My thoughts on this series have not really changed. I appreciate what MRK is doing with the world, I think her choices involving magic and, in particular, a kind of coded-feminine magic (as a way of also thinking through gender politics in the Regency) shows both ingenuity and an execution I can appreciate.
The language continues to throw me off and the more time we spend with the characters in familiar (especially to Austen readers) England, the more frustrating the experience is. I'm please that Kowal has moved beyond the Austenian plot into stories that take place on the larger stage of the world if only because I find that her evocations of Austen just don't work for me.
It's as though the early 19th century is her second language. She gets all the words right, but lacks the fluidity either of a native or of a truly exceptional student. It's the difference between having the dictionary and being able to think or dream in a second language. The words are all there, but the dream does not take hold.
Still, you know, fascinating series, glad it exists, will be putting the 4th one on hold at the library to read it soon.

A nice little fairy tale or fairy tales, cleverly woven and nicely done with only one character being pointlessly stupid for the sake of the plot.

All the fun of the Pink Carnation series, none of the super-drawn-out-ness. I could get behind that. Also, it was very exciting to move into my preferred historical period and see some Pre-Raphaelites.
Charming, clever - the usual things one says about a romance novel - and I think Willig did a particularly good job here with the characters and the implicit romance of finding oneself (not with a guy, although occasionally because of one) that has become such an important part of contemporary romance. It's an interesting trend and one that I can only applaud.

I picked up Emma Newman's novels because of the podcast with the homicidal butler. Obviously.
(No, seriously, Tea and Jeopardy is a joy to listen to - it and The Hidden Almanac are my two favorite "bemuse the spouse" podcasts).
And because I was introduced to her work through podcast (and because the library only has the third volume in The Split Worlds), I got the audio version. Which I loved. Newman's performance, at least in terms of character voices, is understated and she works through slight modulations in tone and pitch. It's more like storytelling than acting, which works, both for the story and for her voice. I really like the sense that the author is reading me their story - not just in the "I can pay 15 dollars a month and have famous people read me a bedtime story" sense, although there is that, but in the perceived connection of hearing the story as the author imagines it. It's pretty cool.
And it helps that Newman's take on the Fae court and urban/fairy fantasy feels both innovative and fun. You can tell that she put an extraordinary amount of thought into the world building...but she never seemed to sacrifice the story just to share the details. And the geeky references were just the icing on the cake. Not that I have a checklist of things an urban fantasy novel should do to make me like it, but if I did, Newman's book would hit every one.

This book was incredibly interesting, but not quite what I wanted. It needed more math (or I wasn't the intended audience). I wanted more details about the precise application of Bayesian ideas in each case to understand not only what they were trying to do, but how it actually worked.

Also, I was reading this on a Saturday and some dimwit who had taken the book out of the library before me had written in the errata without noting that was what he (i assume) was doing so it looked like he was arguing with the author incomprehensibly until I figured out what was going on.

That had nothing to do with the book, of course.

I wanted to like this book far more than I did. There's so much that it wants to do and tries to do that's admirable and interesting and yet it sets its sights rather high and tends to miss when it leaps.

The plot felt extraordinarily disjointed and like it was being cobbled together out of spare scenes rather than fully constructed. It felt rushed and unfinished.

But my main issue was the narrative voice. It felt to me that the main character spoke and acted differently as a narrator than as a character. The story is told in he the first person, but the narrative voice feels weirdly disconnected from the character. In particular, she has a tendency to tell you what she's feeling, but give no indication through her actions that she actually feels that way.

Overall, this book just felt incomplete and rushed and I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as the first.

Having said that, I'm still delighted that a character like Uncle Tully exists in fiction.

The [a:Elizabeth Bear|108173|Elizabeth Bear|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1219878171p2/108173.jpg] catch-up read proceeds apace. I quite enjoy this whole "waiting until the last book comes out before starting the series" thing.
Aside from the obvious fact that it's wonderful to see historically inspired fantasy that does no take place solely within Western Europe or relegate women to cattle and chattel, I really enjoyed Bear's eye for descriptive language and evoking the feel of the places she takes her readers and her characters. More epic fantasy like this, please!
Fortunately, there are two more books in this trilogy so I am likely to get my wish.

Note: rating changed from 3 to 4 stars on this reread.

I enjoyed this book the first time I read it, but I didn't get it, not in the way that I got it this time. Kushner's writing is within the realm of fantasy, but not really fantasy and her characters are enough to drive you mad even when you love them.

Listening to the book did make me love them again (even the damn Mad Duke, who is delightfully, wonderfully awful) and Katherine's story resonates now in a way that it didn't when I first read the book (which my brain believes was a long time ago, but it only came out 8 years ago so clearly I'm misremembering). I think I had read it then with the goal of making sense out of [b:The Fall of Kings|20002|The Fall of the Kings (Riverside, #3)|Ellen Kushner|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388335315s/20002.jpg|1441950]...which is still a goal of mine.

But returning to this book not long after listening through [b:Swordspoint|68485|Swordspoint (Riverside, #1)|Ellen Kushner|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388903158s/68485.jpg|1453593], I find I like it a lot better (also, how did I forget about St. Vier?) for the story it tells, the realness of the characters, the rawness of the situations they face and how well Kushner deals with the role of women and, as she puts it, the Privilege of the Sword. This book does so many clever things that I entirely failed to appreciate on first read and I'm so glad I took the time to listen.

Well, I have audible credits sitting around. I wonder whether [b:The Fall of Kings|20002|The Fall of the Kings (Riverside, #3)|Ellen Kushner|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388335315s/20002.jpg|1441950] will win me over if I try it one more time.

I enjoyed this more than i thought, although I could also see the issues with it.

My biggest problem with Kowal's writing is that she's not so much evoking Austen as imitating her and it sounds just a bit off to my ear. Which makes me a pretentious little git, I realize, but part of the reason so many romance novels work is that they're not really trying to be 19th century writers, just to get the feeling of them. Kowal's trying and she's quite good, but it still feels off.

And this is clearly her first book. The plot occasionally runs away from her and she's trying to tell a regency romance, a world-focused fantasy and an adventure. So elements of each end up feeling rushed.

Having said all of that, I quite enjoyed it and look forward to the next books, which I hear are even better (which would make sense).