altlovesbooks

I actually really enjoyed this book. It's very much a noir mystery, in that there's large swaths of the book where we get a lot of introspective thought trips through our protagonist's history, views, and character insights. Normally that sort of unfiltered thought dialogue drives me up a wall, but I thought it worked well for this setting and didn't entirely bog me down in detail.

Our protagonist (whose name we never find out) is an aging police detective, who hears that an old client of his during his head of security days, the scientist-cum-savior-of-the-world Akira Kimura is fearing for her life, so he drops in to see what he can do. And finds her dead.

That's basically it for the plot, as is tradition for a lot of detective noir stories. Where I thought this book shined was in the rich detail of the world. It's a far future Earth where we have underwater sea houses, AI personal assistants, and a whole host of cultural issues associated with climate change and classism. I really loved that we got to know this Earth so well through the eyes and thoughts of our nameless protagonist.

There's also a bit of (thematic/character spoilers here) unreliable narrator aspect to this that I appreciated, where our protagonist maybe isn't as upstanding as we're led to believe. And hanging over the entire book is the was-there-wasn't-there aspect of the Sessho-seki Comet that was a nice touch.

This one gave me brain food, and I like it for that. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but if an introspective sci-fi-themed detective noir story gets you interested, give this a shot.

"Fearlessness, as Logen Ninefingers had once observed, is a fool's boast."

Look, okay guys? Okay? I finished this series! And now I can (honestly) say that I've already read it when someone says I should read it. So you can stop recommending it to me!

My full thoughts about the full series was that book 2 was the best, both story-wise and pacing-wise. This book is better than book 1 to me in basically every way, but it lacks a certain something that makes it better placed than book 2 in my mind.

This book specifically had some really awesome chapters. I loved that this book shrugged off its one-character-per-chapter POV structure for certain huge events, giving us multiple perspectives of a single event within a single chapter. This allowed you to check in briefly with all your favorites to make sure everything is (more or less) okay with them and see how they fit into the larger event being told. It's a nice touch, and employed wonderfully in this book.

I have some minor hangups about a few of the minor characters in this book/series, but maybe they're addressed in the followup books or a short story. I haven't really checked. One specific example of this is (character/plot spoilers here) Queen Terez. Her attitude is a neat twist on the married to the king trope, but it didn't seem worked in very well. We get a few chapters involving it, and a conclusion (more or less) involving Glokta, and that's basically it. It didn't seem all that important to include, and while it doesn't really take away from the story, it doesn't really add anything either. Again, maybe this is addressed in later books/stories, I obviously haven't gotten that far. There's one or two other minor characters that would fit this as well.

But overall, a really enjoyable read once the series really got rolling. Glokta remains my favorite.

What a weirdly unremarkable book. I listened to the audiobook and experienced the weird feeling of totally forgetting each chapter I finished as I finished them.

This is a historical fiction mystery where the detective is actually a lady doctor in a period where ladies just aren't doctors. She's a teacher at a school for other ladies who wish to become doctors, and we get many scenes about her teaching/doctoring, and the ridicule/disparagement she faces doing so. A friend of hers goes missing and she takes it upon herself to determine why, so while she's teaching/doctoring, she's also being a detective. She gets up to a lot in the 1800s.

I thought the ending was fine, I thought the writing was fine, I thought our main character was a bit too much "good at everything" to be believable, but I know a lot of people don't mind that. Just nothing about this book stuck with me though, and I can't put my finger on why. It did feel a bit slow in the beginning, where most of the book is spent introducing us to our main character and spending a lot of time in her classes teaching students.

I guess if the premise sounds interesting give it a try? Lots of people seem to enjoy this book, but I thought it was bland and kind of forgettable.