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A review by chantaal
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
5.0
This was everything I could have hoped for and I just love Bennett’s imagination, I JUST LOVE IT.
What to say about this, when RJB's imagination is so rich and weird and lovely to walk through? This is a murder mystery set in a world where kaiju-like sea creatures constantly try to breach massive seawalls put up to protect the land, where plants are used as building material and to enhance people's abilities, where a murder mystery is kicked off when a man is killed by having a weird tree sprout from inside of him.
The character work is great here. We follow Din, who is an apprentice investigator to Ana, who has her own eccentricities that lead to the Holmes comparisons. Din has been enhanced in a way where he uses smell to remember everything, which is so interesting? Especially when we learn that he has a reading disability on top of it - likely dyslexia. There are plenty of other side characters that are well drawn out, each one laying another brick in the absolutely solid world building.
The murder mystery itself was really good, and while I could see where some of it was going, there were moments that I was pleasantly blindsided. The mystery did plenty more service toward the world building, and that's where RJB's strengths lie in his novels. He's not just an infodumper; while there are narrative moments like that, every little part of his books and characters help draw out a solid picture of the world he sets his story in.
I cannot WAIT for the rest of this series, I'm all in. I also want to go back and re-read City of Stairs and finish out that trilogy, since I never got to it back in the day.
What to say about this, when RJB's imagination is so rich and weird and lovely to walk through? This is a murder mystery set in a world where kaiju-like sea creatures constantly try to breach massive seawalls put up to protect the land, where plants are used as building material and to enhance people's abilities, where a murder mystery is kicked off when a man is killed by having a weird tree sprout from inside of him.
The character work is great here. We follow Din, who is an apprentice investigator to Ana, who has her own eccentricities that lead to the Holmes comparisons. Din has been enhanced in a way where he uses smell to remember everything, which is so interesting? Especially when we learn that he has a reading disability on top of it - likely dyslexia. There are plenty of other side characters that are well drawn out, each one laying another brick in the absolutely solid world building.
The murder mystery itself was really good, and while I could see where some of it was going, there were moments that I was pleasantly blindsided. The mystery did plenty more service toward the world building, and that's where RJB's strengths lie in his novels. He's not just an infodumper; while there are narrative moments like that, every little part of his books and characters help draw out a solid picture of the world he sets his story in.
I cannot WAIT for the rest of this series, I'm all in. I also want to go back and re-read City of Stairs and finish out that trilogy, since I never got to it back in the day.