The Tainted Cup (SF) - Robert Jackson Bennett *****

The science fiction/murder mystery crossover has been well-established in space opera and Earth-based high-tech futures, but The Tainted Cup gives us a very different, if equally impressive approach. Physical technology on the featured planet is pretty much medieval, but biological enhancements are commonplace. This is not due to advanced science, but rather with the approach of a herbalist on a planet where some of the biological specimens are able to cause such dramatic changes.

The narrator, Din, is a young assistant investigator recently started in his first position. His enhancements as an engraver are slightly reminiscent of a mentat in Dune, giving him perfect recall and leading to surprising sword fighting abilities. His boss, Ana, is more complex - a combination of Mycroft Holmes from the modern-day set Sherlock TV show and Judge Dee from van Gulik's remarkable books. Except she wears a blindfold most of the time and swears a lot more. (The author likens her to a cross between Nero Wolfe and Hannibal Lecter.)

There are distinct parallels with the approach of van Gulik's seventh century Chinese magistrate, both in a tendency to issue instructions on strips of parchment while rarely investigating personally, basing Ana's work on mental acuity, and in the rigidly structured society. The echoes are even stronger when the pair are joined by a heavy duty soldier, Captain Miljin.

What starts as the investigation of a single bizarre murder ends up dealing with society at the highest levels with multiple deaths and the opening of a rift in the sea wall that protects the land from sea-based leviathans. Although Bennett introduces a lot of novel concepts, it's never in a way that the reader gets lost - just immersed in a beautifully imagined world.

The overall result is magical, though despite the description, I would say this is SF not fantasy - there is no actual magic involved. I can't remember when I last read a book where I was so desperate to get back to it and continue the experience. If I could give it six stars, I would.

Paperback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

The Autobiography – Charles Darwin ****

I have to confess to putting off reading this book until the last moment, as I expected it to be a typical piece of Victorian sentimental unreadable stodge. I was wrong. Darwin’s little book (only 150 small pages with appendices) was originally written for his own children, and displays a very personal style of writing – though, as son Francis comments, his style was always more populist than was common then: “In writing he sometimes showed the same strong tendency to strong expressions that he did in conversation. Thus in the Origin, p440, there is a description of a larvel [sic] cirripede ‘with six pairs of beautifully constructed natatory legs, a pair of magnificent compound eyes and extremely complex antennae’. We used to laugh at him for this sentence, which we compared to an advertisement.” The main book is delightful because it demonstrates Darwin’s self-depreciating modesty, and the fascinating path he took from enthusiastic shooter of game, to amateur geologist (still his...

Zero Degrees of Empathy [The Science of Evil] – Simon Baron-Cohen ***

I’ve been a real fan of previous books by Simon Baron-Cohen like The Essential Difference , so opening this was one was a pleasant prospect. What I found was a book that wasn’t bad … but that could have been a lot better. I got the impression of a book that had been rushed out without a lot of work going into it. The thesis at the heart of the book – that one of the important ‘circuits’ of the brain is the one dealing with empathy, and that individuals sit on an empathy spectrum, with some residing at zero degrees of empathy – is an interesting one. Baron-Cohen introduces us to three key personality types he defines as ‘zero-negative’ including psychopaths, plus types that are ‘zero-positive’ like those with Asperger’s. In a way both of these definitions are odd, in that his zero-negatives can actually have a lot of the kind of empathy that involves being able to read another person’s emotional state, and his zero-negatives can have a lot of the kind of empathy i...

Search This Blog