Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe GongMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This one goes out to all the people hopping on a ton of Chloe Gong hate bandwagons these last two years:
Sit there in your wrongness and be wrong and get used to it.
"without the monster, there is no madness. without the madness, he goes out of business."
These Violent Delights
"nothing was ever as simple as 'my people' or 'your people...'"
Our Violent Ends
"don’t upset me in the future and it will be swell, i suppose'"
Foul Lady Fortune
I wonder if Chloe Gong is going to take the years-long YA duology trend to its logical inception with a duology of duologies. If so, she’s got her next series set in early 20th century Shanghai off to a strong start.
Several years have passed since the events of Our Violent Ends, now bringing us to 1931 and a Shanghai increasingly threatened by encroaching Japanese imperial forces. Roma and Juliette’s arc in this history is ended, but now we have Rosalind as our protagonist, enhanced by strange and supernatural experiments and putting her skills to use as a deadly spy. But as expert as she’s gotten in the intervening years since the original series, Rosalind is going to need some help in a new and extra dangerous mission, one which will truly bring the imperialist threat (heretofore largely confined to Manchuria, as in the real history of this time and place) closer to home. While Gong’s alternate historical Shanghai has already drawn from much of the same inspiration as The Poppy War - less brutal in its allegory, but still psychologically deadly enough to make a case that this series really is YA in marketing only - now, we’re delving into some spycraft worthy of the Amberlough Dossier. And of course, the continuous use of poisonous kills and lightly sci-fi experimentation, which makes even more sense now that we’re at the point where the Japanese are coming. After all, the Japanese conducted some inhuman experiments on the people of China, making this theater of World War II start so much sooner than the rest.
One can only wonder if Gong’s next duology conclusion will explore experimentation on the level of Unit 731, but even if not, the ending of this book leaves way too much work to be done to ensure anything even remotely resembling a happy ending.
View all my reviews
These Violent Delights
"nothing was ever as simple as 'my people' or 'your people...'"
Our Violent Ends
"don’t upset me in the future and it will be swell, i suppose'"
Foul Lady Fortune
I wonder if Chloe Gong is going to take the years-long YA duology trend to its logical inception with a duology of duologies. If so, she’s got her next series set in early 20th century Shanghai off to a strong start.
Several years have passed since the events of Our Violent Ends, now bringing us to 1931 and a Shanghai increasingly threatened by encroaching Japanese imperial forces. Roma and Juliette’s arc in this history is ended, but now we have Rosalind as our protagonist, enhanced by strange and supernatural experiments and putting her skills to use as a deadly spy. But as expert as she’s gotten in the intervening years since the original series, Rosalind is going to need some help in a new and extra dangerous mission, one which will truly bring the imperialist threat (heretofore largely confined to Manchuria, as in the real history of this time and place) closer to home. While Gong’s alternate historical Shanghai has already drawn from much of the same inspiration as The Poppy War - less brutal in its allegory, but still psychologically deadly enough to make a case that this series really is YA in marketing only - now, we’re delving into some spycraft worthy of the Amberlough Dossier. And of course, the continuous use of poisonous kills and lightly sci-fi experimentation, which makes even more sense now that we’re at the point where the Japanese are coming. After all, the Japanese conducted some inhuman experiments on the people of China, making this theater of World War II start so much sooner than the rest.
One can only wonder if Gong’s next duology conclusion will explore experimentation on the level of Unit 731, but even if not, the ending of this book leaves way too much work to be done to ensure anything even remotely resembling a happy ending.
View all my reviews
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