Speculative Mysteries coming soon!

If you like murder mysteries and speculative fiction, this Spring has a bunch of books that will appeal! Murders in fantasy empires, generation ships, fantasy empires, and … other fantasy empires. There may be a theme here?

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison is a satisfying conclusion to the Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy that began with The Witness for the Dead and continued in The Grief of Stones. It comes out March 11th from Tor.

I remember when The Witness for the Dead was coming out, I had a lot of conversations with other fans of Katherine Addison’s book The Goblin Emperor about it. Of course we were all excited to return to the world of The Goblin Emperor, but many of us were also a little puzzled that Thara Celehar, Sad Man with a Tragic Job who is only on the page briefly, was going to be the hero of a new series. Now that we are concluding Thara’s trilogy, I feel like his appeal has grown on me for all three books!

In The Tomb of Dragons, not all of the interpersonal stuff in the trilogy is wrapped up exactly how I’d like it to be? But it is indeed all wrapped up. Thara Celehar is dealing with the fallout from The Grief of Stones, and trying to do several jobs all at once, ethically, and kindly. I think many of us can sympathize with that. The murder mystery aspect is not really at the forefront of this one. As usual, Celehar is surrounded by more people who care about him and respect him than he believes, and that’s always a cozy time, even though the actual events that befall him are often harrowing. As my smart friend Levi commented about Thara Celehar, ““truly here is a man who has not fucked around all that much and is incessantly finding out regardless.” By the end of the book I felt both that this trilogy had concluded in a satisfying way, and that the characters are embarking on greater adventures to come. I look forward to seeing what Katherine Addison will introduce us to next in this world!

A novella in the same universe, The Orb of Cairado, came out January 31 from Subterranean Press, and it also has a murder mystery. Subterranean Press has a publishing model where you can preorder extremely fancy physical copies in a limited edition, or you can get an ebook, but there’s no standard trade physical option. The story is a fun one, fast paced, about a scholar whose life is changed by the crash that put Maia on the throne in The Goblin Emperor. The “Orb of Cairado” is a famous jewel, lost long ago, and as our point-of-view scholar tries to track it down and restore his own good name, we learn a lot about aspects of the world not addressed in The Goblin Emperor or the Cemeteries of Amalo. In some ways this novella feels more like the notes for a longer more detailed book than like a finished novella. I wonder if we’ll see more of this setting or character in Katherine Addison’s next foray into the world.

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite is another speculative murder mystery novella, and I, for one, am glad this is becoming a category. In Murder by Memory, Dorothy Gentleman is an auntie who loves to knit and she solves a murder on a generation ship. She is woken up to investigate, in a body that isn’t hers. Her inquiries take her all over the ship, from her disreputable nephew, to the library of preserved minds in glass, to a sexy yarn shop proprietor and beyond. It’s a fun romp, and at 112 pages, not a big time commitment. If you’re tickled by the pitch, it does what it says on the tin. I read it while I was in line waiting for a library event to start and felt like that was the perfect time. Murder by Memory comes out from Tor on March 18, launching the Dorothy Gentleman series.

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett introduced us to Ana and Din, Holmes and Watson analogues in a fantasy empire where terrifying leviathans attack from the sea every wet season, and their blood is used to power all kinds of biological and botanical technological innovations. Reading The Tainted Cup was a great time, and a perfect set up for an ongoing series with these investigators.

Now, in the second book of the series, A Drop of Corruption, Ana and Din are sent to the edge of the empire to investigate the mysterious death of an empire official who seems to have been removed from a locked room and brutally murdered. Investigating this murder leads them to troubling information about the kingdom on their border, and about their own empire’s practices.

I continue to enjoy the squishy body horror aspects of the magic and technology in this world, and Din’s Watsonian narration of his own interaction with it. I also appreciate Robert Jackson Bennett’s commentary on good government and the perils of empire. A Drop of Corruption comes out from Random House on April 1, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoyed The Tainted Cup! While I suggest reading The Tainted Cup first for the introduction to the world, you do not need a fresh memory of everything in The Tainted Cup to enjoy A Drop of Corruption.

Finally, The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson comes out from Orbit on April 15. I stayed up way too late finishing this one, laughed aloud repeatedly, actually gasped a couple times. My hopes were high, as it came recommended by my favorite author, Ann Leckie, who called it “Sharply written and intricately plotted. A masterclass in storytelling!” At first, our point of view character is Yana, a plucky teen who suffers a terrible fate. We learn everyone’s hair color and how octagonal the windows are. This was not my favorite chapter. BUT THEN, the rest of the book switches point of view and a truly rollicking twisty plot ensues. Years after Yana’s fate, it’s time to select a new emperor, and one of the contenders is murdered before the trials begin. Our hero, a pedantic but good looking scholar, is tapped to solve the mystery. There’s palace intrigue, murder, physical trials, animal gods, and paperwork. I enjoyed all of that, but I think Hodgson’s fantastic dialogue is probably the book’s biggest asset.

The Raven Scholar is the first book in a trilogy, and about halfway through I started to worry that the murder would not be solved in this book. I hope it is not a spoiler to say that the murder is solved in a satisfying way, but by the time the book is over, the whole situation has evolved so much that even if there isn’t a murder mystery in the rest of the series, I am really looking forward to finding out what happens next. The Raven Scholar is 704 pages and there are TWO maps at the front, so clearly you get a lot of return on investment, here. Highly recommended.