Right? It made me want to read Hands again, too

Although I did have to go back and re-read The Hands of the Emperor for some hopeful post-collapse (because that is what The Fall was) fiction after that.

So have you read The Return of Fitzroy Angursell? It is less annoying than THotE w/rt communication problems, and the story moves along at a more brisk pace.

It is followed by The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul, which is the story about the woman scholar that came to study the Emperor's archives and Kip realized she was someone important to the Emperor. I enjoyed that as well, just finished it yesterday, but it does have a great deal of "why don't these people just fucking TALK TO ONE ANOTHER" going on. Still fun, though.

And it explains more than any of the other novels about the Fall of Astandalas and what the deal was with Fitzroy and the Red Company.

I'm getting to the point where I might need a wiki for this universe. There's a LOT of backstory. Plus all these different planets/worlds/whatever.

I definitely need a wiki, or at least a clear timeline of when all the books and short stories fall? But I do like.

That's tricky with how time flows differently in different places, though. I do not fully have a handle on that, but I like how it is playing out so far

Yes, I've read all of it so far! I enjoyed Pali on the second read. The first time I read it I was too offended at her not liking Kip! How dare!

I think the HotE Discord I'm on is building a timeline. I'll have to check.

How dare!

I know! OTOH these novels are very reliant on people not understanding each other because of poor communication. So that tracks pretty well. I think that over time Pali could grow to like Kip, because she's a scholar and so is he.

I think that over time Pali could grow to like Kip, because she's a scholar and so is he.

Oh, definitely, He absolutely would appreciate her ability to throw dry commentary in, too.

I splurged this week on Kate Beaton's new book Ducks. I haven't finished it yet: it's pretty long and quite heavy in its subject matter. But it's SO GOOD. She's so impressive as an artist and writer.

Anyway, here's a link to a New Yorker review: [link]

I splurged this week on Kate Beaton's new book Ducks. I haven't finished it yet: it's pretty long and quite heavy in its subject matter. But it's SO GOOD. She's so impressive as an artist and writer.

I also bought it and read it this last week. I agree with your assessment! It is soooo good. It's sort of a hard sell, especially if you're coming to it from Hark, A Vagrant. It's not funny with the Bronte jokes.

But it does completely immerse you into that world, and it's a world I do kind of know from memory (having lived in very northern Canada for 18 months of my childhood) and also experience doing construction work out of college. Those very masculine realms and the ingrained sexism (and racism) and culture.

It's just so rich and artfully done that it takes you to places you haven't been and makes you feel them. You will not just know but understand more about the world because she's so good at creating her experience. You can read about capitalism, or environmentalism or sexism but she parses all those complex liminal spaces and you understand the weight of things. Their context. Their human value and cost.

It's really masterful. It did remind me a bit of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. Very different in subject but similarly adept at catching ambiguities.

On top of everything else, it’s just a gorgeously-made book: The dust jacket, the leafing, the paper stock. It was well worth the 40 bucks to me.