Legends & Lattes

[psocoptera]

Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes, Travis Baldree, 2022 novel. Orc warrior decides to retire and open a coffee shop, slowly assembles quest party of various other people with something to contribute, the real treasure was the friends we made along the way. Extremely cozy, to the extent that it didn't entirely work for me - I'm still not sure how things worked out at the end except that the plot demanded they just had to, so they did - but enjoyable, and a fast read. And the cover is perfect, like, picture a Xanth cover from the 80s, only it's cute f/f D&D monster ladies. Apparently it was Kindle Direct self-published and then Seanan McGuire recced it on Twitter, having noticed it because of the cover, and Tor picked it up, so, like, I don't know if Baldree commissioned the cover from Carson Lowmiller or what, but damn, talk about a good investment. I hope Lowmiller and the cover win some industry recognition (and more work for Lowmiller, if that's something wanted).

Also I have now read all six of the Nebula nominees for best novel! I'm not a Nebula voter, but here's how I would rank them:

Babel, R.F. Kuang
Spear, Nicola Griffith
The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler
Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree
Nettle and Bone, T. Kingfisher
Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

Babel was a clear winner; the rest were harder. Mountain in the Sea was ambitious, which I like, but not as well written as Spear, or as any of the rest of them, honestly. Maybe shouldn't be so high on the list. But, like, Nettle and Bone was perfectly fine but was not any of the top Ursula Vernon books I would recommend to anyone, and Nona was an installment of an exciting series but not a standout on its own, so... (Really what this list says to me is "where is Siren Queen", but fingers crossed we're about to do better on that in the Hugos than the Nebulas did...)

Comments

[ursula]

Interesting! I actually voted for Nona, which I thought was the most complex of the ones I'd read. (I really didn't get along with Babel.)

[psocoptera]

Heh, well, that's what makes these awards exciting I guess :) I think I have a hard time knowing how to think about works in a series, especially ones that are so dependent on the context of their series. I certainly enjoyed Nona - and was less able to put it down than any of the rest of these - but Act 3 of 4 also feels like a weird place to give an award? But, I don't know, maybe it isn't actually, maybe that's the perfect place to give an award, when you're pumped up by everything that's come so far and hanging on that excitement to see it all resolve. Hmmm.