≡ PDF Gratis The Tea Master and the Detective Aliette de Bodard 9781596068643 Books

The Tea Master and the Detective Aliette de Bodard 9781596068643 Books

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The Tea Master and the Detective Aliette de Bodard 9781596068643 Books

Female Sherlock Holmes and John Watson(!), except its set in space(!!) and Watson is a shipmind(!!!).

‘Shipminds such as her were meant to be the centre of families: grown by alchemists in laboratories, borne by human mothers and implanted into the ship-bodies designed for them, they were much longer lived than humans – the repositories of memories and knowledge, the eldest aunts and grandmothers on whom everyone relied.’

From the synopsis:

A transport ship discharged from military service after a traumatic injury, The Shadow’s Child now ekes out a precarious living as a brewer of mind-altering drugs for the comfort of space-travellers. Meanwhile, abrasive and eccentric scholar Long Chau wants to find a corpse for a scientific study. When Long Chau walks into her office, The Shadow’s Child expects an unpleasant but easy assignment. When the corpse turns out to have been murdered, Long Chau feels compelled to investigate, dragging The Shadow’s Child with her.

So yes. The Shadow’s Child = John Watson. Long Chau = Sherlock Holmes. And the characterisation is so superbly beautiful.

This is set in de Bodard’s ‘Universe of the Xuya’ which is: ‘Xuya is a recurring universe in my alternate histories, the premise being that China discovered the Americas before the West, and that the exploration of this new continent prevented China from sinking inwards (not to mention being invaded by the Manchu, who later founded the ill-fated Qing dynasty, China’s last imperial dynasty).’

So with all that said to accurately give you an idea of what we’re playing with here, let me just say as someone quite invested in the canon (and yet also loves the first few seasons of the BBC’s Sherlock), I utterly adore this. SO much. Have you ever had the feeling that a book could make you cry it’s just so overwhelmingly perfect? This is the book to come closest for a good long while.

It both pays respectful nods to what makes these long-lasting characters so everlasting, and yet also has developed itself into something entirely its own. It’s set in space and yet there are still mysteries. There’s the bureaucracy and overworked staff who won’t be able to look into a random murdered woman properly. There’s the gossip and care between different ships. There’s the idea of the mindship, how they exist, and the memories they carry.

I need a whole series of these two and their seemingly effortless interactions. The dialogue is one of the reasons we all love the duo so much, and de Bodard does so well at replicating this eloquently, yet also with the added layer of the Chinese customs and respect. And the culture!

This book was everything I didn’t know I needed, and I picked it up at exactly the right time. Now I need to go fling it at people’s faces to spread the joy.


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The Tea Master and the Detective Aliette de Bodard 9781596068643 Books Reviews

Its a bit too short to really do the story justice, the history behind the events of what happened to the ship was just vague enough to be a bit irritating, and the personality of the Holmes character didnt really have time to warm up, so felt rather jarring as a result. A longer story would have smoothed over those issues better, its two complicated characters in a complicated situation and in a futuristic world I found a bit confusing as it was only lightly brushed over. But as a gender bent culturally different variation of Holmes it was very nicely done and a worthy entrant into the arena.
I really enjoyed this short Space Opera, and over time, I realized that I actually loved it. The story left very pleasant after taste. It was somewhat familiar, yet totally unique. Many readers called the story bland of Sherlock Holmes and The Ship Who… series. For me it was less Sherlock Holmes (truly Long Chau could be any detective in the genre’s history), but it definitely reminded me of my beloved The Ship Who Snag. Just without the feeling of inferiority, brainships seem to experience. Aliette de Bodard’s Mindships are quite self-confident and highly respected. I loved that their self-projections are actually holographic ships and that they live full lives via holograms and bots. I loved that The Shadow's Child’s hobby is reading popular Romances. She reads because it makes her feel good, not to distract herself from unfulfilled desire for her pilot.
I loved both characters and the interactions between the two. For such a short story, both of them were well developed and full of hidden depth. I enjoyed how the story explored various mental issues and the way the characters dealt or not dealt with them. I loved the mystery, which was intriguing and unexpected. I really hope there will be more stories with drug-addicted detective and her good friend tea-brewing spaceship.
The Shadow’s Child is a mindship, the mind a human woman shaped from birth to serve as the brain and soul of a spaceship (the concept made me think of Anne McCaffrey’s long-ago science fiction series that started with The Ship Who Sang). After a traumatic battle in deep space that destroyed her human crew, however, The Shadow’s Child has a crippling case of the mindship equivalent of PTSD, which keeps her from ever wanting to venture into that realm again. She must therefore eke out a living doing transport chores at the edges of space and (as an avatar) preparing “tea” for human clients mixtures of drugs that will help them physically and mentally survive their own deep-space journeys.

Her most challenging client is Long Chau, a prickly and outspoken woman detective who is searching for a corpse that has died in deep space. Once Long Chau retrieves the corpse, she finds mysteries about the woman’s death that she is determined to solve, and The Shadow’s Child is slowly—and against her better judgment—drawn into the quest with her. This mystery aspect, presumably, has caused a number of reviewers to compare Long Chau to Sherlock Holmes, with The Shadow’s Child as her Watson, but I didn’t find the resemblance all that strong.

The mystery is quite adequate, but the best thing about the book is the two complex women at its center, their interactions and growing friendship-of-sorts. The second-best thing is the intriguing future society (seemingly with Asian roots) of which they are a part, which the reader learns about mostly through hints dropped here and there. I understand that the author has written a number of other stories set in this “Scattered Pearls” world, and I may look up some of them. Meanwhile, I can recommend this novella highly to anyone who wants a good character-driven story with an interesting setting.
Female Sherlock Holmes and John Watson(!), except its set in space(!!) and Watson is a shipmind(!!!).

‘Shipminds such as her were meant to be the centre of families grown by alchemists in laboratories, borne by human mothers and implanted into the ship-bodies designed for them, they were much longer lived than humans – the repositories of memories and knowledge, the eldest aunts and grandmothers on whom everyone relied.’

From the synopsis

A transport ship discharged from military service after a traumatic injury, The Shadow’s Child now ekes out a precarious living as a brewer of mind-altering drugs for the comfort of space-travellers. Meanwhile, abrasive and eccentric scholar Long Chau wants to find a corpse for a scientific study. When Long Chau walks into her office, The Shadow’s Child expects an unpleasant but easy assignment. When the corpse turns out to have been murdered, Long Chau feels compelled to investigate, dragging The Shadow’s Child with her.

So yes. The Shadow’s Child = John Watson. Long Chau = Sherlock Holmes. And the characterisation is so superbly beautiful.

This is set in de Bodard’s ‘Universe of the Xuya’ which is ‘Xuya is a recurring universe in my alternate histories, the premise being that China discovered the Americas before the West, and that the exploration of this new continent prevented China from sinking inwards (not to mention being invaded by the Manchu, who later founded the ill-fated Qing dynasty, China’s last imperial dynasty).’

So with all that said to accurately give you an idea of what we’re playing with here, let me just say as someone quite invested in the canon (and yet also loves the first few seasons of the BBC’s Sherlock), I utterly adore this. SO much. Have you ever had the feeling that a book could make you cry it’s just so overwhelmingly perfect? This is the book to come closest for a good long while.

It both pays respectful nods to what makes these long-lasting characters so everlasting, and yet also has developed itself into something entirely its own. It’s set in space and yet there are still mysteries. There’s the bureaucracy and overworked staff who won’t be able to look into a random murdered woman properly. There’s the gossip and care between different ships. There’s the idea of the mindship, how they exist, and the memories they carry.

I need a whole series of these two and their seemingly effortless interactions. The dialogue is one of the reasons we all love the duo so much, and de Bodard does so well at replicating this eloquently, yet also with the added layer of the Chinese customs and respect. And the culture!

This book was everything I didn’t know I needed, and I picked it up at exactly the right time. Now I need to go fling it at people’s faces to spread the joy.