Wednesday reading spent some time on a plane

[ursula]

comments on endings

Kelly Robson, Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach. This ends with a sudden reconfiguration of the stakes; it feels like a short story structure, or the end of the first act of a novel. It's not ineffective, but I would have liked to keep going.

K.J. Charles, A Fashionable Indulgence. Apparently suddenly killing people at the climax is just a thing Charles does? This was the sort of fluffy fun I expected, but I was frustrated by the resolution of the inheritance problems. Sudden deaths of rich relatives are rather a feature of the genre, though an actual nineteenth-century novel would probably have gone for disease or accident, rather than the method employed here. But I'm not convinced that giving half one's inheritance to one's cousin so he can wear nice clothes and avoid finding a profession is a particularly feminist act, no matter how arbitrary one's deceased relative's dictates are, nor how nice one's cousin. The next book in this sequence seems promising, however.

fiction in progress

Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping. I'm enjoying seeing more of Guleed.

Comments

[evelyn_b]

But I'm not convinced that giving half one's inheritance to one's cousin so he can wear nice clothes and avoid finding a profession is a particularly feminist act

I'm so curious about what the argument is for being a feminist act! The beneficiary is exercising agency about the disposal of her own property, maybe? Or is there more to it than that?

I hope 2019 will be the year I finally read some Ben Aaronovich. I keep thinking "oh, that sounds great!" about his books and then not doing anything about it.

[ursula]

Yes, that's exactly it! With a bit of general "not being bound by the strictures of society".

[highlyeccentric]

I was not particularly happy with the dynastic plot in that KJ Charles series, either. Just a bit... slapdash.

[grayduck]

I really like the Rivers of London series! I'm not up to Lies Sleeping yet, but I'm glad to hear that we get to see more of Guleed.

[cassyblue]

there is going to be a sequal to gods, monsters, and lucky peach. I hope that tor eventually publishes them as an omnibus like they did with american hippo since that would make things work much better.