emperor: (Default)
emperor ([personal profile] emperor) wrote2023-08-07 11:28 am

Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree

The cover promises "High fantasy, low stakes, good company", and certainly delivers. Viv is an Orc who retires from adventuring to run a coffee shop, in a city where no-one has heard of coffee (so supplies including the necessary machinery have to be bought from far-off gnomes). It's an entertaining take on the coffee shop AU beloved of fanfic authors, and it is lovely to watch Viv building a new life and family around her coffee shop (including a visiting dire-cat!).

It's frothy fun, and I enjoyed reading it, but I'm not sure it's really award-winning material...
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)

[personal profile] rmc28 2023-08-07 11:46 am (UTC)(link)

I definitely agree with your final sentence :-)

jack: (Default)

[personal profile] jack 2023-08-07 01:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah. I want to award it for being written and I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it as much as I hoped. (And I mean, I think I wanted more froth, more small stakes conflict and success, not that I wanted bigger stakes.)
hilarita: stoat hiding under a log (Default)

[personal profile] hilarita 2023-08-07 05:16 pm (UTC)(link)
It's very cute, but not what I'd class as the best SF of 2022...
wpadmirer: (Default)

[personal profile] wpadmirer 2023-08-07 07:22 pm (UTC)(link)
I have no idea about this book in particular, but one of the things I find in competitions is that often lighter material is considered "lesser" in terms of literary quality. Comedies rarely win prizes.

I have no ideas about the books nominated for the Hugo this year as I haven't been reading science fiction the last 16 months or so because of writing my own book. (Though I did take a short break for a scifi series called THE FORSAKEN MERCENARY which has some seriously kickass battle scenes.)