Floating Hotel (2024)
Jul. 11th, 2024 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
porticoa little while ago, i added a bunch of books that i liked the sounds of to my storygraph to read list from a post that was going around on tumblr of forthcoming queer books, and then i forgot about them. but storygraph dutifully emails me whenever one of these books has come out, and i trust that past door had my best interests at heart, and check if the library has it. this is how i ended up reading Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis, and past door really knocked it out of the park with this one.
floating hotel is about a hotel in space. it's set in a far, far distant future, where mankind has left earth behind in order to mine other planets for all they're worth and then move on. there's an emperor, one who has been alive for 500 years, and massive wealth inequality. the book is aware of all of these things, but mostly comes at them from the side. the book is about the hotel.
the following passage is a few pages in, when Carl, a boy from one of those overmined planets, sneaks on. i think if you enjoy this passage, you'll probably really enjoy the book. i know i did, on both counts.
The Grand Abeona Hotel was an analog paradise, a place where the walls distinguished themselves not only by fine papering, but by the complete absence of screens. The restaurant menu was displayed on a sort of mechanical abacus, and when the options updated, they twirled about of their own volition, click-clacking as the correct letters slid into place. Music was live and performed throughout the day. Important documents were sealed in tubes and sucked through a network of hydraulic glass pipes.
the book picks up some 30 years later, after Carl has been its manager for decades, and the bloom is firmly off the rose. it takes you around the staff--a chapter each for staff members and guests--and gradually the mystery at the heart of the book is revealed, along with the reality of the state of the universe that the cast of characters is living in. i've seen the book described as "cozy" (people love to describe books as cozy now, have you noticed?), and while i don't think that's WRONG, i don't think it's right either. it's tense at times. there are real stakes. it's also really, really, really charming.
i started reading this book over coffee one saturday morning recently, then put it down to go about my day, and then picked it up again in the afternoon. i found myself completely enraptured--i finished it that night. a delight from start to finish.
floating hotel is about a hotel in space. it's set in a far, far distant future, where mankind has left earth behind in order to mine other planets for all they're worth and then move on. there's an emperor, one who has been alive for 500 years, and massive wealth inequality. the book is aware of all of these things, but mostly comes at them from the side. the book is about the hotel.
the following passage is a few pages in, when Carl, a boy from one of those overmined planets, sneaks on. i think if you enjoy this passage, you'll probably really enjoy the book. i know i did, on both counts.
The Grand Abeona Hotel was an analog paradise, a place where the walls distinguished themselves not only by fine papering, but by the complete absence of screens. The restaurant menu was displayed on a sort of mechanical abacus, and when the options updated, they twirled about of their own volition, click-clacking as the correct letters slid into place. Music was live and performed throughout the day. Important documents were sealed in tubes and sucked through a network of hydraulic glass pipes.
the book picks up some 30 years later, after Carl has been its manager for decades, and the bloom is firmly off the rose. it takes you around the staff--a chapter each for staff members and guests--and gradually the mystery at the heart of the book is revealed, along with the reality of the state of the universe that the cast of characters is living in. i've seen the book described as "cozy" (people love to describe books as cozy now, have you noticed?), and while i don't think that's WRONG, i don't think it's right either. it's tense at times. there are real stakes. it's also really, really, really charming.
i started reading this book over coffee one saturday morning recently, then put it down to go about my day, and then picked it up again in the afternoon. i found myself completely enraptured--i finished it that night. a delight from start to finish.
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Date: 2024-07-14 02:14 am (UTC)