The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett

[rachelmanija]

Finally, a book that lives up to its premise!

The Tainted Cup's plot is a murder mystery, complex but playing fair, in the tradition of Agatha Christie. Its main characters are Ana, a spectacularly eccentric reclusive genius, and Din, her young assistant who does the legwork, in the tradition of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin or Sherlock Holmes and Watson.

...and the setting is a world that has been regularly ravaged by leviathans the size of mountains that emerge from the sea every "wet season" and rampage around, not only stomping everything in sight but also creating zones like Annihilation's Area X due to their magical, mutagenic bodies!

This has led to the Roman Empire continuing as it's the only force that can (barely) keep them in check, and also to it evolving a sophisticated scientific/magical biological technology which can perform many forensic, military, and technical functions including augmenting people and animals. So you have legionnaires augmented to be short-lived but massively strong and with extra bones that crunch when they move, called cracklers, using giant sloths called "slothics" to haul around artillery to shoot at kaiju!!!

I fucking love this sort of setting. All I want is to roll around in its weird biological decadence, ideally with guides in the form of interesting and/or likable characters. A good plot is just gravy. But! I love the characters AND the plot is excellent!

The opening scene is a masterclass in how to introduce a very unusual and complex setting by making your viewpoint character someone who 1) must navigate aspects of the setting that are new to them too, 2) has a compelling personal problem that's emotionally engaging, 3) and introduces a mystery to keep us hooked.

Din, the viewpoint character, is the new probationary assistant to the investigator, showing up alone to his very first murder scene. He immediately tangles with the guard on site, who is clearly richer and more experienced and correctly sizes him up as a newbie, and is also suspicious that the investigator herself isn't there. This neatly introduces us to the military and investigatory structure, and makes us wonder about Din's boss. As Din is introduced to a very wealthy household, we get to see the biological magitech of the world while also encountering the bizarre murder he's investigating. And while all this is going on, Din is trying to hide the fact that he's dyslexic, which he thinks could get him fired.

It's an instantly compelling opening.

Ana and Din are great characters, Din immediately likable, Ana immediately intriguing. The supporting cast is neatly sketched in. The plot is a very solid murder mystery, the setting is fantastic, and everything is perfectly integrated. The mystery could only unfold as it does in that setting, and the characters are all shaped by it. As a nice little bonus, there's also good disability rep in the context of a world where many people are augmented to boost them in some ways while also having major side effects. Good queer rep, too. And though a lot of the content was dark/horrifying, the overall reading experience was really fun.

I loved this book and instantly dove into the next one. I hope Bennett writes as many Ana & Din books as Christie wrote Poirots.

Spoilers!

I am very curious about the leviathans. Their somewhat human faces make me wonder if they are humans, horribly changed. Is the Empire ensuring its own existence by planting them in the oceans to make sure it always has an inarguable purpose?

I have to laugh that not only is the title a spoiler, but so is the cover! But I completely forgot about both until I got to the reveal that the engineers were all killed by a tainted cup.

Comments

[schneefink]

I enjoyed it a lot, and fortunately I just got confirmation from the library that they will get the sequel soon-ish :)

Re:

spoiler/speculation:

I assume that the leviathans are changed humans, though I had not thought to wonder if their origins were not an accident. Since we also know that the drugs that make the rulers immortal also make them grow bigger until one day they are disposed of and vanish, weeell, I think there might be a connection here...

[rachelmanija]

What's the code for your spoiler cut in the comment?

[sheliak]

<details><summary>Title</summary>text</details>

Like so

Spoilers go here!

[rachelmanija]

Spoilers!

Oh of course! That must be what they are! Though since the leviathans are the source of the stuff that enables the bioengineering, they can't have people become leviathans before there ever were leviathans. I suppose at one point the leviathans weren't human, but they've been human for a while now.

[rachelmanija]

Thanks!

[swan_tower]

Yeah, I assume the series is eventually headed for The Dreadful Revelation about all that stuff.

Minor nitpick: while Bennett uses some Latin-ish words here and there, I don't think this is "the Roman Empire continuing." The social structure isn't the same and the map doesn't look anything like a piece of the Mediterranean.

[musesfool]

It was so good! Though it took me a while to warm up to Din, I ended up loving the whole thing, and the sequel too. I so hope there are many more Din and Ana adventures!

spoiler

I also think the current leviathans are the original Empire builders who "died out" by changing themselves so much using the original leviathans, whatever they were, and are now trying to come back out of the sea for whatever purpose (retaking what was originally theirs?).

[rachelmanija]

Huh. What do you think it is?

[swan_tower]

The Dreadful Revelation?

Speculation

I don't really know; this wasn't as much my cup of tea (heh) because kaiju and body horror and the like leave me cold. (I was there for the murder mystery, not the aesthetics of setting around it.) But with a story of this kind, I assume it will eventually come out that the Empire created the leviathans (accidentally or on purpose), and/or they're connected somehow to that progenitor race I've forgotten the name of. Din notes the similarity between the grey of a dead leviathan and the grey skin everybody in the Empire seems to have, and I doubt that was random.

[rachelmanija]

No, I meant the Empire. The names sounded very Roman to me.

[rachelmanija]

I loved Din immediately and took a while to warm up to Ana.

[swan_tower]

I think it's just a secondary world with some Latin flavoring sprinkled across it. "Prificto" instead of praefectus; immunis is a weird choice of name for a rank when in Latin it meant "free from office"; "Dinios" sounds more like a Greek name than a Latin one, and neither Kol nor Anagosa Dolabra sounds especially Latin to me. And the map is really really not any part of our world I recognize. So I think Bennett just liked the sounds of some of the words.

[watersword]

I loved this so much and am eagerly awaiting the sequel at the library. I too did not think it was the Roman Empire, just that RJB was using Latinate language.

[tozka]

Adding this to my to-read list immediately! I love fantasy mysteries with queer rep!

[dirty_diana]

Okay I am fascinated by everyone's theories, but I'm jumping on board yours just because I think it would be the most on brand for the author.

[rachelmanija]

I also really like this theory.

What else have you read by Bennett? This is my first book by him.

[dirty_diana]

I've read the Divine Cities trilogy, which I think is excellent. And the Founders trilogy, which wasn't as great for me but still pretty entertaining. The other books aren't as creepy but they do have interesting magic-as-civilization-bending-technology worldbuilding, that's his main calling card to me.

[lirazel]

This is absolutely my take on what's going on with the leviathans.

[lirazel]

I just finished the second book last night and loved it! This might just be my favorite currently-being-published fantasy series, actually. I'm delighted that so many other people are finding their way to it and enjoying it!

Also: Ana <3<3<3<3<3

[oracne]

This sounds like a ton of fun!

[starlady]

I really enjoyed this one and I am eagerly awaiting my hold to come in on the sequel.

I do not have theories about the leviathans; I do have a theory about Ana.

Spoilers

I think she's definitely become a cannibal due to her bio-mods.

[rachelmanija]

That is SO my jam.

[rachelmanija]

Spoilers

What makes you think that? She does eat raw meat but where would she get human flesh from?

[mec]

I've just finished the second one and know exactly what you mean about wanting to roll around in the weird and wonderful setting. Every little nugget of detail we get just makes me more intrigued! I do love a good mystery, and a mystery with such interesting worldbuilding (and delightful characters) makes for a tasty treat.

[ivy]

I also loved this book, best fiction that I've read this year. Usually body horror is too much for me, but it wasn't unbearable here despite the nature of the murders.

[kay_brooke]

I read this one last month! I loved it, but I have yet to come across a Robert Jackson Bennett book that I didn't like. He does a lot of fun tropes that I personally like but is also competent at it, while it seems like so many other books I read that should be right up my alley I end up hating because the writing, character work, plot, etc. are just badly done. Like a book needs to be more than fun tropes. Bennett can do wacky tropes AND good writing AND interesting characters AND diversity that is more than just a checklist to get social justice cookies. He's basically a unicorn among modern SFF writers.

[starlady]

Spoilers

RJB constantly compares her to Hannibal Lecter in interviews. I think she's eating raw meat because she can't get human flesh legally! Or maybe she's meant to be eating kaiju flesh?

[oyceter]

This was one of my favorite books from last year and I just finished the next one in the series! I really liked his Divine Cities trilogy as well.

[rachelmanija]

I'm reading the sequel now. Excellent so far.

Divine Cities is now high on my list.