psocoptera

I had mixed feelings about G. Willow Wilson's new novel The Bird King. Some beautiful writing, and great characters - it was like she had taken my criticism of Alif the Unseen to heart and made the woman the POV character and her relationship with her dude sidekick much less annoying. (This time he's gay, and their mutual love is very deep but not romantic.) And the setting and premise are neat - she's a concubine of the last sultan of Granada, who's about to surrender to Ferdinand and Isabella, he's the sultan's cartographer, who can draw places into existence, and now he has to flee from the Inquisition coming with the Spanish. Spanish-class history was pretty biased towards the Spanish perspective on the Reconquista so I enjoyed this look from the "other side".

But. I had two problems with it, which I will spoiler-hide. ( Read more... )

Anyways, I think this one is literary enough that it's not going to end up on any SFF award ballots, so if anyone is wondering if they might want to read it for that I think you're off the hook.