Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson

Jenny recently raved about Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson and who am I to ignore a science-fiction recommendation? 

Lydia works as a translator for the Logi cultural attaché to Earth. The act of translating, which is done through means of telepathic conversation, makes Lydia feel drunk after hours and hours and hours and one night she finds herself reacting badly to a man who is pestering her and her boss, Fitz, gets her out of trouble. But when Lydia wakes up the next morning to a dead Fitz, she soon realizes she's the main suspect in his murder. What we have here is a sci fi/mystery/sort of thriller mashup. 

The writing! I admire how Robson created a world with telepathic aliens without talking about it endlessly. I admire how Robson let you know that something terrible has happened on Earth without spending hours in a museum talking about that history. I admire how effortless the scene setting seemed. And I admired the world, too. It seems like an interesting world, if one I wouldn't want to live in.

The book is also quite funny, I think. Some of the observations about human behavior (as if an alien race were making them) were hilarious. 

I didn't 100% follow the mystery plot, but I don't think I needed to. It was just a fun romp. I recommend it if you like this sort of thing.

4/5 stars

Line of note:

She's always wondered why games set in realistic locations are so popular when you can play games that let you be a Valkyrie and slay dragons, or an interdimensional wizard rewriting reality itself. But maybe people don't want fantasy, they want to feel they're in control, that they're playing by rules they understand and that it's possible to win. (page 191)

THIS!!! I don't want to play realistic looking military games. THAT COULD BE REAL LIFE. But I do want to pretend to be a bard who is singing for his supper and potentially kills orcs. 

Thing I looked up:

contengine (page 58) - I don't know what this word means and google keeps sending me to contingency. Maybe it's a made up word for this particular world?

Context: It's nice to know some of the spinners and contengines who generate this stuff are aware of who she is - although when she clicks through to the "tributes" she finds none of it is accurate and none of her "colleagues and friends" are real people, just stock images with generic quotes attached. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

And hats, they all wear hats: Fitz has a wool cap that matches his coat. (page 7)

...his reflection is wearing a beautifully cut three-piece suit and a hat. (page 117)

He wears a thick robe that looks like a dressing gown and a shapeless hat that resembles a shower cap. (page 243)