I didn't know there were authorized continuations of Agatha Christie!
Me neither.
I don't know how to feel about that.
Me neither.
There are authorized continuations of Dorothy Sayers's Peter Whimsey novels (whose work I like a lot more than Christie's—feel free to come at me full muffuletta about it). One of them,
Thones, Dominions,
was created from a novel that Sayers had started. Jill Patton Walsh finished it. While I felt like I could see the seams between the two author's work, I felt the final novel was worth reading. And I was glad to spend a little more time with Lord and Lady Peter. Walsh has since published three more novels in Sayer's Whimsey-verse. I didn't read the last two, but that's more because I was distracted by something shiny than that Walsh sucks. She's not Sayers, but she does a solid job.
I read The Goblin Emperor and Consider Phlebas on the strength of awesome Yuletide fics based on them. I loved The Goblin Emperor so, so much I promptly re-read and then re-re-read it. I've given up on Consider Phlebas about halfway through and went back to the Imperial Radch series to get my sentient-ship fix.
I just finished Megan Whalen Turner's
The Thief
and loved it so much! Why did I wait so long to read these books? I'm super excited to have five more books in this series to enjoy.
It was an interesting experience reading it, since I knew
there was some sort of big twist at the end regarding Gen's identity, but I didn't know what it was.
So I'd be reading along, knowing that I should be looking for clues, but not knowing what they would be about. I came up with a lot of possibilities! Among others, I considered that
Gen might be: the son of a king or queen; the son of a god; a god himself; secretly in league with the magus; or a woman.
In the end, it turns out that
the series title (The Queen's Thief) rather spoiled the first part of the reveal (though I suppose I didn't know for sure *which* queen), but I actually didn't see the second part coming: that he had stolen Hamiathes's Gift from the magus, hidden it in his hair, and was planning all along to bring it to his queen. I knew he'd gotten himself put into prison as part of a bigger scheme, but didn't really put it all together on my own.
On the one hand, I feel like I should have figured it out sooner, but on the other hand, it was such an enjoyable reading experience that I really don't mind.
Looking forward to
The Queen of Attolia
already!
Oh, The Goblin Emperor was so good!
And The Thief! The series just gets better and better. I think there's a new one coming out this year? Or is that wishful thinking?
It got bumped to 2020. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Well, as long as it's coming.
I started Naomi Novik's Uprooted a couple of days ago. It's so good, I can't put it down.
I heart Goblin emperor so much. My only quibble was with the names, which got very confusing and I sometimes had a hard time remembering which character was which.
And I haven't reread the Queens Thief series in a long time. Maybe I should do that...
Right now I'm reading a bunch of lesbian romances from the library. The one where they were camping and stalked by a killer in the Olympic national forest was one I should not have been reading after dark on my own. But the others were mostly terrible so far...
I feel like I've just walked into a room where people are raving about friends of mine: The Thief, The Goblin Emperor, Uprooted! All so good, yay! Love my friends! (While validating my taste!) Yay!
I read the first Poirot one, and I literally can't remember if I finished it. Do not recommend.
I did finish it and I don't recommend it, either.