lightreads: a partial image of a etymology tree for the Indo-European word 'leuk done in white neon on black'; in the lower left is (Default)
lightreads ([personal profile] lightreads) wrote2019-02-16 06:23 pm

The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

The Monster Baru Cormorant

3/5. Volume two* in this epic fantasy about a queer woman who climbs the ranks of her imperial colonizers to take them down from within.

Hm, I am less sure about this. Is it dense and prickly and political? Yes. Does it have cut-glass edges that are very pretty and very sharp? Yep. Is it concerned with agency and oppression and other stuff I care about? Ye-es . . .

Are these doorstops going to be worth it in the end? Is all this violence and betrayal and slow flaying of the self to accomplish an impossibly destructive goal going to pay any sort of dividend? That, I'm less sure of.

*Not a novella! …Don't ask how many times I put this down and came back later.
cyphomandra: fractured brooding landscape (Default)

[personal profile] cyphomandra 2019-02-17 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
That’s how I felt after the first one, so I’ve decided to wait until they’re all out.

(also, you may well not be looking for m/m recs, but I just read Dal Maclean’s Bitter Legacy and really enjoyed it, after wallowing in quite a lot of average to tolerable releases)