Akiva Reads

by Neon Yang

Now that I've read all the Tensorate books: totally decent solid fantasy/steampunk with tons of queer, trans, poly, etc characters. There's not, like, a lot going on underneath it I would say, other than the author's delight in creating the world. And it's a good world! But that's not quite enough to elevate the series into a favorite.

The second and fourth books got the closest to having interesting character arcs. * Would have liked to see something more than only-and-perfectly-supportive-of-his-wife from Mokoya's husband; he's so cuddly it's unreal. * I was of course here for Akeha's gender journey, but Akeha's other motivations are kind of muddy and kind of boring. * Rider reminds me of Tamora Pierce's Daine in a lot of ways; and I loved Daine when I was a teen, and that teen is still in me, but as an adult... a character like Rider is a bit flat. * I normally like a documentary story, but I managed to completely forget that the detective who's ostensibly the main character of the third book existed.