Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Tainted Cup

This world is so unique and interesting. I loved the main characters and their idiosyncrasies. The mystery unfolded really nice, too. I enjoy ones where you can figure out some of the mystery yourself and then the rest needs to be revealed.

Fantasy Mystery, Magic System, Crime Fight

“We get some say in what kind of person we are, Din. We do not pop out of a mold. We change. We self-assemble.”

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schnaucl's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was set in a really interesting fantasy world where magical biohacking is commonplace. I wondered a bit about how people would just let the biohacking class do their thing without worrying about something happening if the person doing it was unscrupulous, but I suppose it's just their version of going to the doctor.

I loved Dinios and Ana and the secondary characters were really interesting, too. I look forward to spending more time in this world.

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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

When I was a kid, my grandparents bought me an anthology of all the Sherlock Holmes stories. When I got into Edgar Allen Poe, they pointed out to me that he's considered to have written the first detective story, and I read The Murders in the Rue Morgue with relish. This seed of detective/murder mystery fiction love has laid dormant all these years, but I think this is the water it needed to sprout.

This is a richly alien fantasy world with fun characters and a well-realized mystery. I am so proud I figured a piece out before our Sherlock expy laid it out for us! This book also made me realize how little the characters in the books I read swear, and once I got used to it... it was kind of nice to have a smart lady running around who says the word fuck. I also loved that the author understood that Sherlock is not a cold or mean person, which shines through in the way he writes his expy, Ana. Her and our PoV character Din have such great rapport while being their own characters. I also loved the disability representation, when it clicked that the protagonist actually had dyslexia and it wasn't some magical side effect I teared up.

Can't wait for the next book in the series!

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goeagles91n's review

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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bookwyrmknits's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I think my favorite part about this book was the worldbuilding. I also enjoyed the characters and I got caught up in the mystery, but the world itself was so unique and dense that it's what stuck with me the most. Between the giant, bio-engineered air conditioning fungus and the quakes caused not by plate tectonics but by giant leviathans approaching the sea walls, this is a fantasy world where it's easy to remember that it's not OUR world, no matter how human the people seem.

And even though the people are also bio-engineered to a degree, they do feel very real, with human desires and fears. Most (if not all) of the characters we meet have changed themselves to at least a small degree, and it often seems like they felt they had to in order to get ahead in their world. The modifications they make to themselves made me wonder if I would want any of the modifications. Some people change their physical strength, others enhance their memory, and still others increase their mental aptitude for things like math or science. But the downside is that everything comes with a cost, and many of the modifications will shorten lifespans or cause mental breakdowns in later life.

If there's a downside to this book, it's that the people felt too normal compared to the setting. Yes, they are modified and super-strong or super-smart or have perfect memory. But during the scenes when they were all sitting around talking, it was easy to see them as just people. The setting, in contrast, was so much more alien.

All told, though, this was a really enjoyable murder mystery, and I'm already looking forward to the sequel. There's so much more to explore in this world, and I am really interested to see where Bennett takes his characters next. This was my first book by Robert Jackson Bennett, but it certainly won't be my last.

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no_evil_star's review

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adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Imagine Holmes and Watson solving crimes in a world where Han dynasty China meets Pacific Rim, with a dose of Vandermeerian weirdness to hold the conceit together. The central mystery becomes a little convoluted, which means the resolution isn't as neat as it could be, but there's so much fun to be had with the world and its characters that it hardly matters.

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