Karnstein Review

I’ve read 24 of them....

Ok so it’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted anything here and honestly I don’t have an exact reason as to why I haven’t posted as much. 

I’ve been reading...quite a lot actually. 

I’ve been reading lots of queer SFF. 

I’ve even written reviews for books and just haven’t posted them. So why haven’t I posted here? 

Like I said, I don’t really have an exact reason as to why, but every time I’ve thought about composing a review for a queer SFF book I’ve read, I’ve felt weirdly constricted. I’ve put off books I’ve wanted to read just because I felt like reading them for the express purpose of reviewing them for this blog was just stressful. Even proofreading and posting the reviews I’ve already read felt just...weird to me. 

But the thing is that I really want to talk about things I’m reading, and I want to share the books that have good queer rep, and I don’t really want to give up on this blog entirely. So I’m going to change some things. 

First, I’m not going to just review queer fantasy. I’m still queer and I still read a lot of queer SFF, so if I keep up with this blog as much as I want, there should still be plenty of that. But I want to talk about books without having to analyze the queer rep (or lack thereof) constantly. I mean, I’m almost definitely going to do that, but I’m not going to make it my job to do that. If I keep reviewing books, I’m not sure the exact form that will take, but it’s not going to be hyperfocused on the queerness. 

Second, I’m going to try to do more than just post reviews. Not exactly sure what else I’m going to do, but I want to talk about books somewhat more casually. I kinda feel like I want to use my instagram more (or at all lol) so feel free to follow that in case that happens. The link is in my bio, as well as links to other accounts. 

The Affair of the Mysterious Letter on Goodreads

Release Year: 2019

Format I Read: physical book

Length: 340 pages

Original Post: https://karnsteinreview.com/2020/06/15/the-affair-of-the-mysterious-letter/

The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall is a fantastical, weird retelling of a Sherlock Holmes story. The narrator–the Watson parallel–is a trans man named John Wyndham who is a veteran of a time war, while the Holmes parallel is an absolutely ridiculous sorceress named Shaharazad Haas. This book is loosely based on “A Scandal in Bohemia” and follows Wyndham recounting when he and Haas were hired by an ex-girlfriend of Haas, Eirene Viola, to find the identity of an individual trying to blackmail her into calling off her upcoming wedding. The major twist here is the fact that this takes place in an absolutely wild world that includes magic, time travel, and literally cosmic horrors. There are vampires. There are sorceresses. There is planetary and interdimensional travel. There are eldritch abominations. All of this is an improvement to Doyle’s stories, really.

This story doesn’t hold too dearly to the Sherlockian storylines and concepts, so if you aren’t a fan of Sherlock Holmes or aren’t familiar with them, that shouldn’t be a turn off from the book. If you understand the general concept of Sherlock Holmes, then I think that is enough for people to understand what they’ll need to understand going in.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book a lot. It wasn’t heavy in material and it was just a fun book to read. Honestly, the word I’d use to describe it is “wacky.” There’s a lot of worldbuilding, but none of that worldbuiling is rather deep. That was one of the biggest hang ups I had when getting into the story. I would read a section and then feel like I needed to reread it because I hadn’t taken in the sheer amount of worldbuilidng that had happened in that section, but that is largely the point, I think. You don’t really need to understand or take in every single detail that gets dropped, because it’s not really the content that is important there, but the ideas that the content is trying to give you. Once I accepted that, it was much easier to get into the book and enjoy it. We get taken from scene to scene, setting to setting, bizarre concept to bizarre concept pretty quickly and don’t linger on any of them for too long. While I definitely enjoy books that are deeper in exploring what they put out, I think this book specifically really accomplishes what it’s trying to do better by not lingering anywhere for too long. Especially since this is supposedly being written by Wyndham as a series of installments for an in-world publication.

As for the queer/LGBT content, there is a whole lot of it. As I mentioned in my description, our narrator, John, is a trans man and he reveals that pretty much immediately (literally on the second page). I believe he’s also attracted to men, though I don’t remember his sexuality being brought up that often. Haas–our Sherlock Holmes–is queer in some way but I’m not sure its ever specified how. I’ve seen some reviewers saying that she was pansexual but I don’t remember that being specifically said in the text. Regardless, she has past relationships with women, and that is literally the motivation for one of her exes to hire her. That ex, Eriene Viola, is also sapphic (obviously) and is engaged to a woman. Throughout the course of the story you also see some of her previous romances, but talking about that too much you entail spoilers.

All in all, this is a very queer book and its very blatantly so. If you’re looking for a queer book that isn’t super romance heavy, then this is probably a good one. There’s a little bit of that, but it doesn’t involve the main characters. The blurb on the front cover calls it queer and, for once, that promise feels fulfilled by the book itself.

In terms of content that might turn you off, there’s only really one thing that might be off putting. Warning for transphobia here: Wyndham comes from a society that doesn’t accept his gender and we don’t ever really see him within that society except in background information that he provides. He doesn’t get too detailed about that but it’s present. There’s also one scene in particular where someone (who is basically the equivalent of a cop) tries to order him to deadname himself. He doesn’t and he reads the hell out of the woman trying to get him to do it, but it’s a scene that happens. The transphobia is portrayed as completely wrong, but it is present briefly in the book. I am pretty sure that this is the worse it gets, and as I’m not a trans person, I’m not going to try to judge how affecting this scene may or may not be.

Heads up to anyone in the US, Priory of the Orange Tree is currently $1.99 today in the kindle store (link to kindle store)!

Gideon the Ninth on Goodreads

Release Year: 2019

Format I Read: audio book

Length: 448 pages

Genres: Space fantasy

LGBT Rep: Lesbian main character

Spoiler-Free Review: 

So this review might be a little controversial.

I have been thinking about this book for a few weeks now, trying to process it and figure out exactly what my opinions are. Looking back, I was just hoping that my opinions on it would improve. But they didn’t.

Gideon the Ninth was an extremely hyped book that if you didn’t know about already its probably because you aren’t following any book related news or social media. The words “lesbian necromancers in space” is literally written on the cover. That’s not technically wrong.

The thing I liked the most about this book was the humor. It was a lot more snarky and sarcastic than I expected it to be, and I thought it really worked and I really did enjoy it. Gideon is a fun narrator to be in the head of. That’s by far my favorite part of the book.

The rest of the book I’m severely neutral on. The worldbuilding was barely existent. A frame was given, but I never had a good idea of the scale of this, what anything was supposed to feel like or how dire any of this was actually supposed to be. Were these houses control of all of known existence or were they like, one tiny group in a massive galactic society? I literally had no idea. Also there’s apparently there’s a war going on. With who or what the scale of that is, again, no clue. The plot was kind of there. I constantly felt like I had missed something because I didn’t always know what was going on, but the more I look at other reviews, the more I think that’s just the book not explaining what is going on well. I never really cared much about any of the characters besides the two main ones, mostly because I wasn’t really given a reason to. When people started dying the most I felt was “ah man, I guess that sucks.”

But I’m here to talk about the queerness of this right? Well? They’re queer?

Gideon being gay is obvious and never really made into a Big Thing, so I’ll give the story that much. It managed to make an obviously queer character without there needing to be a romance. Speaking of, I’m not entirely sure there was a romance or not. When I finished the book, I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a full-on enemies-to-lovers trope, or just enemies-to-friends. I’ve seen people say it was a romance. I’ve seen people say there was no romance in this book. In some cases, ambiguity like that might be a good thing and well written. I don’t think this is the case of with Gideon the Ninth though. I think its just not good at making clear anything that’s going on in this book.

If this is a lesbian romance, oh boy. Not sure how I feel about that. I’ll discuss this more after the spoiler break. Regardless the blurb “lesbian necromancers in space” isn’t technically wrong but it also promises a bit more than the book actually gave. 

Synopsis: I’m going to give the publisher’s synopsis because I don’t have the energy to try to compose my own synopsis for this:

“The Emperor needs necromancers. The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman. Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit. Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as necromantic skeletons. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy. Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die. Of course, some things are better left dead.”

The Good: I already said, they made it clear that Gideon is a lesbian without having to make a big deal of it. There’s also no homophobia or anything like that. 

What Might Hinder You from Reading It: I’m not sure of any specific content warnings I’d point out, but if you don’t like undead necromancy stuff, then definitely don’t read this.

Would I Recommend It?: I don’t know. I wouldn’t try to stop someone from reading it or anything, but I probably wouldn’t suggest it as a good queer book. Or in general. It might make my list if I had to compile of list of queer sff, but it wouldn’t be toward the top.

Now for the Spoilers: 

Carmilla on Goodreads

Release Year: 1872

Format I Read: audio dramatization (previously read the ebook)

Length: 2h 22m

Genres: Horror, Gothic, Vampires

This review is going to be a little different.

Since we’re in the midst of spooky season and Halloween is less than a week away as I’m writing this, I decided now would be a good time to reread and discuss this book. The fact that audible is giving away a dramatization of this book for subscribers also helped, and though I’ve read Carmilla before, the dramatization is the version I went with for the reread. The dramatization is really good, all the actors are wonderful and Rose Leslie in particular really said gay rights with her performance.

Carmilla is a book that I’m always surprised by the people who do know what it is and the people who don’t. I feel like it has gotten a lot more recognition over the past few years with the web series of the same name being pretty popular among internet gays, but even some people who watched that web series didn’t realize that it was based on a novella from the 1800s (though it said as much in the credits).

In case you don’t know, Carmilla is a novella that revolves around a young woman named Laura who lives in Styria with her father, and under weird circumstances they take in a house guest: Carmilla, a girl who appears to be of a similar age as Laura. Assumptions can be made when I say that this is a vampire story, and its ones that predates Dracula by several decades. It’s also very gay and the namesake of this very blog you’re reading now.

I don’t think spoilers really ruin the book, and I think a lot of the “spoilers” that I’m going to discuss are rather obvious, but here is your one and only spoiler warning. Normally I’d be more careful, but as I said, this is a different sort of review.

Given that I named my blog Karnstein Review, after the Duchess Karnstein herself, it should be fairly obvious that I adore this book. It’s a book I knew at least hinted at some sort of sapphic relationship between Laura and Carmilla, but when I’d first read it, I assumed it would just be hints. And subtle hints at that. It was written in the 1870s, after all. Well, it’s very very very gay. I’m not sure how else to describe it other than that. The gayness is not only overt, they blatantly discuss love and romance and kiss each other. It’s a lot more than I expected from a 19th book.

But, I also have to acknowledge that it is a 19th century book about a lesbian, and it’s one written by a man nonetheless. Things don’t end well for Carmilla and Laura’s relationship, and there’s pretty intense judgement on any kind of sexual feelings, much less sexual feelings between two women. The message that Carmilla’s seduction of Laura is wrong and immoral is as blatant as her seduction of Laura is. So why do I like this book so much?

Well, for one thing, I’ve always been a sucker for vampire stories (my god I only realized that pun after I wrote it). I think that a lot of queer people who grew up with religious backgrounds are drawn to vampires and vampire stories, and there’s a reason for that. Particularly with these older stories like Carmilla and Dracula, one of the major themes of vampire stories is sexual fear, desires, and moralizing about those things. Vampires represent something that we are told is dangerous. Something that can kill us and even hurt our very soul. Vampires will seduce you and take something from you that you need to live a normal happy life. They may even steal your salvation. In Carmilla when I was rereading it, I noted that her need for blood is never described as thirst or hunger. It’s called lust, specifically “lust for living blood.” Many who grew up with feelings for people of the same gender have been told similar things about those feelings. Vampires are those feelings. And these vampire stories were often written specifically to express and moralize about sexual feelings. Of course vampire stories are attractive to us.

With Carmilla the sexual moralizing plain, and it would definitely not be something I let fly in a modern book, but there’s something strangely familiar about it here. The book is told from Laura’s perspective, and she herself described her confusing and intense feelings for Carmilla. She’ll say she’s in love with Carmilla and repulsed by Carmilla in the same sentence and it doesn’t feel like a lie either time. She’ll be clearly very troubled by Carmilla’s overt flirtation and courting, but also keep doing things that put her close to Carmilla. She’ll keep flirting back and keep acknowledging the feelings that she has. It’s paradoxal, but it’s a familiar feeling. It’s someone just realizing that they have feeling for someone of their same gender and being very, very troubled by what that means. Laura’s words and thoughts feel very familiar to me, and I don’t think that J. Sheridan Le Fanu was purposely trying to accurately portray my own gay panic, yet he definitely did.

Nanowrimo is approaching, and I’m intending to participate again this year (unofficially I should say, I’ve never actually made an official account on the nanowrimo site or anything like that) so I may end up posting fewer reviews from now until December. I’ve previously been posting weekly and may move to every other week format until nanowrimo is finished. 

The Priory of the Orange Tree on Goodreads

Release Year: 2019

Format I Read: ebook

Length: 848 pages

Genres: high fantasy

LGBT Rep: sapphic (I’m assuming lesbian) pov character, lesbian love interest/major character, gay man pov character

Spoiler-Free Review: 

Ho-ly crap my dudes, I finally did it. I finally finished this absolute unit of book, and guess what? I really loved it a lot. This is exactly a book I’ve wanted for forever. A really killer high fantasy epic that also just happens to be really gay at times.

The main romance in the book is a f/f slow burn (yes, an honest to god lesbian slow burn), and I went in pretty much only knowing that, not even knowing who. At times I was definitely Sherlocking every single female character trying to figure out who the gays were, and I was pretty sure I knew who they were pretty on, but it takes a while for it to get going. When it does though…they sure do go, huh?

There is also an older gay male point of view character who’s gayness is pretty important to his story and motives, though (and this is a slight spoiler but it comes up pretty early on) the love of his life died some time before the story began.

This is a long, long book, and the Gays have issues throughout, some of it stemming somehow from them being gay or from their gay relationship conflicting against the society. Even with that, once their relationship really starts, there isn’t much in the way of outright homophobia. It’s hard to explain exactly, but there is the sense that being gay isn’t normal or completely accepted in the society, but also the relationship is pretty accepted once it gets kicked off. And the one plot issue that comes from someone trying to stop the relationship still doesn’t really stem from it being a gay relationship. It’s hard for me to explain further without going into spoilers.  

But yeah, the gayness isn’t hidden by any means, but it also isn’t always in focus. It interweaves with the plot for sure, but the central plot isn’t about it by any means. It’s very much a high fantasy story with a high fantasy plot, and it just so happens that the main romance is f/f.

Synopsis: Honestly there is so much going on that I’m not sure how to set it up, so I’m just going to copy and paste the official synopsis from goodreads:

“The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction--but assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic. Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel. Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.”

The Good: You get the sense of the threat of homophobia without ever actually having to face it. The romance is cute and is the opposite of rushed. All of the definitely defined gay characters feel like fully fleshed out characters. They have motives. They have good and bad qualities, and aren’t perfect but also are never demonized. They do good and bad things. Dare I say, they are treated like actual people?

What Might Hinder You from Reading It: You are utterly intimidated by the size of the book. It’s really hefty. You don’t like high fantasy. You don’t like dragons. You don’t like monarchy stories (which I often don’t but I still liked this).

Would I Recommend It?: YES. YES MY GOD YES.

Now for the Spoilers: