Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree
An orc decides to give up adventuring and open up a coffee shop. Apparently this is the standard bearer for "cozy fantasy." If this is the epitome of cozy fantasy, then apparently cozy fantasy is an utterly boring genre where nothing happens. I've read some discussion of the book, and often people stereotype its detractors as needing big battles and epic adventures... but unlike many readers of fantasy, I read outside of the genre as well and know how much a good writer can do with seemingly little. One of my favorite books is Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending, which is about a guy who realizes he's getting old, that's it. The problem isn't that this is a novel of "low stakes," it's that it's a novel of no stakes.
 |
|
Originally published: 2022 Acquired and read: July 2023 |
Viv opens her coffee shop... and basically encounters no problems that aren't resolved within about ten pages. There is almost no interpersonal conflict—everyone she meets is instantly helpful all the time—and very little internal conflict as well—having decided to do this thing, she does it. I couldn't help but keep thinking what Terry Pratchett would do with an orc running a coffee shop. It would be hilarious, of course (whereas I remember laughing about once here), but more importantly, there would be some kind of conflict from what the protagonist was expected to be (a violent orc) and what the protagonist wanted to be (a coffee shop owner), both internally and externally. There's none of that here, the rich potential of this idea goes completely unmined. You never have a sense that Viv could fail, even though most new restaurants in our world close within a year because they can't turn a profit. This is still true even when her shop burns down! It comes across as a minor, temporary setback.
There's just no depth of character here. I hate for a review to be "how I would have written it," but if I'd written it, the orc would have had to struggle to put away her old mindset, struggle to make connections, even struggle to do basic customer service. Because, who wants to read 250 pages of someone easily doing everything they want to do? (Apparently lots of people.) I love stories where groups of disparate people overcome their differences to accomplish something... but these people don't overcome anything, much less their differences!
There is a sort of subplot about a local crimeboss trying to extort protection money from the coffee shop, but it ends nonsensically. After refusing to pay and refusing to fight, Viv just begins... buying her off with free baked goods? How is that any different from paying, morally speaking? Then the brutal crimelord is just another pal.
Often I can read a book and not like it and see what other people appreciate in it anyway... in this case, I can only wrap my head around it be assuming the people who made this book into a sensation have absolutely no discernment. I get wanting something "cozy"... but I also feel like coziness is pointless in fiction if it doesn't come after some kind of struggle. I had a friend in college would used to complain there weren't more "slice of life" stories. When quizzed, it turned out she meant a story where a woman met a man and lived happily ever after with no issues coming up. I thought it was pretty self-evident why stories like that didn't exist, but maybe I should send her a copy of Legends & Lattes.
Well, I guess the floor for the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novel has been set. Shouldn't be too hard for it to be surpassed.
No comments:
Post a Comment