RogerBW's Blog

Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree 17 July 2022

2022 fantasy. Viv the orc settles down after a life of adventuring… to open a coffee shop.

The subtitle is "A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes", and that's part right. For me high fantasy implies big important matters, not street-level shenanigans (say, Tolkien rather than Howard), and this certainly isn't that; but it is small, slice-of-life stuff, and while what happens matters hugely to the people involved nobody's out to save the world.

It's a fantasy about people being nice to each other, even if they are Those People they've been told are the Enemy. And, obviously, about found-family, as Viv does the thing (apparently revolutionary) of just treating people as potential friends until they give her reason to act otherwise. (Done less well, this could fall into the trap found in some Victorian stories of doing well because others will then be good to you, but Baldree avoids that problem by giving us a lot of Viv's thoughts.)

There are plot threads of a sort, about a magical stone and its purported effects, about the local criminals wanting their cut of the new business, about an old adventuring rival; but while these spur some action they're mostly there to give those people an opportunity to be the people they are, like a gentler version of the constant stream of stressors in a soap opera.

There's not much worldbuilding here (this is a post-Dragonlance fantasy in which gnomes have technology, including ceiling fans and espresso machines), and there are no significant surprises. It's a comfort read, it doesn't pretend to be anything else, and as that it works very well.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Bookshops & Bonedust | Series: Legends & Lattes

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1