★★★★☆ Zilan figures it out

The Blood Orchid

Kylie Lee Baker

The Blood Orchid is the sequel to Kylie Lee Baker's The Scarlet Alchemist, and wraps up the duology.

The Scarlet Alchemist was a rags to riches story. We met Fan Zilan, a poor worker in her family shop, who secretly practiced resurrection alchemy. Zilan studied so that she could go the capital and pass the Imperial examinations. She succeeded and became the Scarlet Alchemist -- the best of all the Imperial alchemists. She ambiguously defeated the evil Empress. Zilan deals in resurrection, so death is not final in her story.

The Blood Orchid is the story of Zilan's quest to consolidate that ambiguous win into something solid. I use the word "quest" intentionally. To a reader of fantasy it felt familiar in form -- the gathering of artefacts, Rule of Three, the final battle.

And it was good. I particularly enjoyed the ending, which was more about subterfuge than swords and sorcery. It was clever and tricky and creative.

The Blood Orchid on Amazon

Goodreads review

Comments

★★★★☆ A broken mindship and lost children

In the Shadow of the Ship Aliette de Bodard Aliette de Bodard 's In the Shadow of the Ship is a novella set in her Xuya Universe . Like many Xuya stories, this one takes place aboard a mindship. This particular mindship is called Nightjar and was damaged escaping from the collapsing Empire. (Exactly which Empire this was I am not sure -- there is more than one in the Xuya Universe .) At any rate, Nightjar is not a healthy place. She escaped carrying some of her family. They still live aboard and afford her the loyalty she expects, mostly. Nightjar demands tribute in the form of children whom she lures into her dead zones, from which they never emerge. When Khuyên was a child she was invited to the dead zones by her cousin Anh, but she refused. Later she did the unthinkable: she left Nightjar for the broken Empire, where she rose to the post of Magistrate. Now Khuyên has returned to Nightjar for her grandmother's funeral, where she is met with a complex mixture of disdain

★★★☆☆ Elizabeth's past

The Man Who Died Twice Richard Osman In the the first installment of Richard Osman 's The Thursday Murder Club we learned about Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce, three of the four septuagenarians who are members of the club. Elizabeth's past, however, was shrouded in mystery. It was obvious that she had been some sort of spy and had retained her connections with that world. Installment 2, The Man Who Died Twice is all about Elizabeth's past catching up with her, in the form of an ex-husband who was also a professional colleague. It becomes obvious that Elizabeth was an MI5 operative or Mi6 operative or most likely both, and that she left a reputation behind her. (For US readers, Mi5 and MI6 are, very very roughly, the UK's FBI and CIA equivalents, by which I mean the agencies that do domestic and foreign spying.) Her ex has stepped in something stinky involving the theft of some diamonds and wants Elizabeth's help is cleaning it off his shoes. (I speak figuratively, of

★★★★☆ Subtle and often difficult ideas

The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell (Translator) I have to admit that often, as I made my way through The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke , I said to myself, "Rilke is too deep for me." I enjoyed it, but I frequently felt I didn't really get it, or I got it only partially. I suspect this is par for the course with Rilke . Still, there were those flashes of insight when I felt I understood exactly what he was talking about. For instance, I particularly liked "Orpheus. Eurydike. Hermes." . This book contains not just Rilke 's original poems in German, but also English translations by Stephen Mitchell . In the paperback, German and English are on facing pages, German on the left and English on the right, a useful format for comparing the translation with the original. Mitchell 's translations are excellent. It is particularly difficult to translate poetry well, even when the translator is himself a tale

★★★★☆ Fantasy of a corrupt golden age

The Familiar Leigh Bardugo The publisher describes Leigh Bardugo 's The Familiar as a "historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age". That description is accurate, but gives a misleading idea of the book. The Spanish Golden Age or Siglo de Oro is a name given to the period from 1492 - 1659, during which Spanish art, culture, and political power flourished. It was also the height of persecution of anyone suspected of heresy or Jewish ancestry. "Golden" is not the adjective that will come to mind as you read. The main point-of-view character is Luzia Cotado, a scullion in the household of Valentina and Marius Ordoño. Luzia is the orphan child or parents who were secretly Jewish. From her Jewish ancestors she inherits the ability to make "milagritos". ("Milagrito" is a diminutive of "milagro" -- miracle, thus "milagrito" is "little miracle". There is a lot of Spanish in The Familiar . You don't nee

★★★☆☆ How Easy Rawlins got started

Devil in a Blue Dress Walter Mosley Devil in a Blue Dress is the first book in Walter Mosley 's Easy Rawlins series of mysteries. I became interested in Easy Rawlins through the Marvel Netfix series Luke Cage . The directors and writers were keen to show us that Luke is no dumb knucklehead, so we are treated to Luke discussing poetry with his mentor Pops, carrying Ralph Ellison 's Invisible Man with him, and also reading Mosley 's Little Green . So I looked that up, and decided to start the series at the beginning. As a murder mystery Devil in a Blue Dress is not really very good. Nor, I think, does it try to be. Devil introduces us to Easy Rawlins. It was first published in 1990. I read the 30th anniversary edition, published in 2020 (Duh!), and it begins with an Introduction written by Mosley in 2020. He writes When I wrote Devil I had a simple thought in mind. I wanted to tell a story about Los Angeles that highlighted black life and the black contrib

★★★★★ Greater than the sum of its parts

Saga, Compendium One Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator) After seeing Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples 's Saga, Compendium One highly praised by essentially my entire Goodreads feed, I bought the paperback. It arrived, and I did not immediately open it, for a simple reason: It weighs 2.2 kg. (That's 5 pounds in old money.) This is a thick book. So instead I bought all currently extant kindle volumes of the series (currently Saga, Volume 1 through Saga, Volume 11 ), figuring a series of 11 books was within my capabilities, and began to read them on the kindle app on my iPad. This worked very well. I found to my surprise that the series was not so overwhelming as my kitchen scale led me to expect. It takes an hour, or at most two, to read one volume. I alternated Saga volumes with other books -- thus, between 18-Feb and 24-Mar-2024 I read the nine volumes that together constitute Compendium One . ( Volumes 10 and 11 still lie in my future.) I gave each of

★★★★☆ An honest con artist

The Emperor's Soul Brandon Sanderson The Emperor's Soul won Brandon Sanderson his first Hugo Award, Best Novella 2013. It is, in my opinion, a well-deserved honor. Although The Emperor's Soul is set in the same world as Elantris , it is not a sequel, but a standalone. You needn't read Elantris to follow it, and you can read the whole in 90-120 min. Shai is a forger. That means more than you probably think it does. Although Shai is expert in the kind of forgery you know of -- producing deceptive documents and works of art -- she also is expert in the magical art of forgery, which in the empire means convincing an object that it is something other than what it is, so thoroughly and convincingly that it becomes for all intents and purposes the forged object. To Shai, this is High Art, to the leaders of the empire, it is a criminal abomination. But the empire needs Shai. The Emperor, hurt by an assassin, is unconscious. The arbiters of the Heritage Faction, who curr

★★★☆☆ Mostly interesting for the juggling lore

Lord Valentine's Castle Robert Silverberg I remember that I was a grad student in biochemistry when I read Robert Silverberg 's Lord Valentine's Castle . I was a grad student from 1976 - 1983, so I must have read it not long after it came out in 1979. I read it because I am and always have been a science fiction fan, and Silverberg has a BIG reputation -- I had read praise of him from many of my favorite authors. So I got this novel and read it. I never read another book by Silverberg , which probably tells you everything you need to know about my opinion. What's the book about? Well, the publisher's blurb begins thus Valentine, a wanderer who knows nothing except his name, finds himself on the fringes of a great city, and joins a troupe of jugglers and acrobats; gradually, he remembers that he is the Coronal Valentine, executive ruler of the vast world of Majipoor, and all its peoples, human and otherwise... This plot summary reminds me of the following quote

★★★★☆ Murderbot distracted by shiny object

Rogue Protocol Martha Wells I was a little disappointed by this installment of the Murderbot Diaries . The main reason for that was something that I don't usually complain about: too much action. The main thing I like about the Murderbot books is Murderbot. She (on the issue of pronouns, see my review of All Systems Red ) is paradoxically, so very, very human. Well, to be honest, what I really mean by that is, "She's just like me" (except much more competent). Here is a very on-brand remark from Murderbot: They were all annoying and deeply inadequate humans, but I didn’t want to kill them. Okay, maybe a little. Yes, Murderbot, we've all been there! High-grade snark like this is why I read Murderbot. Another Murderbot perquisite is the guarantee that she never gets personally sucked into tedious romances. (If this somehow changes in future installments, I don't want to know, so, you folks who've already read all the books, please keep your lips zipped.)

Search This Blog