Two by Kingfisher
Oct. 26th, 2023 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnNow that the Hugos are over, I guess I should talk about the Kingfisher that I read in principle for the Hugos!
What Moves the Dead (novella) - this is, somewhat meta-hilariously, -- I say hilarious because I had never thought of this as something that could happen, even though the book itself is quite dark and not hilarious at all. I did clue into it as a possibility pretty early on when the dank tarn was mentioned. (As John M. Ford said in How Much for Just the Planet, which I immediately thought of and which I was charmed to find out Kingfisher had also been thinking of, "there's never a tarn around when you need one.")
I'd go so far as to classify this book as horror -- but at the same time you can, uh, tell where Kingfisher's sympathies are (hint: her Hugo speech... last year, I think? maybe two years ago?), and she makes a good case for it, which makes it a sort of strange experience because one's sympathies are not where the protagonists' sympathies are, and so one is rather rooting for things the protagonists are rightly horrified by... Anyway, the narrator (an ex-soldier from a Ruritarian country that has more pronouns than English, one of which ka uses) is just great. And A. unwittingly spoiled me by asking me about the cover, which I had not looked at closely before he asked about it, but if you think about it too hard does rather give the game away.
I'm charmed that it was nominated for Yuletide and I hope it gets all the fic written for it!
Nettle and Bone (novel) I quite liked. I dare say I liked it more than anything else I read this Hugo season except Nona the Ninth, which is a very different kind of book. (I prefer Nona the Ninth for the Hugo, because Muir does so many interesting things! but this isn't as... polarizing?... as Locked Tomb.) (And Golden Enclaves, but that wasn't up for Hugo novel.) It's a dark fairy tale about a princess on a quest -- it starts very darkly, but the rest of it isn't quite as dark, and the ending is hopeful -- and the expanded space of the novel format means that Kingfisher has room for things other than darkness, like an excellent demon chicken, a godmother who is much better at curses than blessings, and a family through-line I really liked, as the princess learns things about her family, some of which are worse than she thought and some of which are better. One of my favorite Kingfishers that I've read.
What Moves the Dead (novella) - this is, somewhat meta-hilariously,
spoilers for the first chapter
a retelling of "The Fall of the House of Usher"I'd go so far as to classify this book as horror -- but at the same time you can, uh, tell where Kingfisher's sympathies are (hint: her Hugo speech... last year, I think? maybe two years ago?), and she makes a good case for it, which makes it a sort of strange experience because one's sympathies are not where the protagonists' sympathies are, and so one is rather rooting for things the protagonists are rightly horrified by... Anyway, the narrator (an ex-soldier from a Ruritarian country that has more pronouns than English, one of which ka uses) is just great. And A. unwittingly spoiled me by asking me about the cover, which I had not looked at closely before he asked about it, but if you think about it too hard does rather give the game away.
I'm charmed that it was nominated for Yuletide and I hope it gets all the fic written for it!
Nettle and Bone (novel) I quite liked. I dare say I liked it more than anything else I read this Hugo season except Nona the Ninth, which is a very different kind of book. (I prefer Nona the Ninth for the Hugo, because Muir does so many interesting things! but this isn't as... polarizing?... as Locked Tomb.) (And Golden Enclaves, but that wasn't up for Hugo novel.) It's a dark fairy tale about a princess on a quest -- it starts very darkly, but the rest of it isn't quite as dark, and the ending is hopeful -- and the expanded space of the novel format means that Kingfisher has room for things other than darkness, like an excellent demon chicken, a godmother who is much better at curses than blessings, and a family through-line I really liked, as the princess learns things about her family, some of which are worse than she thought and some of which are better. One of my favorite Kingfishers that I've read.
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Date: 2023-10-27 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-28 05:21 pm (UTC)No tarns in the Usher TV show?? How is that even possible??
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Date: 2023-10-28 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-28 08:05 pm (UTC)Now I'm trying to figure out what a metaphorical tarn would be in 2020's crumbling suburbia. Maybe a really moldy backyard pool? :D