The Left-Handed Hummingbird

I think this book takes a bit to find its legs. The first couple chapters had me in love instantly, but once they hopped backwards in time the first time I started having doubts. The chunk of the story taking place in Tenochtitlan (expectedly) border on orientalism, and I found myself a bit confused on what the gang was trying to accomplish on a scene-to-scene basis. That particular feeling didn't fully let up until the final act, but the character writing and overall vibe more than made up for it to me. Orman is, as always, a character writer. Between this, Vampire Science, and The Year of Intelligent Tigers, I've found that Orman's writing has such a clear understanding of the appeal of spending time with these characters. She understands our main crew well enough to use their emotional conflicts devastatingly, and, as usual, our newly introduced sort-of-audience-surrogate Cristián is immediately lovable. Hummingbird isn't quite as much of a winner as Orman's later contributions, but it still delivers the industrial-strength hurt/comfort Doctor torture she'd become known for.

If I was a more principled man this would probably be a 7.5/10. Fortunately, I have no backbone and am a massive sucker for Ace+Seven, their headbutting, and seeing my favorite guys get emotionally and physically destroyed. So I'm giving this one a 9/10. Happilyeverafter.

Incredible, incredible book. Just an insanely well-written fascinating meditation on violence. It occasionally verges on Von Dannikenism, but I think it mostly manages to avoid it. Very, very interesting, Kate Orman is just an incredibly good writer.