white_hart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
white_hart) wrote2018-12-19 07:55 pm
white_hart) wrote2018-12-19 07:55 pm
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Reading: Alice Payne Arrives
The trouble* with reading the Tor.com blog is that I keep reading reviews of really interesting-sounding books. I'm getting better at putting them on my wish list and not buying them straight away, but Kate Heartfield's novella Alice Payne Arrives just sounded too interesting to resist; somewhere between "lesbian highwayman" and "time travel shenanigans" I found myself clicking the "Buy it now" button.
I have to say, I wasn't disappointed. Alice Payne Arrives weaves together the stories of the eponymous Alice, an impoverished mixed-race gentlewoman living in Hampshire in 1788 and moonlighting as the notorious highwayman the Holy Ghost, and Prudence Zuniga, a soldier fighting a complicated war over the course of human history made possible only by the invention of time travel, where the opposing sides try to nudge the course of the past to produce a present more to their liking (with very little success, as without their intervention the First World War would never have happened, and the less said about 2016 the better...). It's clever, engaging and tremendous fun from start to finish, and my only complaint is that I wish it had been longer. I've already pre-ordered the sequel, which is due out in March.
*for values of trouble relating to my bank balance, at least
I have to say, I wasn't disappointed. Alice Payne Arrives weaves together the stories of the eponymous Alice, an impoverished mixed-race gentlewoman living in Hampshire in 1788 and moonlighting as the notorious highwayman the Holy Ghost, and Prudence Zuniga, a soldier fighting a complicated war over the course of human history made possible only by the invention of time travel, where the opposing sides try to nudge the course of the past to produce a present more to their liking (with very little success, as without their intervention the First World War would never have happened, and the less said about 2016 the better...). It's clever, engaging and tremendous fun from start to finish, and my only complaint is that I wish it had been longer. I've already pre-ordered the sequel, which is due out in March.
*for values of trouble relating to my bank balance, at least
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