This is the month I read about 200 stories for the upcoming issue of Translunar Travelers Lounge. But I can’t talk about any of that yet.
Short stories
“Changeling” by William Alexander
A robots-as-people story about mail fraud and theater on one of Saturn’s moons. Cute.
A very Watts story, about autism and transhumanism. It’s a hook for a videogame that didn’t get made.
Books
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
This shattered the ceiling for my expectations. It’s about intrigue involving secret societies doing magic rituals at Yale. The setting is richly realized, informed by Bardugo’s time there. Our main character is Galaxy “Alex” Stern, Californian high school dropout, drug mule, and murderer, enrolled at Yale and inducted into Lethe House for her rare ability to see ghosts. Daniel ‘Darlington’ Arlington, a golden boy from a family of privilege that barely wanted him, becomes her mentor. They’re supposed to be the shepherds of the secret societies, the ones who watch for malfeasance.
Until Daniel vanishes. Shortly thereafter, a girl is found murdered on campus in what might have been an occult ritual. Alex is the only one left to seek justice for the victim. Alex, who knows what the underworld looks like if you’re living or dead, and doesn’t have any privilege to fear losing in pursuit of justice.
I don’t really think the double reveal parlor scene works at the end. But this was good. I’m going to read the sequel, and I never read sequels. I couldn’t enjoy Six of Crows, Bardugo’s famous YA book, in part because six POVs were too much. But we spend this book either in Alex’s head or in Daniel’s as he gets to know her, and that’s perfect. Alex is an exceptionally strong heroine. I enjoyed the hell out of what Bardugo was using her to do. My favorite published book of the year so far.
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
Well, darn it.
This installment intensified the first book’s weaknesses. There’s more scene setting than is called for. The twists lack necessary support. The story’s internal logic is either handwaved, in the case of cause-and-effect, or overexplained, in the case of the supernatural elements. You can tell who’s actually dead and what’s a red herring in advance, based on how the characters react on the page. The plot hooks paid attention to—the narrative weight given to the moving parts—telegraphs what’s going on independent of what the reader’s told. Several times, there are things that come up as Oh No This Could Be Bad!! But then the characters fail to follow up, so you know that oh, there’s gonna be a resolution. Too obvious that the conclusion is foregone.
The story also doesn’t have much new to say about Alex despite the focus on her, and the narrative reintroduces Darlington as a hot, naked, servile half-demon, with his erect cock mentioned multiple times (!!), and then sidesteps that whole deal in the end. That’s like decorating for a party you’re going to cancel! Rescuing Darlington from hell is presented as the point of the narrative. Where Bardugo wanted to go with this is that Alex binds him to herself. But then, it becomes clear that this will all be a sideshow to the ‘demons escaping from hell’ plot.
The other Yale secret societies and those who participate in them, which are strong points from the first book, are just about dropped. The world shrinks down to the architecture, art, and artifacts described as Lethe House does the kind of magic Lethe House is supposed to curtail. Alex’s Lethe duties are performed onscreen. What I was most looking forward to was how the other movers and shakers in the occult world—Lethe’s board, Skull & Bones, Manuscript, Wolf’s Head—react to Darlington’s reappearance. I was hoping that the story would confront Alex Stern bringing her mentor back as a half-demon: the golden boy given horns. But that gets glossed over. Another layer of masquerade is slapped on instead. Alex and co. are now operating an extra-secret secret society, in effect, keeping their business away from the Lethe alumni and the network they’re supposed to monitor. Feels like a waste of the concept of Lethe House.
For new characters, Lethe gets a replacement faculty leader (who’d better have a purpose later in the series, for all the time we spent learning who he is despite how little he mattered to the plot); Darlington’s mentor briefly appears, then becomes a body dropped on his doorstep in the final act, after which we retroactively learn she was working for the bad guys; and Lethe spends time with a temporary mentor who gets his life stolen by a demon, which also serves to neatly sever the “defying the house’s leadership will have consequences” subplot from any of said consequences.
This book badly needed more focus, the plot threads needed pruned, the badass cover image needed a better origin than “Alex has another significant traumatic moment we somehow forgot to mention while exhaustively plumbing her past in the first book; her dealer boyfriend’s dog killed her pet rabbit!” This book spends so much time digging into Alex, but didn’t really let her change. It feels like she’s the same girl we got to know last time around, despite how much has happened since. Meanwhile, Darlington changed drastically, but it’s like the story didn’t know what to say about that, so instead kept drifting away down rabbit holes.
Also, in the middle of the book, the characters talk about performing the “doorway to hell” ritual to go rescue Darlington, then they go review the site for the ritual, and then they do the ritual, and then they do it again. Each scene is fully described. Nooooooo. That all gets more focus than the actual hell they’re saving Darlington from. This felt like the heist in Six of Crows to me– Buildup promising a grand conclusion that’s ultimately skated through.
In the end, the author clearly had a much more detailed picture of Yale than of what the plot of this book should do. There’s a version of this story where all the disparate puzzles pieces come together, where the world stays larger than Alex & co., and where the consequences of Lethe’s new blood opening a door to hell and bringing out a lost son are developed a deeper level than ‘Other demons followed oh no!’ If the book had been like that, I would want to check out part three.
Comics
The Tax Reaper by studio Weeib and Wintersleep Turtle
Okay, hear me out: This comic is about a virtuous civil servant in South Korea. When he looks at people, if they’ve illegally withheld tax money, he can see the amount floating next to them. He never discloses that he has this power, but rather uses his acumen and mastery of tax law to support a large National Tax Service team in rooting out corruption in the business and political worlds.
It’s a very grownup wish fulfillment fantasy. I sure wish we had functional institutions with virtuous leaders.
A short comedy about a guy with haunted hemorrhoids and the ghost who wants him to give birth for her. Look, you can’t say that’s not a creative hook.