instead of pointed racial satire is the narrator's fairly mundane life: he pines for his childhood crush, now married to a famous rapper/actor; he remembers his childhood, home-schooled by a strict and eccentric father; he surfs; he works as a farmer, investing too much in organic fertilizer and giving away satsuma oranges to neighborhood kids; he tries to take his psychologist father's place in talking would-be suicides down off of ledges. It's not a driving plot by any means, but rather meanders from one tangent to another. Each slightly disjointed scene feels like one piece of the kaleidoscope of our narrator's identity, so that by the end you have a whole picture but the process of getting there was chaotic and confusing.

Which is not to say there's no humor. My favorite scene was when a black intellectual rewrites Huckleberry Finn:
‘One night, not long ago,’ Foy said, ‘I tried to read this book, Huckleberry Finn, to my grandchildren, but I couldn’t get past page six because the book is fraught with the “n-word”. And although they are the deepest-thinking, combat-ready eight- and ten-year-olds I know, I knew my babies weren’t ready to comprehend Huckleberry Finn on its own merits. That’s why I took the liberty to rewrite Mark Twain’s masterpiece. Where the repugnant “n-word” occurs, I replaced it with “warrior ” and the word “slave” with “dark-skinned volunteer”.’
‘That’s right!’ shouted the crowd.
‘I also improved Jim’s diction, rejiggered the plotline a bit, and retitled the book The Pejorative-Free Adventures and Intellectual and Spiritual Journeys of African-American Jim and His Young Protégé, White Brother Huckleberry Finn, as They Go in Search of the Lost Black Family Unit.’ Then Foy held up the copy of his revamped volume for examination. My eyesight isn't the best, but I could've sworn the cover featured Huckleberry Finn piloting the raft down the mighty Mississippi, while Captain African-American Jim stood at the helm, hands on narrow hips, sporting a cheesy goatee and a tartan Burberry sport coat exactly like the one Foy happened to be wearing.

Now that's pretty great. But very little of the novel is this funny; not because it fails at it but because it simply isn't trying to be. There are scenes that burst over into outright tragedy, like the death of the narrator's father, but those too are rare. Mostly the tone is one of elegy: Hominy mourning the loss of his career as a child star, Dickens itself no longer legally recognized and without a clear identity, the narrator uncertain of who he is and who he wants to be.

I think writing this review has convinced that the book is better than I thought when I first finished it. Possibly because I was trying so hard to get the joke, to understand the satire, and now I think satire just isn't the right mode to approach it. A reread thinking about questions of identity and loneliness would probably make me like it much more.


The Harbors of the Sun by Martha Wells. The last (sob!) of the Books of the Raksura. This one picks up directly from the end of the previous book, meaning we're well-supplied with a large cast of characters, multiple plot threads already in motion, lots of adventure culminating in pretty much saving the whole world, and plenty of battles, rescues, sacrifices, new alliances, separations, and reunions.

It's a bit hard to summarize the plot, since so much of it is about resolving situations set up in previous books. And not just in the first half of this duology, but all the way back to the first book of the series: here we get to finally see Pearl take a more active and less fraught role in leading Indigo Court, Jade once again reassess how to treat Moon not as an ideal consort but as an individual with a specific history, Frost takes the first steps in learning how to be a sister queen.

Ultimately the series is old-school pulp fantasy – and I absolutely mean that as a compliment – given a modern twist by Wells's take on gender roles, sexuality, and ethics. Fun tropes, well-executed, with relatable characters who provide sparkling dialogue – what more could anyone want?


An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows. A portal fantasy! I haven't read one of these in ages.

Saffron, a modern-day Australian teen girl, accidentally falls through a portal into the land of Kena, where she is almost immediately caught up in coup to overthrow the current ruler. This turns out to involve a potentially costly alliance with the neighboring but very different country of Veksh. Unfortunately, Saffron hasn't spent more than a few hours in Kena before she has her head shaved and two fingers cut off, which complicates her ability to return to Earth with a plausible story of where she's been. Other important characters include Gwen, another woman from Earth who long ago made the choice to stay in Kena; Zech, a spunky orphan girl with a secret heritage; and my personal favorite, Viya, a spoiled noble girl who escapes a political marriage to Kena's ruler and slowly comes to realize that the power she wants means she has to take responsibility as well.

Honestly, all of this is fairly standard stuff for a doorstopper fantasy novel, but at least it populates its pages with a refreshing diversity. Gwen, for example, is a middle-aged black explicitly aromantic woman; not exactly your typical hero. Saffron's eventual love interest is a transwoman. The characterizations are engaging and, if not particularly original, lots of fun (honestly, Saffron proves to be the least interesting of the lot, but 'normal teen' just doesn't hold a candle to 'disabled and depressed former queen' or 'elderly matriarch with a sharp tongue who wields a fighting staff') and the worldbuilding is entertaining. I particularly liked Kena's system of complicated polygamous marriages, with the ruler obliged to have at least four spouses, some of whom have their own spouses.

It's not a book that I would recommend to someone who's not already a fan of the genre, but I enjoyed it enough that I'll definitely be reading the sequel.


The Two-Bear Mambo by Joe Lansdale. #3 in the Hap & Leonard series, mystery/thriller books about mismatched best friends (Hap is a white ex-hippie ladies man; Leonard a black gay conservative) in impoverished East Texas. (By the way, these reviews must be confusing given that I am simultaneously reading the new books in this series as they come out and going back to read the early ones that I never got around to before. Sorry about that!) In this book, they go in search of Florida Grange, Hap's ex, a lawyer and wannabe journalist. The last anyone heard of her, she was staying in nearby Grovetown to investigate the mysterious death of a black man in the county jail. Hap and Leonard head over to try and pick up her trail – was she murdered? is she even missing, or has she just decided to move on? (You can really tell that this story is set in the days before cellphones and email addresses became so ubiquitous.)

They don't find Florida, but they do discover that Grovetown is in a “time warp”: ruled by the KKK
with 'No Colored' signs still up on the laundromat and a diner that refuses to serve Leonard, not to mention a history of racially motivated rapes and murders, though of course no one has ever been charged with the crimes. After Hap and Leonard barely escape one visit to Grovetown with their lives, they have to face the decision of continuing to search for Florida versus staying safe. Or, to put it another way, facing up to their own morality and (metaphorical) impotence versus doing the right thing, even if it seems likely that whatever happened to Florida, she's long past helping.

And all of that is before the hurricane hits, flooding Grovetown. (I should note I actually read the book a week or two ago; this plot point has developed unfortunate bad timing since.)

I really enjoyed this book; I think it might even be my favorite of the series. The focus on confronting such overt, virulent racism gives it a darkness and weight greater than the previous books. There's still funny moments and the usual fast-paced, crackling dialogue, but overall it's a far more serious story. Seeing Hap and Leonard admit their own vulnerabilities makes them more than improbably-effective action heroes; they're characters I can love.