The Tainted Cup
Holmes and Watson–style detective duo take the stage in this fantasy with a mystery twist, from acclaimed author Robert Jackson Bennett “Like an endearing fantasy version of Knives Out... A great murder mystery is hard to pull off, but Bennett structures his perfectly.”—T. J. Klune, The New York Times “Combines the best of Lovecraft and Doyle.”—Matt Dinniman, New York Times bestselling author of Dungeon Crawler Carl “A masterpiece.”—Hideo Kojima, legendary videogame creator of the Metal Gear series LOCUS AWARD FINALIST • EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Elle, BookPage In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible. Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home. At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
7mentions
7people
2025–2026years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Lots of scifi and fantasy.
The Works of Vermin. Exceptionally well written. Not an ounce of flab anywhere.
The Carryx series, 2 books so far. Best villains ever.
Tainted Cup and sequel. Sherlock Holmes meets Godzilla.
Goblin Emperor
The Prophet (Gibran)
Los Alamos (Kanon)
Hyperion (reread)
Finally, a shout out to the best book I read in 2025: Terra Ignota. Yes, the whole series.
- I read a lot so I'll toss out some fiction titles you might like if you're a DCC fan:
* Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer -- post-apoc dystopian, somewhat cozy, told from a robot's perspective (who is joined by a companion cyborg dog)
* Blacktongue Thief by Chris Buehlman -- witty and snarky fantasy, solid character development and world building; and, if you like it, book 2 in the series (book 3 if you count a prequel) comes out soon
* Mortedant's Peril -- Fantasy mystery in a world where magic allows the "detectives" to touch the dead and sense their final thoughts/words; in that world, someone learns a dark secret from a victim...
* Trade of Blood -- Another fantasy mystery that is exceptionally well told; it's Book 3 in a series so I'd start with Tainted Cup if you haven't read that already
* The Infinite State -- new SciFi by Richard Swan (usually a fantasy author); a universe where ultra wealthy can establish colony planets, someone attempts to start a democracy.
- I've been mainly reading sci-fi & fantasy series. On the fiction side I can strongly recommend Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga, Seth Dickinson's The Traitor Baru Cormorant & sequels, and Robert Jackon Bennett's The Tainted Cup & sequels (fantasy murder mystery series).
On the non fiction side, I'm slowly chipping away at Joe Studwell's book How Asia Works, about East Asian development. In the first section of the book, the author argues that the foundation for successful development was boosting agricultural output -- instead of spending precious foreign currency on food imports, surplus agricultural output can be exported & intensive farming provides a way to soak up and use labour before other industries develop.
Studwell also argues for the importance of land reform in boosting agricultural output -- appropriating land from wealthy landlords & redistributing it to landless peasants & tenants. This happened in both socialist & capitalist societies. There was a huge demand for land reform from landless peasants. I was completely ignorant of this chunk of history & found it fascinating. Agricultural output increases on a per hectare basis when farmers have the incentive to work hard - unlike if they're day labourers or share croppers paying much of their output as rent. Landlords don't have an incentive to increase output as its easier for them to earn money from renting out their land & lending money. Studwell gives examples of small farmer-owned farms being much more productive than colonial plantation style farming. Developmental success stories (Japan, Taiwan, South Korea) were those where governments supported their huge newly created markets of tiny landowner-farmers with subsidised fertiliser inputs, better varieties of crops etc & where peasants & tenants got a seat at the table to influence the land redistribution process. There are also stories of failures where wealthy elites got control of the land reform process & rendered it largely ineffective (the Philippines).
- I just finished The Tainted Cup and moved on to the next. I've read every Bennet there is, his writing is compelling. One of my auto-buy authors, same as Claire North. I paticularly enjoyed her Gameshouse series.
- Murderbot was 2021. I would defend it as a winner, but take a look at other recent years:
* 2020 - A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine - a science fiction story set in a future Aztec space empire - quite inventive and odd. The sequel won in 2022.
* 2024 - Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh - basically a story about growing up as a terrorist in a sci-fi setting, with some wild turns.
* 2025 - The Tainted Cup by Robert Bennett Jackson - a very bizarre Holmes & Watson take set in a land constantly invaded by sea kaiju, and where there's "magic" (or is it science) based on harvesting the dead kaiju's bodies.
These are all excellent books, each of which has something different to recommend them.
Are they as good as Dune? Well, it's very hard to say _now_. Assuming humans still exist in 60 years, will they still read them like we read Dune 60 years from its publication? Maybe.
Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land won in 1961. I've read it, and I don't think it's aged very well. It's certainly not Dune.
How many people are still reading the 1969 winner, John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar? I _have_ read it. It's good, but nowhere close to Dune. And how about 1978's winner, Gateway by Frederik Pohl? It's ... fine. It's not even in the same category as Dune, IMO.
Dune is an outlier among _all_ winners. It's one of the best SF books of all time, with a voice that still seems fresh today. Most Hugo (and Nebula) just don't live up to this standard. There are a few that do, like Left Hand of Darkness, Ender's Game, Hyperion, and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (better than Dune, IMO). But those are outliers just like Dune.
- If you’re into this kind of fantasy bioengineering I highly recommend reading The Tainted Cup and the sequel, A Drop of Corruption. And if anyone has read these, please tell me about any other books in this similar bioengineering genre, or even just highly unique fantasy worlds (I’m just so sick of books about dragons and boring magic).
