2014 technological fantasy. On the island of Kavekana, the main
business is idols: all the convenience of a god, but none of the
commitment or free will of the real thing. One of them has died
thanks to a bad financial deal, but the priestess Kai tried to save
her, and heard something odd as she did.
What a relief: after the disappointment of Two Serpents Rise,
Gladstone comes back on form. For me it's not quite the blast to the
senses that Three Parts Dead was, but it's still very good.
As before, the setting is a mirror of the modern global financial
system, this time with a strong element of Hawaii (and the Cayman
Islands) mixed in. Several characters have the protection of the
island as their major goal, but they have thoroughly divergent ideas
concerning just what about the island is the thing that deserves to
be protected. For example, if it stops being a financial haven, what's
left for it in the future?
The narrative is double-stranded: Kai gets into trouble as a result of
her impulsive act, and starts tracking down more details of idol Seven
Alpha and just what strangeness was going on. Izza the young street
thief knows that her goddess the Blue Lady is dead, and since she has
a way off the island she's just trying to get some security for her
gang before she goes. Several characters from previous books reappear
(though, sadly, no Tara Abernethy); there's a different sort of
magical police force, the Penitents, who are criminals immured in
near-indestructible stone statues and gradually brainwashed as they're
forced to be a part of the city's law enforcement.
This book continues the blending of modern concepts with magical
trappings: people contact each other via nightmare rather than phone,
and their coinage carries a certain amount of soul-stuff, but they're
happy to accuse each other of cribbing comic book one-liners, and one
set of novels is described as:
"This is kingship, politics, murder. Awful lot of murder. Especially
at parties for some reason."
Wonder what that might be a reference to. There's occasional overblown
writing like
He lifted the shirt and tossed it in a hamper. The circle of
revealed white carpet glared up at them like a glaucomic eye.
but mostly the narrative voice is consistent, with a slow and
considered rhythm to it that's more reliable than the lurching
acceleration of Three Parts Dead. Things do move more quickly
towards the end, but there aren't the sudden changes of pace that that
book held.
"Gods, I love sports. All the excitement of real news, only it
doesn't matter so you don't have to worry about it."
You certainly won't be surprised by the identity of the bad guys, and
I often felt several steps ahead of the characters, but they weren't
expecting to have major assumptions about their world suddenly
questioned and I was.
Walking out of the office, numb from incense and the glassy stares
of painted kittens in the motivational prints that adorned the man's
walls, she realized she need not have worried.
Some commenters have made a point out of Kai being transgender: during
her initiation, she was able to remake her body, and chose to have the
female one that felt right to her rather than the male one she was
born with. Fair enough, but this doesn't make up a major plot point:
nobody treats her being as anything other than conventionally female,
and there's little that's unique about her mindset. If you're looking
for a story about being trans, this isn't it; if you're looking for a
story where a trans person is just another person, then that's just
what you get here.
I would have been happy to see this among the Best Novel Hugo nominees
for this year.
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