I definitely recommend Legends & Lattés to anyone who has ever played Dungeons & Dragons, or really anyone who enjoys this quote from Tolkien: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
I'm nearing the end of my Hugo reading (for novels, anyway). I admit when I first saw this was nominated, I ... didn't know what to think. It kind of looked like a wacky self-published thing (and it was originally published directly on Amazon before Tor picked it up). It didn't really seem, well, like a Serious Hugo Nominee.
Dear reader, I was wrong. This may be my favorite Hugo novel nominee yet. It's not that the novel is "serious" in the sense of not having any humor. I chuckled out loud several times reading it. But there is, I think, a serious deeper point.
A lot of modern fantasy is Serious Business. Everyone always has to be saving the world all the time. Epic heroes fight epic battles: Good vs. Evil, Elves vs. Dwarves, Dragons vs. Humans, Bad Humans vs. Even Worse Humans... It's all a Bit Much sometimes, isn't it?
While Tolkien definitely had his share of Serious Business, a major part of his genius was reminding readers of the value of "food and cheer and song" (often through the Hobbits, of course). But for whatever reason, the Serious Business has prevailed in modern fantasy.
The growing subgenre of "cozy fantasy" is a welcome reaction to all that Serious Business, especially given all the real life Serious Business we've all been through these last few years. Here's where Legends & Lattés comes in. Baldree asks: Why does fantasy have to be Serious Business about saving the world all the time? Why can't a battle-hardened orc put down her sword and open a coffeeshop with imported gnomish coffee? Why can't she make friends with a quiet shipbuilder, a succubus who dropped out of magic college, a rat-person pastry chef, and a dire cat who occasionally stops by? Why not make the coffeeshop cooperatively owned while you're at it? Why not, indeed!
Most of the book is about the protagonist Viv's efforts to open the coffeeshop and convince a city where most people have never heard of coffee to take up the habit. There's even a musical performer, an old gnome playing chess with a mysterious opponent, and a pretentious wizard college student.
Lest you think it's all cozy easygoing times, Viv's past does catch up with her a bit. And there's a local mafia looking for protection money. And maybe some crimes on the horizon.
But through it all Viv and friends persevere, forming a cozy little community of coffee-swilling weirdos who love each other. At the end of the day, isn't this what Tolkien thought really mattered?
So, silly and light as Legends & Lattés may seem at first glance, I think what fans of the book love so much about it--and I count myself among these fans--is that it is in fact about the most serious business of all: nothing short of the meaning of life. In the end, isn't it these personal connections that makes life in this horrifying, indifferent universe of ours all worthwhile?
I suspect many of us have realized this in the last few years: many of us worked really hard for years, and for what? Did it make our lives happier and more meaningful? Maybe it's time we all stopped for a nice cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll and thought a bit more about what really matters in these fascinatingly weird little lives of ours.
And if an orc warrior can realize her previous efforts at Serious Business weren't working out and instead finds meaning in creating community through turning a horse stable into a gnomish coffeeshop, maybe there's some hope for the rest of us to come out of our own battles to build something beautiful and meaningful for ourselves and those around us.
See also my Goodreads review.
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