The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson BennettMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a very successful book. Super fun. Well done.
This is mostly a mystery, or a detective story, with odd and fun investigators solving a murder in a fantasy world that is like no other. In this world, giant creatures like Kaiju crawl out of the sea, and the society of this empire is focused on defeating them when they appear. The mystery has bearing on that struggle, so although it's a kind of a low fantasy, with smaller stakes for most of it, it also has some of the hallmarks of high fantasy.
The setting is unique, at least to me, so that I can't say which, if any, modern culture inspired it. There are several races, but I don't really know what they are, and numerous religions, but they aren't described. We just get a multicultural setting without any of the usual hangups, and I thought it worked really well.
Ana Dolabra, the investigator, is a crusty, hard-to-figure-out public servant, but she also likable and funny. Her assistant, Din, is very controlled, very still, but he's interesting in many other ways. They make a great pair. Like most of the people who work for government, they are altered by grafts, making them smarter or faster or better able to recall or stronger, etc. This is used throughout the book, and it gives the land an exotic feel that adds to the story.
This was super fun to read, and I wondered if other people knew about it. Then I found out it won the most recent Hugo, so I guess somebody did see it.... :)
If you like mystery or fantasy, and if you like clever main characters, this is a great book to choose.
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