The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses Malka Older

I am really enjoying this series! I first started reading this series of novellas when the first one was nominated for a Hugo Award. I really enjoyed it and checked the second one out of the library shortly after I finished it and liked that a lot too! I’m all for a Holmes/Watson framework for a mystery, and I have loved SF mysteries since I discovered the Caves of Steel in junior high. I was excited when I got an eARC of this third volume from Tor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

The mystery in this book is not quite as fun as in the first two - frankly, by the time of the solution I had forgotten who several of the suspects were. I love the world building and the setting of these books, and the characters are the reason I keep coming back. I understand why the narrator is infatuated with Mossa- I love Mossa as a character- but Mossa is a terrible person to be in a relationship with and it shows (as, presumably, Sherlock Holmes would be a dreadful boyfriend).  I enjoyed how academic research was key to solving the mystery. And I enjoyed just how terrible an investigator/interviewer the narrator was (I was also taking a science-based interviewing course for law enforcement while reading this book).  

Bottom line - I will happily keep reading these as long as the author keeps writing them. 

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

This was an excellent book but possibly the worst audiobook I have ever encountered. 

I really enjoyed This is How You Lose the Time War (I read it when it came out, years before Bigolas Dickolas) so I was excited when I heard that Amal El-Mohtar had her first solo book coming out. I didn’t get an eARC from the publisher but I did get an audio ARC. I love audiobooks - I’ve had an audible membership since before Amazon bought them - and I listen to audiobooks all the time. I almost never listen to music. I want to listen to a book. What I don’t want is to listen to music when I’m trying to focus on a story. What I want even less is to listen to running water when I’m listening to an audiobook. Do you get where I’m going here?

This is a delightful, if slight, story. (The hardcover is less than 150 pages - I’m read longer novellas so I don’t know why it’s being advertised as a novel). It’s a tale of 2 sisters in a fantasy realm where people can cross over to sort of a fae realm but the villian ( a needy incel) is sadly much more based in reality. 

I enjoyed the sisters and their story. But the audiobook production was atrocious! You could barely hear the narrator some times due to the music or the running water sounds. They were just dreadful. And the producers obviously didn’t think about what listening at higher speeds would do to their sound effects. Like many people, I listen to audiobooks at around 2X speed. I find many narrators are too slow and this way I can enjoy more books. But at an increased speed, the sound effects and the singing, and the music were just intolerable.

Do yourself a favor, get this book in hardcover or e-book formats. It was an excellent story and I will happily read anything else this author writes. Don’t get the audiobook.