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I read the Beekeeper's Apprentice after seeing it on a list of Malka Older's comfort reads: www.tor.com/2023/03/22/malka-older-chooses-her-top-5-comfort-reads

It's a mystery book originally published way back in the ancient times of 1994. The plot could be roughly described as: what if Sherlock Holmes was a teenage girl and met up with aging half-retired actual Sherlock Holmes, who trains her until she grows over time to be an equal detective partner while they solve mysteries together.

Overall, this was a fun romp told in a style that felt reminiscent of a Sherlock mystery, and I enjoyed the mysteries large and small. I am a sucker for coming of age stories too. I think it's a more interesting pairing to have Sherlock with an equal in deduction to play off of. I also appreciated here that King deliberately posits in-universe this Holmes as being not the same as Doyle's fictionalized version, and so can portray her own (kinder) version.

Content warnings for mild violence, mild misogyny, suicide mentions, police violence, police portrayed sympathetically; there's also an extended romani disguise section with pejorative g-word and theft trope.

Also, this is a minor spoiler for the introduction of the book, but Mary Russell the protagonist and "author" signs it M.R.H. strongly implying that she marries Holmes at some point in later books which is...also a thing.  Look, I understand that they are the only two in their own world of deduction and so it's not implausible and I'm also certainly not here to police fictional age gaps. And yet. It is just a creepy vibe for me, personally speaking, and so I will stop after this first book so I can pretend they are just partners in detectivery forever and will find my own comfort reads somewhere else.

This is a direct sequel to Witness for the Dead (book two of a trilogy) and is another fantasy mystery set in the world of the Goblin Emperor.

Witness for the Dead feels more like a traditional mystery novel, in that the climax of the story is also the reveal of the mystery. On the other hand, this book's "stereo investigation" (in Disco Elysium terms) is roughly sorted out mid-book, and instead jumps into action and many repercussions from there. I think this works really well, but it gives it a different feel overall.

One thing I really liked about this book is how many story threads from the first book were picked up and were an integral part of this story. On its own, I felt like there were parts of the first book that went a bit far afield (even if they were interesting worldbuilding and character development!), but in the context of how they tie back into book two makes the two books together feel much more tightly crafted as a whole. It makes me excited to see where the third book goes.

Mostly, I continue to enjoy these books focused on Celehar as a main character; he has been through a lot and continues to go through a lot, and is carrying a lot of trauma and grief that he is coping with. It feels like he doesn't believe that he deserves nice things even while he constantly goes out of his way to serve others beyond the call of duty; it's just comforting to see so many characters caring for him in ways that he won't do for himself.

This book is the first in a new series of novels that Max Gladstone is writing to wrap up his Craft universe. My bias here is that I really enjoyed the previous Craft Sequence set of books, but most of those were one-off stories in a shared universe. This series is pitched as "a tight sequence of novels" and I think it hits that mark far more than any of his previous books. This book's plot stands on its own as a compelling action-filled story about coming home to a place that doesn't want you anymore, but it weaves in personal backstory and trauma (you thought Tara might have been done with) as well as larger existential threats (that are just such a perfect fit for the craft itself).

If you don't know this universe, I think this Max Gladstone interview with Sarah Gailey sums up what the Craft Sequence is all about: www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/sarah-gailey-yelling-books-max-gladstones-hugo-nominated-craft-sequence/

The story revolves around Tara coming back to her small town for her dad's funeral. Everybody in the town deeply distrusts her (she's dangerous and powerful, left them all behind before, but also she tried to raise the dead to help the town once sooo...). I don't think this is a queer story per se (although there are some queer characters), but it is certainly hard for me not to see a story of "community rejection" and "coming home unwanted" as not having a lot of queer narrative parallels (at least personally speaking).

This tension really serves the book well, as Tara works during the book to protect her small town who at times actively hates her. Tara struggles to do better than those around her, to not reenact her past traumas onto her student, and to not just solve problems through power by using other people as things. It feels a lot that this might be a larger theme that is going to run through this series.

There's been some running jokes about Max Gladstone not writing straight relationships well (sorry, Two Serpents Rise), but I feel like the straight relationship here works much better. I think it's a little bit of a relationship of convenience in some ways, but Tara talks about "liking his perspective" which, in a book about craftwork as a way of perceiving things differently, is a very believable value for Tara.

Finally, having read the craft sequence books at least twice, it's hard for me to come unbiased to a "how much do you need to know to enjoy this" perspective. I think if this book sounded interesting, you could start here and it would be more than fine. There's enough explanation of Tara backstory and how the craft works that you will not be lost. There's some mentions of Shale and Seril (only slightly on page), Tara being a priestess-not-really, and some other tiny references that reading Three Parts Dead and Four Roads Cross will fill you in on, but they're not necessary. I think this book would be a great place to start if you haven't already.

I really enjoyed Emily Tesh's Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country novellas, and so was excited to read this (very different) novel. In some ways this novel emits YA sf child warrior action dystopian vibes, but it's a lot heavier than I'd expect a YA book to be.

This is a book where aliens have destroyed earth, and there's a small space enclave of humans set on vengeance at all costs. But, the thrust of the story is that when the protagonist Kyr leaves this community, she discovers that these humans are largely a fascist cult, and this is extremely hard to swallow information for cult poster child Kyr, still set on vengeance for humanity.

It's a book about deprogramming from propaganda and the narratives you've grown up with. It's a book about burying queer feelings in unsafe environments even from yourself. Unsurprisingly, it's also a book with (at times) unlikeable main characters who do some awful things at every scale.

(I will also repeat the book's own content warnings here which are: "contains sexist, homophobic, transphobic, racist, and ableist attitudes; sexual assault, including discussion of forced pregnancy; violence; child abuse; radicalization as child abuse; genocide; suicidal ideation; and suicide". I really appreciate the trend of books providing their own content warnings these days!! It is nice to not be surprised by these things!)

It's always hard in any story to not to be sympathetic with the main character, but I think you need extend quite a bit of trust towards the author for the first part of the book. Moreover, I also wonder if your excitement about this book will likely parallel your desire to hear this sort of "white person unlearning shitty childhood beliefs" story. I personally think it's a pretty believable arc, especially because this book is more of an "unlearning" story than a "redemption for past actions" story. So, I mention all this not as an insult to the book, but rather a conditional on any recommendation.

(I don't know where else to put this thought but it's an extension of the above conditional and also a content warning of sorts; there's a scene at the end with Kyr and Yiso, an alien that Kyr has been xenophobic at and has misgendered for most of the book. They're having a poignant moment, and in that moment out of nowhere, Kyr asks to touch Yiso's alien hair-equivalent? This is incredibly creepy?? I'm sorry??? It's just that in a book dealing with being less space racist maybe a "touching" hair-touching scene could have gotten a second look. They already had an awkward hug scene earlier that would have made way more sense to revisit here!)

Finally, to put a few spoilery thoughts in a vague way, I did not at all expect the plot of the book to go the way it did. I appreciated the way the turn of the book provides Kyr with some much needed perspective that would have felt like implausible personal growth otherwise. I also appreciate the plot structure revisiting the events of the beginning of the book with a different perspective. It was a nice echo, especially with a character who begins the book herself obsessed with replaying past historical military events in VR.

This book was a lot of fun and definitely my favorite Malka Older book so far. Out of everything, I enjoyed the worldbuilding and the slow romance the most. The world has very retro-future 19th century vibes, complete with Jupiter's fog misting, atmoscarves, gas heating, and railcars between floating platforms. This world and the characters were so much fun.

My one quibble is that I found some details of the mystery a little weak (although this may be my own expectations for what I want out of a mystery) but I will put those spoilery details in a separate comment.

The setup of the book is that Mossa the Investigator enlists Pleiti (an old university friend, and ex) to look into the disappearence of a man from a remote platform. Pleiti is a scholar of classics, which here stands in as "studying past Earth so that future Earth and its ecosystems can be rebuilt perfectly". I love the connection here of her studying both the failure of Earth but also the failure of her past relationship with Mossa. The title drop during the book's conclusion bringing everything together is just chef's kiss

(Finally, an unrelated aside, but I YELLED when these two went out for dinner at a thematic wood-burning restaurant named Slow Burn.)