Thoughts on fiction various

[kaberett]

Two things: The Consuming Fire, by John Scalzi, and Elementary.

The former is the second book in a trilogy. I'm finding it and the first book, The Collapsing Empire, kinda cringey in places (there is a character who really likes sex, it's a flavour of talking about sex that I just kind of want to hide from, it might not even be Middle-Aged White Dude Writes About Sex, it might just be... the sex??? idk idk idk) but: I think The Consuming Fire, especially, might... work really well for people who liked The Goblin Emperor, and even better for people like me who bounced off TGE hard. In that: you've got a fundamentally Nice and Good protagonist, dealing with a bunch of Court Intrigue she never signed up for, and staying true to herself and looking after people and doing it well...

... but the really beautiful bit for me is that the people she's interfacing with start out wildly underestimating her and then, when they realise she's competent, assume she's also as vindictive and unpleasant as they are, producing Comedies Of Error. I found it really rather charming. I don't love it? It's not my new favourite fandom or anything? But I'm probably going to reread it, and okay, I now possibly get the appeal of TGE for other folk a little more.

(I thought, reading TCE, that it was remarkably reminiscent of Ancillary Justice, which I think is largely because it also deals with The Thing where interstellar travel takes Time, so Problems Arise when Communication Has Significant Lags, which isn't really particularly Radch-specific.)


Elementary. Oh, Elementary. (This bit does contain spoilers.) On the one hand: I'm really bored of the way that they have, these last few seasons, been introducing Artificial Conflict right up at the beginning via the medium of... everyone forgetting all the progress previously made in terms of learning to talk to each other and actually like each other (like: Joan? is not talking to Sherlock about her feelings? again? seriously?), but they appear to be getting over that fairly rapidly, more or less.

I have other quibbles, like, The Wholly Artificial Drama of... Marcus suddenly? doesn't? have Joan's phone number? oh come on; Sherlock's family isn't wealthy enough to have just kept all the furniture at the brownstone under dust sheets even though they did that last time Sherlock fucked off to London and Joan moved out are you KIDDING me; police corruption isn't actually cute and endearing and Hashtag Relatable it just makes our characters deeply morally ambiguous thanks -- but fundamentally: Clyde's said hi. Sherlock's pulled his grumpy little face, Marcus is okay, Joan is Trying and needs to spend more of her energy and compassion on herself, I love them all a lot and I'm so glad I get to see them again.

Comments

[archangelbeth]

Neat review! I think you have sold me on The Consuming Fire at some point -- do I need to read the first one first, d'ya think?

[kaberett]

Honestly, no -- Tor gets Scalzi to do enough scene-setting that you could probably skip it? But TCE contains the actual coming-to-the-throne sequence, so if that bit's your jam you might enjoy it.

[archangelbeth]

Hmmmm. I'll have to poke at them. Maybe read out of order; wouldn't be the first time!

Thanks!

Sent from my iPhone

[jedusor]

I just read The Collapsing Empire and then The Goblin Emperor one right after the other and was amused by the extent to which the bastard-child-unexpectedly-rising-to-power plots were similar. (I did not love either of them but I can see the appeal of both.)

[kaberett]

Ha, glad it's not just me. :D

(I'm not in the "love" camp for TCE but I at least found it enjoyable, rather than getting actively cross about it, which TGE did for me. Which is frustrating, because clearly a lot of people like it a lot and are very fond of it! Just... Not For Alexes, I think.)

[jedusaur]

here's what I said on Goodreads about it: This book is 429 pages long and it still feels like a prologue to the book I wanted it to be. I am not interested in listening to a main character with stupid amounts of power vaguely wonder whether he should consider attempting to do something to make the world a better place, and I am just... purely exhausted of speculative fiction worlds built on archaic misogyny. It's a well-written book (four stars! I did like it!) but it kept teasing me with hints that it was going to be about UNIONS and SOCIALISM and FUCKING UP THE STATUS QUO and then the big accomplishment is getting Fantasy Congress to approve a bridge that might mildly inconvenience a particular subset of the upper class? Honestly I kept wanting to shake the main character and yell "DOOOOO SOOOOOMETHIIIIIIING." I was also annoyed by the implication that I was supposed to be impressed by his ~progressive~ views on maybe, after much profound thought regarding the political consequences, possibly entertaining the concept of not forcing women into unwanted marriages. I would much rather have read a book from the perspective of the beleaguered secretary, or the lesbian sea captain, or the priest detective dude, that last of whom seems to be potentially the focus of a sequel? Crossing my fingers, that sounds like extremely my jam. This was not extremely my jam, but I do see the appeal and would absolutely recommend it to people whose tastes in escapist fiction are oriented less toward worldbuilding and more toward character than mine.

[kaberett]

Haaaaaa, fair. (Where I kept going "... but you're all so STUPID" enough to just... not enjoy it at all, which is sometimes a problem I have with books.)

[vass]

Hmm. Maybe I should read TCE.

[kaberett]

I found it fairly absorbing and quick and fun, if not massively thought-provoking, and it made me smile. I only just got around to reading it because I'm not actually in any massive hurry about Scalzi's stuff, but I've enjoyed most of it, so reading some more as Easy Fun Reads is a thing that works for me? So if that applies to you, etc.

[damerell]

Watson got a UK phone for work and gradually forgot to charge or carry her US phone.

ISTR from previous seasons that the brownstone is now Holmes's specifically, not his family's? Perhaps he had the furniture shipped to 221B - we've seen little of the interior there.

Re progress lost, you've got me there.

[kaberett]

I mean, maybe, but her UK number's in Gregson's phone but not Marcus'? :-p

... huh no I think you're probably right about the brownstone being Sherlock's now, but -- I thought they said something about the rental company having taken the furniture *back* at the beginning of etc? Hmm, perhaps a rewatch is in order. :-p