Welcome to Litsy!

Chau Long, a scholar researching the effects of deep space on dead bodies, asks a shipmind for help retrieving a body but they both have backstories which will complicate retrieval.

Despite having read some of the author's other works in the Xuya series, I had problems understanding the setting for this story and what was going on.

So this was not really my thing. But I guess if you‘re only going to read one novella where Sherlock Holmes is Dr. Who and Watson is the TARDIS, this should be it.

My #readharder2020 sci-fi/fantasy novella

I finished three books in March, which is better than I thought I was doing considering how badly my #BookSpin pick of Dhalgren derailed me. Going to be carrying that one on into April.

All three were picks but the tagged was easily my favorite. #MarchWrapUp #MonthlyWrapUp

Subterranean Press is offering this book for free today! And their blog post makes it sound like they‘ll be offering some other books in the near future.

You have to register an account to download it, but they don‘t require any purchase information, so 👍🏻

#freebooks

https://subterraneanpress.com/news/aliette-de-bodards-the-tea-master-and-the-det...

Nebula Award Winning Novella: The Tea Master and the Detective is free online for U.S. and Canada. https://subterraneanpress.com/news/aliette-de-bodards-the-tea-master-and-the-det...

This book is free for a limited time at https://subterraneanpress.com/free-ebook (US only, unfortunately). Check it out if you can! I really liked it and am going to grab the deal even though I just finished reading it. (It's actually the only library book I get for the foreseeable future!)

I really liked this novella. It's a take on the Holmes and Watson story set in a Vietnamese-based space empire, with Watson as a sentient starship. It's only 96 pages long and I would have liked it to be a little longer to spend more time on the mystery and the worldbuilding, but the two main characters and their interaction really steal the show. I hope she writes more with these two characters!

This book is making me want tea.

Requested this book from the library for the novella task in #ReadHarder2020, and the library has a signed limited edition. How cool is that?

I‘d never heard of silkpunk until the #booked2020 prompts were revealed! This one was listed on GR as essential silkpunk. #newtoyougenre #auldlangreads

The protagonist is a ship? I can get down with that. Imaginative and thought provoking.

I pledged to read 15 books for the challenge and ended up with a list of 25, so not bad. I read a couple of novellas and some YA books, which is a bit unusual for me, and the challenge also made me read some older books from my TBR stack - mission accomplished!

Thank you @DuckOfDoom for the idea. It was my first reading challenge and I had a lot of fun!

#SFFTBRChallenge

This just wasn‘t for me. The writing was solid and I liked the idea of shipminds (though I‘d come across a similar concept before in Iain Banks‘ Culture novels), but I couldn‘t connect with the characters and the murder mystery at the center of this novella fell a bit flat for me.

1. Tea Master and the Detective! Beautifully written scifi novella with a creative world.

2. Clockmaker's Daughter (but I loved dissecting it with my book club buddies)

3. 🦸🏾‍♀️ Next Ms. Marvel volume

4. 29 read out of 50 goal so far. 😊

Thanks, @laurenslibrary for the nice #ThursdaySurvey !

Mindships, alternate futures, deep space travel, and a whole new spin on Sherlock Holmes are featured here. Aliette de Bodard's writing manages to be expansive, beautiful, and compact. Not a word is wasted in her novella The Tea Master and The Detective (which recently won a Nebula) yet a whole universe is captured.

The Nebulas were announced and I 100% agree with all of the winners (it's not always the case) and I can count one friend in the list, which is even better!!! Have you read any of them? They're all good!
https://www.tor.com/2019/05/19/announcing-the-2018-nebula-awards-winners/

Tuesday afternoon book stack. I might be in the wrong mood for THE TEA MASTER AND THE DETECTIVE, but I want to give it a shot before I return it unread.

Another small library haul this week: two books I went in for and one comic I couldn‘t leave on the shelf.

A quick sci-fi novella by Aliette Dr Bodard.

I nearly flagged this so-so because it‘s not my favourite Xuya... but that doesn‘t mean this novella shouldn‘t be classed as a good read anyway. I‘d like this better with less overt Sherlock references (still not a Sherlock fan), but I‘d happily read more space opera with a traumatised mindship helping a grumpy intellectual to solve crime.

A fantastic novella that I stayed up late to read! I really enjoyed the conflict and worries of the Tea Master and how abrasive the Detective was. A reimagining of Holmes and Watson in a radically different world!

Such a unique and fun read! A Sherlock Holmes-esque novella set in an Asian inspired space traveling future. Long Chou is a mysterious woman searching for a dead body in space who hires a tea making mindship, The Shadow‘s Child, as her assistant.

Today‘s #libraryhaul. Not much time for reading now that work has started, but I have high hopes for some of these. #teachersoflitsy

Completely forgot to laud the merits of this. I finished it (it's a one-hour novella) at the cottage in August.

An investigation by two older female-identified persons, the titular broken detective and the equally broken shipmind who now specializes in brews to help humans survive deep space travel. In a Vietnamese space empire.

I. Loved. It! Read. It.

I enjoyed this novella, although I was more interested in the characters and the setting (a far future alternate universe where China discovered America before the West) than the mystery its detective sets out to solve. There are several short stories and novellas set in the Xuya Universe, and I plan to read more of them. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Long Chau was an expanding star, burning loud and bright, mesmerising in her relentlessness, and ultimately one that would swallow you whole.

Imagine Sherlock Holmes as an Asian woman in the far future, with a starship AI as her Watson. That‘s the premise behind this novella I started reading last night.

My first pick for the #SFFTBRChallenge and it's a winner!
This novella has two Sherlock Holmes/Dr Watson characters at its center, only the setting is a technologically advanced, asian culture inspired universe, 'Holmes' is an arrogant female detectice and 'Watson' a wounded ship-mind. It's really amazing. The author writes in the afterword that Jeremy Brett and Lucy Liu are the Holmes and Watson close to her heart and yes, I see it.

@DuckOfDoom

Probably the most original Sherlock Holmes homage I've ever read. This time "Holmes" (Long Chau) is a woman and "Watson" (The Shadow's Child) is a sentient spaceship and they occupy an intergalactic empire with a Chinese-Vientnamese culture. It's clever and beautifully written and will definitely be my gateway into de Bodard's complex universe and history, just hinted at in this short but satisfying novella

Didn‘t realize this was a novella; much too short! The mindship reminded me of The Ship Who Sang and Ann Leckie‘s ships as well as Iain Banks‘ ship names but that is not a bad thing. What was compelling was the world building saturated with Vietnamese culture.

I highly recommend this novella. Aliette de Bodard has created a science fiction universe based on her own Vietnamese culture. It's a well-crafted, detailed world. This story perfectly balances the setting and the investigation story and is a great entry to this world.

Evening reading: Wicked into mysteries lately. (Why, yes, I am from Maine, why do you ask?😝)