The Spare Man
Nov. 13th, 2022 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI was very excited to see a new novel from Mary Robinette Kowal coming out - a whole new world and cast of characters to enjoy!
She always does a good job narrating, so I got the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's a murder mystery set on a spaceship cruise between Earth and Mars, so lots of fun.
Kowal has extrapolated the potential progression of pronoun use and gender identity, giving all the characters a gender neutral title and having witnesses in the murder investigation be unwilling to describe people in terms of gender if they don't know how they identify. It's an interesting approach and a valiant effort, though it did feel a bit overdone in places.
I also struggled a bit with the protagonist in some ways - she's super rich and very famous and uses that to her advantage at multiple points throughout the book. She's very aware of her privilege and there's a lot of commentary about that - but she does still manipulate, bully and intimidate people due to her status, which is an interesting direction to take with the main character in a book.
I did still like her overall - and the presentation and treatment of her deep personal trauma were handled very well. Plus, awesome service dog!!
There was a fair amount of exposition towards the end, in order to wrap everything up - so the book did feel a bit clunky in places.
However, great characters, interesting inter-relationships, a really wonderful dog, a fun and well-realised setting, and good narration made this a very entertaining experiences overall.
She always does a good job narrating, so I got the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's a murder mystery set on a spaceship cruise between Earth and Mars, so lots of fun.
Kowal has extrapolated the potential progression of pronoun use and gender identity, giving all the characters a gender neutral title and having witnesses in the murder investigation be unwilling to describe people in terms of gender if they don't know how they identify. It's an interesting approach and a valiant effort, though it did feel a bit overdone in places.
I also struggled a bit with the protagonist in some ways - she's super rich and very famous and uses that to her advantage at multiple points throughout the book. She's very aware of her privilege and there's a lot of commentary about that - but she does still manipulate, bully and intimidate people due to her status, which is an interesting direction to take with the main character in a book.
I did still like her overall - and the presentation and treatment of her deep personal trauma were handled very well. Plus, awesome service dog!!
There was a fair amount of exposition towards the end, in order to wrap everything up - so the book did feel a bit clunky in places.
However, great characters, interesting inter-relationships, a really wonderful dog, a fun and well-realised setting, and good narration made this a very entertaining experiences overall.
