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I accidentally finished reading The Scorpion Rules last night instead of all the many many other things I am way behind on. It's very good, as pretty much everyone who's read it has said, and if you like that sort of thing you should definitely read it. It starts out seeming like it's going to be your average formulaic SF dystopia where repressed, good-girl, Special protagonist meets Manic Pixie Dream Boy and decides to turn against The Man with him even though it seems hopeless, but then about halfway through, MPDB's badass grandma appears and everything suddenly goes off-script.

Anyway, somebody talk to me about:

1. Just how much Ardmagar Comonot, Anaander Miaanai, and now Michael Talis are apparently MY TYPE;
(1a. effectively immortal; all-powerful rulers who have given in to 100% pragmatism at the cost of conscience but do not enjoy this; are not quite human; are finding this whole "embodiment" thing more complicated than you might think; cope with this through acting out.)
2. How much I regret learning that they are MY TYPE;
3. Why I have suddenly discovered three of them in A ROW none of whom have large fandoms help;

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I really liked that book, and every thing else by that author, though this was very different than her very first two books, which were fantasy-horror.

I liked Telis a lot though, and I liked how twisted the story got. And I liked how Our Heroine made choices.

I loved how much emphasis there was on her choosing, and deciding to choose, and taking responsibility for her choices. it was great.

And I liked Talis a little bit too much. Obvsly. Though I didn't realize until he turned up in person that he was also formerly-human, and he made a lot more sense after that.

I think part of the reason I put off reading it so long is that title+author+cover made me think fantasy-horror, which is not my thing, but while it's def, got some horrible stuff in it, it was really not that at all, no.

Edited 2016-05-11 17:36 (UTC)

Yes, which is really where the book took a turn from the YA dystopia thing for me, because instead of Greta being talked into rebellion by her dream boy, she looked at all the options, and went, "but wait..." It felt really mature and interesting.

I also liked that the love triangle was very low key, involved another girl, and didn't really take over her decision making.

Then the whole sort of morality of human-AI continuum, with people shifting and what it means to lose your physical body, and costs of immortality was a lot more subtle than I've often seen as well. Especially as Talis basically starts out as comic relief, and gets more nuanced as the book goes on and you find out the the humour is holding on, after a fashion, to who he used to be.

I could stand to read that book again. I probably will as a refresher for the next one.

I REALLY LOVE her first two books. Especially Sorrow's Knot, but they are creepy horror. Like, if you don't like vines, really really don't read Sorrow's Knot. Plain Kate has an excellent talking cat though, along with its creeping horror.

oh, uh, good to know. I was tempted by Sorrow's Knot because cat's cradles, but, uh, maybe not.

It's interesting that all three of the book I referenced in this post have a love-triangle-y plot that resolves into lowkey poly. Either that is an interesting trend on which I have incredibly mixed feelings, or the filters I am using to find good books to read are really really effective. (I thought the romance part was the weakest bit of Scorpion Rules, actually - if it had turned out to be more important plotwise the book wouldn't have worked nearly as well, and I really like that the choice became about Greta's life and relationships as a whole, not just the romance.

It's basically a very extended version of that scene in LotR where Frodo wakes up in the Barrow and there's a white wraith hand coming towards him.

The romance didn't blow me away as romance, but I did like that it was bi, and that it didn't turn into She Decided Because Love! She did and she didn't, but her long-term friendships were as much of a factor, and it didn't feel like teen hormone hell, and romanticised at that, as a lot of YA does (which I suppose reflects some reality, but I'm too old for this shit).

Huh. It hadn't previously occurred to me to think of Comonot and Anaander as having something in common, but I like the thought.

(Suddenly I REALLY REALLY want to see Baru Cormorant with effective immortality and absolute power to rule. That book made me so furious, but it is really growing on me now it's over.)

Is the King in Red from Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence in that category for you? (Bearing in mind I've only read the first three books.)

They don't have as much in common with each other as Talis does with either of them, but the basic archetype is there, I think. Comonot is way, way younger and less powerful than Anaander for a start. But I think the Ardmagar could really benefit from sitting down and getting some mentorship from the Lord of the Radch. ^_^

...Baru Cormorant joining the club sounds *terrifying*. But if she lived in a world where uploading yourself into other bodies to gain immortality existed, I can totally see it happening. (I can totally see someone in the Masked Empire power structure thinking uploading her instead of killing her was even a good idea. Mistakenly.)

And I haven't read the