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A review by fruitcd
The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells
Thoroughly delightful! This quickly shot up to the top of my favorite Martha Wells fantasy list and sits comfortably up there with City of Bones. The Death of the Necromancer is a murder mystery gaslamp fantasy set in a Paris-London fusion city hovering on the brink of industrialization, and Martha Wells flexes her anthropology degree here, the city being packed with an abundance of small details that help it feel real and lived in. This book is also vaguely a Sherlock Holmes adaptation, with our morally grey protagonist Nicholas being Moriarty, sidekick/gay best friend Reynard being his Sebastion Moran, and sidekick/lover Madeline being Irene Adler (Holmes and Watson also appear later on in the novel as their rivals-turned-reluctant-allies Inspector Ronsarde and Doctor Halle). I am not usually a big mystery or Holmes reader, so maybe this will feel derivative if you are a big Sherlock Holmes fan, but like I said-- it was all new to me and I found it very engaging and fun. The characters are great, the pacing is great, and the ending is great!
Although for me personally, Nicholas got over the whole "all I have in my life is revenge" thing way too easily after it was built up as this big inner conflict, and it also kind of felt like Reynard kind of just fell out a hole in the back of the story at the end. This is probably because the true ending of this book has Nicholas/Reynard/Madeline doing some Challengers shit, but sadly it was published in 1998 so it was not to be. Can't believe there's a scene in this book where Madeline is like "Did you ever sleep with my boyfriend" and Reynard is like "Well no but if I really asked he probably would be down" and Madeline is like "Real and true"... thank you for this food Martha Wells.
Although for me personally, Nicholas got over the whole "all I have in my life is revenge" thing way too easily after it was built up as this big inner conflict, and it also kind of felt like Reynard kind of just fell out a hole in the back of the story at the end. This is probably because the true ending of this book has Nicholas/Reynard/Madeline doing some Challengers shit, but sadly it was published in 1998 so it was not to be. Can't believe there's a scene in this book where Madeline is like "Did you ever sleep with my boyfriend" and Reynard is like "Well no but if I really asked he probably would be down" and Madeline is like "Real and true"... thank you for this food Martha Wells.