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psocopteraThe Sugared Game and Subtle Blood, KJ Charles, the rest of the Will Darling trilogy that started with Slippery Creatures. I really liked these - some nuanced character work, some great moments, we continue to get various little nods to Peter Wimsey and Jeeves and Wooster, yay.
Thornhedge, T Kingfisher, 2023 novella. Spoiler cut.
A few decades ago I was once in a going-through-portals RPG, and the schtick of my character was that she didn't think anyone should be going through these portals and was secretly hoping to try to sabotage the portal-going. And of course it turned out to be weird and awkward to play, because obviously what made the *game* interesting was going through the portals, so my goals as a player were in direct opposition to my character's goals as a character.
Thornhedge has a bit of the same problem, where the main character's goal throughout much of the book is to convince the sympathetic secondary character not to do X, but of course they *do* have to do X because that's the obvious climax of the book. But, like, the case against X is so good that it felt weird for the secondary character to be so insistent on it. (Not at first, of course, but by the time the whole backstory has been told.) I *liked* the characters, and the setup, Vernon is always a good read, I just couldn't quite tell what was driving the whole thing, unless the secondary character had gotten a look at the plot outline and knew nobody was getting to the end of the book without going through the climax.
Thornhedge, T Kingfisher, 2023 novella. Spoiler cut.
A few decades ago I was once in a going-through-portals RPG, and the schtick of my character was that she didn't think anyone should be going through these portals and was secretly hoping to try to sabotage the portal-going. And of course it turned out to be weird and awkward to play, because obviously what made the *game* interesting was going through the portals, so my goals as a player were in direct opposition to my character's goals as a character.
Thornhedge has a bit of the same problem, where the main character's goal throughout much of the book is to convince the sympathetic secondary character not to do X, but of course they *do* have to do X because that's the obvious climax of the book. But, like, the case against X is so good that it felt weird for the secondary character to be so insistent on it. (Not at first, of course, but by the time the whole backstory has been told.) I *liked* the characters, and the setup, Vernon is always a good read, I just couldn't quite tell what was driving the whole thing, unless the secondary character had gotten a look at the plot outline and knew nobody was getting to the end of the book without going through the climax.
