Book completed

The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett. I have to thank the Hugo voters for nominating this book, because I hadn’t previously heard of the author, who now has 12 novels out. I was quite impressed! It’s a detective story that’s fantasy, in that the world is unlike ours and the people are living with a relatively low level of technology in most regards, but I don’t recall any magic. Rather, they have done a great deal of biological engineering. Our narrator has recently become an assistant to a brilliant but extremely quirky investigator, and the two of them have been tasked with solving a very strange murder. It’s entertaining and moves along well – and the world-building is very creative, although I suspect the giant sea monsters menacing their lands are really just trying to communicate. I also discovered this evening that the sequel is already available – what fun!