★★★☆☆ Honorable Mention
(Space Opera Mystery; Xuya) A mindship with PTSD afraid to enter deep space anymore meets a “consulting detective” with no past who’s looking for help finding dead bodies out there. (20,011 words; Time: 1h:06m)
"The Tea Master and the Detective," by Aliette de Bodard [bio], published on March 31, 2018 by Subterranean Press.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Review: 2018.271 (A Word for Authors)
Pro: At the highest level, this is the story of how The Shadow’s Child and Long Chau worked together to solve the mystery of how Hai Anh died and manage to save Tuyet from the same fate while bringing the Sisterhood to account.
More deeply, it tells how Shadow overcame her fear of the deep spaces. Even if not completely healed, she’s made progress and is likely in a much better position to support herself.
There are obvious connections between Long Chau and Sherlock Holmes. The title, “Consulting Detective,” the drug addiction, and powerful deductive ability but limited interest in being civil.
The ending suggests Long Chau and The Shadow’s Child will work together in the future on more cases. We’ll look forward to it.
Con: The story sort of fizzles out. In the end, we don’t have a murder so much as criminal negligence. And Shadow doesn’t act as though she’s all that much better off than she was to start with.
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Aliette de Bodard Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
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Pro: At the highest level, this is the story of how The Shadow’s Child and Long Chau worked together to solve the mystery of how Hai Anh died and manage to save Tuyet from the same fate while bringing the Sisterhood to account.
More deeply, it tells how Shadow overcame her fear of the deep spaces. Even if not completely healed, she’s made progress and is likely in a much better position to support herself.
There are obvious connections between Long Chau and Sherlock Holmes. The title, “Consulting Detective,” the drug addiction, and powerful deductive ability but limited interest in being civil.
The ending suggests Long Chau and The Shadow’s Child will work together in the future on more cases. We’ll look forward to it.
Con: The story sort of fizzles out. In the end, we don’t have a murder so much as criminal negligence. And Shadow doesn’t act as though she’s all that much better off than she was to start with.
Other Reviews: Search Web, GoodReads.com
Aliette de Bodard Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
I rate this a 4 myself. I hope we get more stories about this team of characters. I thought the ship Shadow did make some progress in the right direction, but not in a material way. I think that was the aim of the story.
ReplyDeleteFor anyone who likes reading this author's Xuya series, this is worth getting.
For anyone who likes detective stories with a SF setting, this is also worth getting. It is very Sherlock Holmes like, in that one of the characters kept reminding me of the Elementary version of Sherlock Holmes.
Cover artist is Maurizio Manzieri