skygiants | (no subject)

I think I did The Tainted Cup a bit of a disservice in reading it For the Hugo Awards. It's a very competent book that is hitting all its beats at being both Fantasy Novel and Mystery Novel -- the world is detailed and well-realized (if a bit Attack on Titan-ish) and the plot hangs together in a sensible and logical way. In every way it is doing its job. Unfortunately in my heart I never want to give awards to things that are doing their job competently, I want to give awards to things that are trying to do something weird and interesting and ambitious even if they don't entirely succeed at it, so I kept squinting at The Tainted Cup like 'are you going to get weirder?' and the answer was, no! It continued working very reasonably through its fantasy mystery plot in an interesting and well-realized world!

The Tainted Cup follows Din Kol, a young man who has been magically altered to have perfect memory recall in order to act as an assistant to a highly-placed investigator, Eccentric Detective Ana Dolabra.

genarti tells me Ana Dolabra is not a Holmesalike but a Nero Wolfe-alike, which I have to take her word for since I've never experienced any Nero Wolfe; anyway, I admit her Eccentric Behavior did not always really land for me, but I can't deny it's in the Tradition and I do like Din, who's very polite.

This dynamic duo live in an Empire that is constantly under threat from Extremely Large Beasts that live outside the Big Wall and wreak massive destruction whenever they breach it. The existence of and need to defend against the Extremely Large Beasts justifies the rule of the Empire; the center of government exists in the center of the country and then people live in sort of concentric rings of safety around it, with the least safe of course being the area right next to the Big Wall. In order to defend against the Extremely Large Beasts, the Empire is constantly pushing forward experimental magical bioresearch projects that do things like 'alter people to have perfect memories' or 'grow very large and scary vines very very fast.'

When an important nobleman turns up dead by way of having very large and scary vines grown very very fast through his entire body, this is an interesting little murder problem. When a bunch of other people also turn up dead by way of having very large and scary vines grown very fast through their entire bodies -- in a way that also causes the vines to damage the structural integrity of the Big Wall -- this immediately becomes a large and scary murder problem which Din and Ana have to truck out to the absolute least safe bit of the country to try and solve.

As you can hopefully tell from this summary, the logic of the mystery and the logic of the world are very well-integrated with each other. The beats make sense as they land, and at every point you're given enough information to go 'ah, this clicks perfectly with what I already know about this world, and now I've learned a little more.' It's a good fantasy-mystery novel! I would like to see more fantasy-mystery that does this sort of thing well! The murder by exploding vines is very creepy!

I don't think it's a particularly spectacular novel for character -- there are Din and Ana, and there are a bunch of people who are required to make the mystery go, and there's a sort of flash-in-the-pan love-interest-shaped fellow for Din -- and I don't think it's much of a novel of ideas. Which absolutely not all books need to be, and which would not have been looking for it to be, had it not been multiply award-nominated. But that brings us right back around to the beginning of this post again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sovay

The existence of and need to defend against the Extremely Large Beasts justifies the rule of the Empire

This tautology suggests an obvious origin of the Extremely Large Beasts, like Pacific Rim (2013) if you slid the cynicism to the opposite end of the slider.

From:

skygiants

Indeed, and I won't be surprised if it goes there in future books.

From:

torachan

The second book gives me even more Attack on Titan vibes. I definitely feel like there had to have been some inspiration there somewhere. I like the series a lot, though. (And highly recommend the audiobooks, if you're into that sort of thing.)

Edited Date: 2025-08-06 03:18 am (UTC)

From:

passingbuzzards

Definitely also came here to say "wait, is this SNK? It sure sounds like SNK" :,D

From:

skygiants

THANK YOU it's gratifying to know that my suspicions were not unfounded ....

From:

torachan

I haven't seen anyone else mention it, so idk if the overlap is not that big or what. But the vibes are really strong. Not in any sort of "this is AoT fanfic" way or anything, but just obviously inspired by some elements.

From:

mific

The sequel gets a bit weirder, or at least Ana does. And the plot thickens in terms of the origins of the Beasts, and the ruling class's secrets. I enjoyed them.

From:

skygiants

good to know, thank you!

From:

themis1

Sounds like it might be my kind of read (I do like a good SF mystery). Ah, and it's only 99p on Kindle currently.

From:

skygiants

wonderful!

From:

themis1

I am reading it currently, and it's certainly different, which I like. I'm enjoying it, so thanks for the review!

From:

starlady

I'm okay with the big idea being "NIMBYs suck". The second book is definitely a bit weirder, and I will keep reading them, but the author's narcissistic pro-AI rant on Bluesky definitely made me want to drop it down my Hugo ballot.

From:

lizbee

Oh, well, I'm NOT reserving the sequel right away then. That can wait.

From:

skygiants

ah yes, I think that had sort of vaguely glanced against the periphery of my knowledge and then I forgot about it ....

From:

chestnut_pod

What a coincidence, this just came off hold. I do like a well-crafted fantasy mystery, which is such a rare thing, so hopefully I can approach it as just that and nothing else.

From:

chestnut_pod

Have now read it, and I agree with everything you say here! I was actually kind of surprised by how very clearly Pacific Rim/Attack on Titan-inspired the setting was. Obviously, he did more with the concept, like Funky Plant Stuff, but the basics are there and honestly pretty much unchanged! One assumes that the next books will reveal some of the reasoning behind the setting in-universe, and then it will differentiate a little bit more -- but not yet.

From:

skygiants

Big Wall, Big Monsters, Oh No!! I mean it's a classic for a reason and it's fun to see a plot explored in such a world beyond the obvious Help! The Big Monster's Here!

From:

stranger

Admittedly, I read the first chapter and thought "well, there's the shock value, but now what?" But then, there's the bio-tech that mostly looks like magic and distorts the bodies and minds of its practitioners, so it's a theme. Ana clearly has her own sensory-or-whatever oddities either because of or despite the deductive mind.

It *was* slightly ho-hum that the exploding vine plants linked back to a destroyed county (or canton?), which linked to an influential family doing corrupt politics for gain, so the end motive was simply money and power... I was almost disappointed at that, until I realized that someone actually planned to hold the power-grabbing family responsible and take them down -- and also that the never-shown inner circles of the threatened kingdom are harboring Something Weird, and *Ana seems to know about it but isn't talking*.

I would guess that the award nominations were prompted by the extensive world-building, as well as the interesting lead characters. I'm never sure what "good writing" is, but this book was easy to read, and keep reading, despite the body-horror elements that often turn me right off.

Agree that Din's hopeful love interest was a lot more hopeful than realized; I really wondered if Din was interested until he cleared up some of his other problems and had a little time to notice it. Meanwhile, the mystery-plot characters are, as you say, just there for the plot.

Also recommend A Drop of Corruption, which is correspondingly weird in many ways, expands the background, and definitely doesn't answer all questions.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, the world-building is very comprehensively and convincingly done and I think there's an argument to be made that that in itself is award-worthy for an sff book -- it's not my argument, but it's a reasonable one!

From:

uskglass

I liked American Elsewhere a lot, and then I've kind of bounced off Robert Jackson Bennett's other books as, like... non-risktaking, coloring within the lines carefully a bit, as far as character and stakes and emotion goes. It's a phenomenon in fantasy and sci-fi that's sort of hard to describe--where technically lots of dark or darkish subject matter can be in the book, but the characters are always pretty unscathed by it, physically and especially psychologically. Nobody ever has a real crisis or paradigmatic life-upending revelation in a book like this. TBH it sounds like procedural/mystery is a better fit for his tendencies in some ways, as procedurals and mysteries have a certain promise of staticness and separateness for the investigators.

From:

skygiants

Coloring within the lines feels right .... the coloring is comprehensive and every section beautifully filled out and it Will not splash untidily over the edge.

From:

lirazel

I can definitely see how it would suffer in the context you brought to it. I went into it as "ooh, a fantasy mystery novel with colorful worldbuilding and a crotchety old lady!" and so it brought me great satisfaction.

From:

skygiants

absolutely and I think that is the perfect way to approach it!

From:

ase

I don't think it's a particularly spectacular novel for character -- there are Din and Ana, and there are a bunch of people who are required to make the mystery go, and there's a sort of flash-in-the-pan love-interest-shaped fellow for Din -- and I don't think it's much of a novel of ideas.

Being not-character is on brand for science fiction of a certain age, but not-ideas is not. I think the adherence to genre tropes hides some of the lack of ideas, and also compliments that this is a novel that isn't taking creative risks (IMO). RBJ wants this to get published, and set the stage for the next book to get published, which limits how weird it can get. (Again, IMO.)