This is the golden age of the fantasy and SciFi novella, and High Times in the Low Parliament is another great exemplar of this trend. Like many of the best of these novellas, I got to the end and wanted more; I felt the book was to short. Not because the plot was too short (although some character and relationship development was abbreviated) but because I wanted more of this world and these characters. The fairy-led female-only universe was fascinating and the main character was a rarely seen trickster-bureaucrat, a delightfully debauched non sequitur of a scribe. I look forward to reading more about her and this world.

Some readers will struggle with the lack of full and sensical word-building, but if you're okay with nebulous world this is a great and odd story with a self-absorbed and still somehow likeable queer MC.

3.5 stars

I enjoyed this quirky novella, but there isn’t a lot of depth to it.

"Lana trudged beside the glassed-over drain coursing down the middle of Cheap, watching the filthy water rush to the sump at the foot of Cornhill. Now her ambitions were going the same way. What ambitions, one might ask? Well, Lana might have dug some up eventually, given soft soil and a sharp enough spade.
The landlady of the Twin Pumps had been right, after all. Kisses had doomed her. And romantic as she was, Lana couldn't pretend they'd been worth it."

I was hoping to see some growth from Lana. She gets herself into this deadly predicament because she’s a massive flirt with no aspirations that doesn’t take anything seriously. She ends the book exactly the same way. I appreciated her positive outlook on life, but it’s pretty easy to stay positive when all you care about is getting high and flirting.

"It's fair to say that Lana had never worked hard to understand anything before.
Why should she? Life was good. Girls were pretty, ale tasty, and work light. Maybe she didn't make her family's life any easier, but she didn't make it much harder, and any problems she caused were leavened by her bright smile and cheery temper. When others caused trouble, they doubled it with grumbling and grudges. Not Lana."

I wish there had been more explained about this world. For an entirely female world, I have no idea why or how some became mothers, and the word mother was used in many ways that didn’t always make sense. Why were the fairies in charge but not in charge, how did their powers work, and why were they so uneasy and unhappy all the time? The different nationalities seemed based on our world, as did some locations mentioned but in an entirely unrecognisable way. I finished High Times in the Low Parliament with more questions than I started

High Times in the Low Parliament is a fun read if you treat it like Lana would - entirely superficial without asking too many questions.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC. This book was so fun. I really enjoyed it. This book kept me interested and i enjoyed the book and this genre

This was a fun and entertaining story with some fabulous characters (Bug Bite being a personal favourite) but ultimately, the plot was a little bit meandering and overall, this was all about the vibes rather than the strength of the narrative. There were times when the tone was a little jarring given the subject matter, but I enjoyed the snarkiness a lot and thought Lana was a great protagonist. Overall, an enjoyable time and an interesting world for those who don't worry too much about the plot.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

For such a short book, I expected to be drawn into the story quickly & wrapped up in the action. Instead, the world was poorly explained, the main character lacked depth (besides her one personality trait of flirty), and I was often confused as to what was taking place. It was like some sentences about setting and character movement were randomly left out? Anyways, just wasn’t well written enough for me to continue. Sad, because the premise was fun! DNF at 25%.

I absolutely lovedreading High Times in Low Parliament and fell in love with the fantastic Lana from page one.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great book. I really enjoyed the characterizations and depth of emotion. I was especially fond of the way the author handled the books LGBTQ+ themes. I think this would be a great addition to any library collection.

High Times in the Low Parliament, by Kelly Robson, is a strange and horny novella with a memorable title and an even more memorable cover. Unfortunately, the interior of this story is less memorable than the exterior, unless you are really craving a lukewarm erotica about a scribe who can’t keep it in her pants even in the face of death. The novella lacks any real substance beyond an attractive parliamentary setting for our protagonist to hit on faeries. Oh, also there are no men in the book, which was a genuinely interesting choice.

Our Atlas upon which this story rests is Lana Baker. She is a scribe of some notoriety, with a sharp pen and sharper wit. She is also super, super down bad. This woman hits on literally anything that moves. This isn’t actually a problem; as far as character identities go, Lana is actually pretty charming and funny. The issue is that the story feels like a box that Robson made to hold all her clever ideas for pickup lines. For super confusing reasons that I still don’t understand, Lana manages to anger a temperamental faerie (who are the top dogs in this extremely confusing legal system) and gets sent to Low Parliament.

Low Parliament is generally considered a terrible place to be, especially currently (that was a sea pun) as the meeting house is in danger of being yeeted into the ocean. As Lana transcribes the endless circular arguments of Parliament, the debates grow tenser and more desperate. Due to long-standing tradition, a hung vote will cause Parliament to flood and a return to endless war. Lana must rely on unlikely comrades to save humanity (and maybe even woo one or two lucky ladies), come hell or high water.

My biggest issue with High Times is that it doesn’t even pretend to care about its context or worldbuilding. Almost nothing happens plot-wise in this story, and the things that do happen either don’t make sense or aren’t explained at all. There is no objective for Lana. She is just there to watch other characters have agency and hit on hot ladies. When things do happen, she is sitting on the sidelines commenting “interesting, but did you see that ass.” Generally, this leads to a fairly unfulfilling story that was cute and had a great atmosphere but felt vapid and shallow. When it comes to stories, especially novellas, I am looking for tighter themes and meaningful storytelling. Also FYI, if you are looking for spice, you will find yourself looking at a massive batch of vanilla. The aforementioned horniness mostly boils down to Lana trying to bang everything in sight with a pulse, and not much execution.

That being said, where High Times does shine is its strong character chemistry. Lana is given a faerie minder named Bugbite, a wasp fae whose job is to taskmaster the scribes. Fae and humans have an established bad relationship, and Bugbite immediately hates Lana. Lana, however, does not give a hoot. Lana has this charming and unyielding gregarious nature that wears away at Bugbite until they form a friendship that feels very unlikely but completely earned. This was the one dimension of the story I really connected with and kept me coming back to read more.

In sum, High Times in the Low Parliament doesn’t have a ton to offer. Yes, it has charming characters and good chemistry, but the characters feel like powerless spectators with no ability to affect the story. In addition, the story feels unrefined, confusing, and without clear objectives. All of this combines into a novella with some extreme highs and lows in experience.

Rating: High Times in the Low Parliament – 5.0/10
-Andrew

Oh man this missed the mark for me. I think I just don't like novellas because I'm left wanting more of an explanation for plot elements, details, etc. Perhaps this might've worked better as a longer book? It felt random and the plot was underwhelming.

This was such an excellent quick read. I think I've loved every Tordotcom book I've ever picked up, and this was no exception. For how short it was, there was a surprising amount of world-building established, and I greatly enjoyed seeing the fairy-human dynamics and relationships. It was, at times, a little painful to read about a government facing imminent disaster still fail to reach any solutions, because it hits close to home. However, the characters and the storytelling kept me hooked from beginning to end and I want to make all of my sapphic friends check this out.

DNF at page early-something. I wasn't a fan of the writing style. However, I can see others enjoying it!

My best friend said to me "you know how sometimes you finish a book and you think "could've been more lesbians"? You won't say that about this book" and you know what? She was right.

I knew this was going to be an interesting read after seeing the synopsis ..but I'm still not sure what I read.

Lana was a hilarious, sassy and forever flirtatious MC that kept me entertained and laughing throughout. I enjoyed her love hate relationship with Bugbite and the rest of the fairies.

The parliament drama didn't make much sense but I don't think it was supposed to.
If you're looking for a funny, quick fantasy satire read.. this one's definitely unique!

A gallant flirt, an irritated fairy and a highborn bureaucrat form a bond in Kelly Robson’s HIGH TIMES IN THE LOW PARLIAMENT (Tor.com, 160 pp., paper, $14.99). The cheeky lesbian stoner fantasy — J.R.R. Toking, if you will — made me realize just how cruel it was that Frodo and Sam spent the worst parts of their quest stone-cold sober. More satirical than T. Kingfisher’s “Swordheart,” this fantasy is recommended for readers who giggle reliably at “best weed in the Shire” but prefer their stories centered on working women.

Lana Baker is a scribe with zero ambition and a weakness for a pretty face, which everyone warns will get her in trouble someday. Instead it lands her in Parliament — where she’s trapped with the other scribes and supervised by the fairy Bugbite. The only consolations are the mood-brightening yeast she sneaked in, Bugbite’s homegrown shrooms and a lovely parliamentary deputy named Eloquentia, who is trying her best to get various factions to agree on anything before the fairies get tetchy and drown them all.

Lana is not a hero, but she knows one very important thing: It is much harder to do good when you feel bad. Power is cruel, and surviving without power is traumatic. Getting stoned in terrible circumstances can be a form of self-defense — relatable even before the drugs start smoothing the way to a brighter future. This is gallows humor with a light touch, and the romance (more happy-for-now rather than ever after) is painted in broad strokes rather than deep detail.

What a weird little novella - I had fun, but I also couldn't really tell you what was going on and why? Which I think is partially my own inability to understand fantasy but also perhaps partially a flaw of the piece. There's more questions left unanswered by the end than answered, which I don't know is a real negative (it's a novella, not everything is going to get addressed), but I think people would be more tolerant if there were like 10 more pages here or the promise of a series. Should the latter manifest, I don't feel the need to return personally, but I certainly wouldn't encourage people to do the same. If you liked Legends & Lattes, you may like this one.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Lana Baker is a rake, a charmer, and the best scrabble in Aldgate, London. She’s just not the cleverest, easily caught out when a pretty girl with a pretty mouth pleads with her to both write and then deliver a letter for her … which ends up catching Lana up in the doomed dramatics of Parliament. Part of the problem is that the fairies have gotten tired of the humans spending all their time arguing and pontificating, posturing and self-aggrandizing. Either progress is made … or they shall drown Parliament, from the Speaker herself to the lowest scribe, and start afresh.

Even knowing this, no one in Parliament seems to take the situation seriously. They still bicker like fishwives, waving their hands, stomping their feet, and doing everything they can to make certain that their opposite number is doomed to drown, even if it costs them their own lives. For Lana, this is a bit of a lark. Surely they’ll wake up in time and do … something. Until then, she’s determined to make friends — and friends — with every lady, lass, and lovely girl she can, up to and including Fairy Bugbite, the sharp tongued, bitter, and prickly fairy assigned to watch over the scribes.

And then Lana falls in love. She has no idea who the mystery woman is, having seen her only from an upper balcony with Bugbite while the woman danced in the courtyard below, but she’s determined to find out who she is, and to win her heart.

This is a pretty, silly, and pretty silly romp through romance, fantasy, and farce in equal measure. In a world of women (no men in sight, and babies are given to women through fairy blessings), Lana is quite a ladies … er, lady. She’s bold, fearless, and confident, as well as being lazy, vain, willfully blind, and as thick-skinned and an elephant. If a woman or girl doesn’t take to her flattery at first, Lana’s willing to smile and try again, because surely they just need a chance to warm up to her. And it’s interesting to see this in a woman, rather than a man, to see those suave prince charming mannerisms reframed.

Bugbite, the fairy, is irascible and unpleasant, but with a bit of flowering yeast (a pleasant, pleasing, and calming narcotic), she allows herself to tolerate Lana. It soon becomes more than tolerance as she shares some of her own drugs, mushrooms, leaving them giggling together in quiet corners or wandering through a world of flowers and butterflies as they wander, looking for Lana’s mysterious dancer. It’s clear Bugbite is more drawn to Lana than Lana is to her, but there’s still an ease and relaxation to their friendship.

Due to the constant drugs, it’s hard to see Lana and Bugbite as anything but sleepy and drifty, off in their own world and willfully ignorant of what’s going on around them. Personally, this story is either too long or too short, with just enough world building and character building to hint at something larger, but without enough time taken to make it make sense or to make it feel like it matters — or it’s too bogged down in the plot to focus on the characters beyond how much they enjoy their mood enhancing mushrooms.

Even so, it’s a fun little romp that requires nothing from the reader but to sit back and enjoy. If you’re looking for something simple and quick with a dash of magic, this could be your next read. But, if you want something deeper or denser, or something with just a little more bite, then you might want to wander off to find something else. I enjoyed this, and if you give it a try, I hope you enjoy it, too.

I honestly don’t know what I just read, but I do know I didn’t enjoy it and didn’t get the point of it. I don’t even know for sure if there was a point.

“High Times in the Low Parliament” reads like a genre mashup of political satire, fantasy, and drug-fueled fairy tale. It’s a novella, so it’s not like the story itself is a hefty tome to take on for a bit of light reading, but at the same time I like anything I’m reading (even novellas) to at least have a point or to have a message of some sort I can take away with me to let my brain chew on for a while. Neither of these things happened with this story and it left me with that awful feeling of having wasted my time when I could’ve been reading something else that would’ve fulfilled me and really commanded my attention.

If you like LGBTQIA+ short stories way off the beaten track, then you may enjoy this little diversion from the real world. It just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to Tordotcom and NetGalley for access to this title. Due to the 3 star or lower rating this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller website.

This novella ultimately failed to meet my expectations. I thought the premise was extremely interesting and had a lot of potential, but the story never seemed to go anywhere. I was never truly invested in the characters or the conflicts they faced. I think a longer page count with more detailed world building, deeper development of the characters would have helped.

Award-winning author Kelly Robson returns with High Times in the Low Parliament, a lighthearted romp through an 18th-century London featuring flirtatious scribes, irritable fairies, and the dangers of Parliament.

“Funny, literally outlandish, and deeply relevant.”—Malka Older

A Most Anticipated Pick for Autostraddle | LGBTQ Reads

Lana Baker is Aldgate’s finest scribe, with a sharp pen and an even sharper wit. Gregarious, charming, and ever so eager to please, she agrees to deliver a message for another lovely scribe in exchange for kisses and ends up getting sent to Low Parliament by a temperamental fairy as a result.

As Lana transcribes the endless circular arguments of Parliament, the debates grow tenser and more desperate. Due to long-standing tradition, a hung vote will cause Parliament to flood and a return to endless war. Lana must rely on an unlikely pair of comrades—Bugbite, the curmudgeonly fairy, and Eloquentia, the bewitching human deputy—to save humanity (and maybe even woo one or two lucky ladies), come hell or high water.