The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho

Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 23rd June 2020

I love the idea of Wuxia, but I’ve actually encountered very little of it, and I think that puts me at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to evaluating how successful this is, and knowing how to enjoy it. And it’s marketed as being about a “found family” — well, that should be totally up my street!

Unfortunately, I didn’t really get along with it as well as I’d hoped, and the “found family” feels fairly thin. The characterisation of anyone apart from the main characters is fairly light, and I didn’t really feel I got a handle on who anyone was as a person and what they held dear, apart from those main two (and even then, sometimes I struggled). It feels like it’s going to be an adventure story, but in the end it’s more personal — only I didn’t feel like I came along for the journey.

This sounds more critical than I want to be; I enjoyed reading it, and appreciated Tet Sang a lot. I don’t know how to stack up my experience here against other Wuxia books, and I think that’s part of the problem.

Rating: 3/5

Finna, Nino Cipri

Nino Cipri is one of those authors I didn’t know anything about a few months ago and then started hearing a lot about all at once, so I was very curious about Finna. It’s set in what is basically IKEA, a megastore called LitenVärld. The layout of the place is so confusing that it wears at the seams of reality, and employees (and customers) have found portals to other worlds opening — and some of those worlds are less friendly than ours. As Finna opens, Ava learns that somebody’s lovely grandmother has vanished into one of these portals… and of course, Ava has to go after her. With the help of her ex-partner, Jules, with whom she has recently broken up.

The book mostly explores a) capitalist misery caused by stores like IKEA — I mean, LitenVärld, and b) Jules and Ava’s relationship, and how they fit together, and all their faults and insecurities getting in the way of what could be a pretty cool relationship. Jules has a tendency to run away from their problems and hide their emotions; Ava has anxiety and lets all her emotions burst out all over the place. Jules is eager to go off exploring, while Ava just wants to find the customer’s grandmother and go home.

T0 say too much about so short a book might spoil it, so I won’t recount any more of the plot or the characters! (Though none of that is a spoiler: it’s obvious from the first chapter.) There are some quirky ideas about the other worlds, and I could wish for a bit longer quest story that takes us through some more worlds — but it’s obvious the focus is really Ava and Jules and how our current world really messes everyone up and is soul-sucking and boring and awful. I’ve never worked retail, but that feeling rings true to me from people who have worked retail, and some of the points about how society is set up and how capitalism can really ruin things make total sense. Jules and Ava’s feelings and messiness all ring true, too.

It’s fun, and I’m not sure the conceit would really have stretched to a long book. It ends on a note of possibility and freedom, and that works for me.

Rating: 3/5

The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow

I confidently expected to love this book. January is a temerarious girl who grows up in the home of a very rich collector, shielded by his money and position from the judgement that might arise from her coloured skin in the US at the time. Her father is away constantly, searching for things for their benefactor, so January grows up in that house, lonely and browbeaten into becoming a good girl.

The “temerarious” thing and some of the narration constantly reminded me of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making, especially with the names of the protagonists (September, January). Perhaps it’s partly that constant obvious comparison that brought it down for me; I really, really love the Fairyland books, and all their bright and wondrous cast of characters, the joys and pains of growing up and falling in love. There was a fair bit of the same here in many ways, and it just didn’t make a niche for itself in my heart in the same way.

That being said, there were things I loved; Jane is really cool, and it’s beautifully written; whenever I picked this up I crammed it into my brain in big chunks. It just didn’t quite come to life for me: when I put the book down, I didn’t feel the immediate desperate urge to pick it back up. I actually took a month to read it, even though it was so easy and quick and more-ish once I was reading it. To some extent that’s January’s rather spoilt ways: raised in privilege, she thinks she’s so much better than she is — and then I didn’t believe her transformation at the end to being able to do whatever she set her mind to! In a way, I preferred the story within the story: Adelaide and Yule Ian.

It’s enjoyable, but it’s not a favourite for me. I can’t put my finger on why not, but… here we are.

Rating: 3/5

Grave Importance, Vivian Shaw

Grave Importance is the final book of this trilogy, in which Greta Helsing finds herself invited to become the interim medical director of an exclusive facility in France: Oasis Natrun, the spa-and-clinic location for a particularly exclusive sort of customer… mummies! She needs to deal with delicate operations, treat ancient TB infections, and deal with pesky infestations in somebody’s mummy wrappings. Oh, and her patients are frequently experiencing a weird draining, something that makes them woozy and lacking in strength. Nope, no one has any idea.

Of course, it’s not just a medical mystery: Ruthven and Grisaille meet two strange beings in Rome, and a certain amateur enthusiast collector of Egyptian antiquities is getting younger all the time. Fass isn’t having a good time of it dealing with the Monitoring and Evaluation department… And of course, you guessed it, all these things are somehow linked.

I couldn’t believe I took so long to pick this up; once I did, it was everything I wanted. The romance between Greta and Varney remains adorable, Grisaille is the best unsuitable boyfriend, Ruthven is still everything, and I love the entire found family they’ve built up… and all the weird little touches like the fact that screaming skulls are a real thing, but they’re mostly not a problem, and a young screaming skull mostly just squeaks.

I just. I love it. I love the idea of treating medicine for monsters seriously; I love Greta’s dedication to her work; I love her bizarre found family’s shenanigans, including a heist.

Now, I didn’t quite jive with it all. I was a bit put off by the ending; I don’t want to spoiler it for anyone, but I felt like the solution to all the problems was a little… pat. In a sense, it’s been foreshadowed in the first book, if I remember rightly… but it just didn’t quite come off, for me. I like Varney, but it was all A Bit Much.

That said, I love 95% of this book, even the bits that hurt, like Greta trying to doctor angels in a makeshift demonic clinic. I could honestly start rereading this trilogy again right now and I’d be entirely happy to steam through it all in one go, without stopping. There’s something profoundly comforting in the love and caring of these books, something profoundly hopeful. Awful shit happens and people still care. Gah. It’s the best.

Rating: 4/5

The Steerswoman, Rosemary Kirstein

The Steerswoman is the first book of a series, focusing on the explorations of a steerswoman. The steerswomen seek after knowledge wherever they go: learning about local customs, drawing maps, and passing on their knowledge. If a steerswoman asks you a question, you must answer; if you do not, they will place you under a ban, and no steerswoman will ever answer your questions again. Rowan has been a steerswoman long enough that it’s baked into her through and through, and she loves her work — even as it begins to get her into trouble, even though she doesn’t understand why.

This is a book you need to have patience with, because the details come to the reader slowly. I really enjoyed reading it at the same time as my wife and fitting together what we’d noticed (example: the gum-soled shoes that sailors and steerswomen wear!) but it’s still a little frustrating to watch Rowan’s slow progress. Readers have a bit of an advantage on Rowan, though, so it’s also fun to try to be ahead and figure out where things are going.

Rowan isn’t the only main character; the other is Bel, an Outskirter warrior who upends some of Rowan’s assumptions as she comes along for the ride. They complement each other well, and it’s fun to watch them play off each other. I wish we had more information about Bel and her motivations, though; I don’t doubt her interest in helping Rowan, but she’s gone to a lot of effort by now, and some of it before she really got to know Rowan. I’m hoping for more about her in the next book! (Which, since it’s called The Outskirter’s Secret, I suspect is exactly what will be served up.)

Rating: 4/5