ergative's reviews
925 reviews

This felt like two books in one. There was an enormously complicated backstory, all about Edouard Villet's trial and his foster son Nicholas's response to his wrongful execution, which led him to vow revenge upon Count Montesq, creating in the process the persona of the thief Donatien, which put him in direct conflict with the Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson of Ile-Rien (called Sebastien Ronsard and Dr Hall here), such that they develop a years-long rivalry, each trying to outwit the other as both pursue Montesq for their own purposes. That's a book in itself right there! But then we build on top of that a mysterious necromancer who gets in the way of Nicholas's plot to overthrow Montesq, and then there are housefuls of dead bodies and impertinent golems and stone gargoyles coming to life and the whole situation is interfering in Nicholas's schemes most inconveniently--and then Ronsard turns out to be interested in things, and then there are sewers and catacombs and all sorts of hijinks ensue, which turn out to be related to Edouard's wrongful death in quite complex and rather elegant ways. 

Martha Wells is very good at keeping this massive, stuffed beast of a plot ticking along smoothly, but I must confess that I found it dragged at times. There was so much plot that the overall trajectory of events just moved slowly. As much as I enjoy charades and confidence games and house-breaking and sneaking and disguises, I did eventually start losing the thread a bit. 

There's also a token girl. But just the one.

This is the perfect book. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

 A perfectly acceptable Scalzi book: some entertaining dialogue (very good zoom meeting; very good pitch meeting at Supervillain Shark Tank), an acceptably convoluted plot, profane cetaceans, and overall an enjoyable, undemanding way to spend an afternoon or two. Nothing groundbreaking, but a reliable installment of the Scalzi brand that neither astonishes nor disappoints. 

 I was engaged by this, but I figured out the importance of the undrunk sherry well before Frances did, and I would have preferred for the various red herring suspects to be suspicious (and then cleared) for more interesting reasons than I was given. Treadwell in particular seemed like the author couldn't decide what to do with him, and the plot arc with Frances's mother was too rushed and unconvincing--and, for that matter, not interesting enough that I wished it longer. Just overall a little limp. A book to listen to while doing the dishes, but not a book that will make me want to do the dishes, if you understand the distinction.

Gosh, I liked this quite a lot! The sense of time and place was really beautifully done, the plot and characters were rock-solid, the motivations behind why people entangled themselves in these enigmatic bargains were believable, and the romance was romantic. 

However, I'm not entirely sure we ever learned what Clara's trick was. Was it that she had to enable agreements for others, as she was doing at the beginning of the book? Rough if so. But that wasn't fully clear. Also, as extremely hawt as Israel was, I'm not sure that 'you're the only person who doesn't view me through the lens of my magical burden' is a strong ground for a relationship. 

And cameos from historical figures, like Langston Hughes, always feel a bit forced. The bit with W. E. B. Dubois was handled better.

 The YA bits of romance felt a bit forced(especially because both Finn and Millie were teased as possible lovers in a way that didn't really seem to go anywhere wth Millie, and was a bit weird since they were siblings), but I thought the world-building made some really courageous choices in just *going there* with the magic system. The cannibalism and weird sex-linked zombie infection felt like it *could* have been read as some gross Freudian commentary on sex or womanhood, except that it didn't feel at all Freudian. It just felt like some imaginative, kind of gross, but absolutely self-contained, self-consistent world-building that just happened to link sex, infection, death, nuns, cannibalism, and monsters together. And it's quite fearless in the cannibalism bit! So many battle scenes involving people literally eating the hearts of their enemies! Really quite gross! But in a good way! It worked! 

Look, I love this series with my whole heart. With all my heart. I have not recently had as much pleasure reading any book as I have had rereading the first two books in preparation for this third book.

So, like, yes, the ending was a bit choppy and drawn out, and some plot threads tie up a little excessively neatly, but I don't care. Give my poor Ren a break, and let someone else gripe about structure and pacing. I look forward to rereading this series again and again, to revisit this world and these characters and this brilliant, subtle, sensitive tapestry of culture and language and magic and politics.

 I feel bad rating this one so low, but I had to really struggle to push through to the end. It sort of lost its focus, I thought, ending up far more interested in the AI/implant/computer tech side of alien communication, when I was really there for the cephalopods. The cephalopods were great. Even the alien hive mind things was done quite well, to the point that the words We're going on an adventure became quite chilling. But then the whole focus of the Artifabian and Avrana Kern's instantiation in Meshner's implant just draggggged. I didn't care. And the more that part of the story became the focus, the less I felt inclined to push on. 

Review on Nerds of a Feather: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2023/08/review-translation-state-by-ann-leckie.html

This had all the wit of narrative and charm of the previous book, but somehow I found myself not quite as engaged by it. Not necessarily its fault--possibly I wasn't quite in the mood, or my schedule didn't give me the same opportunities to listen to an audio book as I had with the previous book so my experience was more fractured. Still a worthy follow-up, and a satisfying sequel to the first.