#Xuya

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#scifi #books #The Tea Master and the Detective #Aliette de Bodard #Xuya #poll #result: no #l: English

[gollancz]

Look at this STUNNING book. So delighted to be sharing the cover for A FIRE BORN OF EXILE by Aliette de Bodard!

It's available for pre-order now!!

If you like:

Lesbians in space

Sexy sentient ships (Who are also lesbians)

SF based on Vietnamese culture

Some light to moderate piracy (by the lesbians and their sexy sentient ships)

PINING

Lyrical and beautiful worldbuilding

Pining lesbians and their sexy sentient ships

Aliette's Xuya universe is the place to be.

The Scattered Pearls Belt is a string of habitats under tight military rule . . . where the powerful have become all too comfortable in their positions, and their corruption. But change is coming, with the arrival of Quynh: the mysterious and enigmatic Alchemist of Streams and Hills.

To Minh, daughter of the ruling prefect of the Belt, Quynh represents a chance for escape. To Hoà, a destitute engineer, Quynh has a mysterious link to her own past . . . and holds a deeper, more sensual appeal. But Quynh has her own secret history, and a plan for the ruling class of the Belt. A plan that will tear open old wounds, shake the heavens, and may well consume her.

Buy a present for future-you, get yourself this stunning book.

Buy a present for now-you, get yourself THE RED SCHOLAR'S WAKE, the book described by tumblr user @heyheyheyhaveyouheardabout as: "#the book my dad tried to discreetly ask whether I had bought#because. its.#sentient spacesjip (!!!!!!)#sapphic#m a r r i g e#OH THE MAIN CHArACTER IS SO TRAUMATISED AND HER SPACESHIP WIFE IS SO !!!!!!#SPACESHIP WIFE MARRY ME PLEASE I LOVE YOU YOUR HAIR ARE STARS YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL I LOVE YOU"

Incoherence as a result of space lesbian romance is not guaranteed, but we're not saying it's definitely not going to happen.

#A Fire Born of Exile #Aliette de Bodard #The Red Scholar's Wake #Xuya #Cover Reveals #Science Fiction #Queer SF #Vietnamese SF #East Asian SF #Booklr

[netmassimo]

The novel “The Red Scholar’s Wake” by Aliette de Bodard was published for the first time in 2022. It's part of the series set in the Xuya universe.

When Xích Si is captured by the Red Banner Pirates, she expects to be killed, probably not quickly. Instead, Rice Fish, the sentient ship that leads the pirates, proposes a marriage of interest between them.

Rice Fish lost her wife, who was the Red Scholar, the leader of the Red Banner, in circumstances she finds suspicious and believes there's a mole in her fleet passing information to their rivals. Xích Si is very skilled at scavenging robot parts to reassemble and program, so her technical skills could be the key to shedding light on the situation.

#science fiction #scifi #novel #review #Xuya #Xuya Universe

[whimsicaldragonette]

ARC Review: A Fire Born of Exile by Aliette de Bodard

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Publication Date: October 12, 2023

Synopsos:

The Scattered Pearls Belt is a string of habitats under tight military rule . . . where the powerful have become all too comfortable in their positions, and their corruption. But change is coming, with the arrival of Quynh: the mysterious and enigmatic Alchemist of Streams and Hills. To Minh, daughter of the ruling prefect of the Belt , Quynh represents a chance for escape. To An, a destitute engineer, Quynh has a mysterious link to her own past . . . and holds a deeper, more sensual appeal. But Quynh has her own secret history, and a plan for the ruling class of the Belt. A plan that will tear open old wounds, shake the heavens, and may well consume her. A beautiful exploration of the power of love, of revenge, and of the wounds of the past, this fast-paced, heart-warming space opera is set against a backdrop of corruption, power and political scheming in the far reaches of the award-winning Xuya universe.

My Rating: ★★★★★

*My Review after the cut.

My Review:

I have enjoyed everything I have read by Aliette de Bodard, but this is my favorite thus far. Something about the characters grabbed me immediately and held my interest for the entire book. They felt incredibly real and believable and I cared deeply about all of them.

Her writing style is very dense, so her books take me longer to read than most others, but I always enjoy the journey. Sometimes it's nice to be forced to slow down and linger over a story rather than speed through it.

The characters and their motivations are complicated. Revenge and fear and hate and greed and love and justice. They're all very powerful emotions and the book itself feels very powerful. It's a grand struggle and epic battles that play out in subtle manipulations and power plays and scholars crafting the perfect response alluding to classic texts.

I love how expansive and complicated this universe is, with the mindships and bots and the avatars and overlays and perception filters, as well as the Vietnamese names and culture that feels deep and consistent. It feels so vast and so physical, and even though I know it's not real, it feels like it is.

I have read a good handful of Xuya universe novels and novellas now so I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the world, where I was confused occasionally even in the previous novel. It's more sci-fi than I normally read, and I love it. It has such a lovely texture.

I also love how queer relationships are treated as normal and unremarkable, and how many examples of them we have in this book (and her others). There is at least one nonbinary character and it is completely normal. The main relationships are all pairs of women. It's so refreshing and validating.

I have not had such a deeply enjoyable and satisfying reading experience in a while and it felt so good. Wading through the dense language that Aliette de Bodard uses felt rewarding and I was swept away by the strong emotions and convictions of the characters. I am sad to leave this world and eagerly await the next Xuya universe novel.

(It should be noted that I am in the process of moving so the only time I have had to read in the past few weeks is when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep. So I read most of this between the hours of 3 and 6am. And I still adored it and happily spent days wading through its complexity. That's how good it is.)

*Thanks to NetGalley and JAB Books for providing an early copy for review.

#queer romance #queer books #aliette de bodard #a fire born of exile #xuya universe #best books of 2023 #netgalley #arc review #shilo reads #queer characters #sci-fi

[kimabutch]

Oh my god, Aliette de Bodard’s releasing a sapphic space scifi book with Count of Monte Cristo vibes and I cannot wait til October. She’s one of my favourite scifi authors right now and this might just reignite my Count of Monte Cristo phase from when I was 17

#book adventures #xuya universe

[booksandchainmail]

I've started reading A Fire Born of Exile (Aliette de Bodard's sci-fi Count of Monte Cristo retelling), and it's interesting figuring out who each character is. I'm about a fifth of the way into it, and so far we have (apologies for omitting accents)

Suong Quynh/Da Lan: the Count/Edmond Dantes

Hoa: Maximilien Morrell

Minh: Valentine Villefort

Heart's Sorrow: Albert de Morcerf

Guts of Sea: Haydee? I'm not entirely sure, maybe amalgamated with other members of the Count's household

Prefect Tinh Duc: Prosecutor Villefort

Van: Edouard Villefort

General Tuyet: Fernand de Morcerf, but also Mercedes, which is a fascinating decision. Women's wrongs etc etc

Thanh Nhang: the bits of Fernand that aren't Tuyet? It's hard to tell so far

Thien Hanh: Monsieur Morrell

What's interesting to me here is that A Fire Born of Exile has made some adaptational choices (starting the action after the timeskip, omitting Danglars and all his related plots) that are pretty common, but most adaptations that make those choices center the plot on Albert, while this one has picked Valentine and Maximilien, which is fascinating. When reading The Count of Monte Cristo I honestly found their plotline quite boring, mainly because it dragged on for a long time insisting that Valentine was too perfect and saintly to do anything like "move out of a house where everyone hated her and she was being poisoned to death", so I'm curious to see what an adaptation that gives her more agency will do.

#a fire born of exile #alliette de bodard #xuya universe #the count of monte cristo #I'm annoyed about omitting eugenie but I get why #you need to cut something and that whole plotline and be removed wholesale without messing other things up

[booksandwords]

The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard

Series: The Universe of Xuya Read time: 1 Day Rating: 4/5 Stars

The Quote: "That's all there is to it. Life isn't easy and neat." "You make it sound like it is. when you make your deductions from the smallest scraps of evidence." "When I deduce things? You're mistaken. The world is chaotic and without sense. But in the smallest of spheres it's sometimes possible to straighten things out; to make it seem as though everything means something." — Long Chau and The Shadow's Child

Despite only reading The Tea Master and the Detective I found the lore governing the Universe of Xuya is easy to understand. I like the characters, their dynamic was not unique but somewhat unexpected. It's a mystery to be solved by shipmind The Shadow's Child and human Long Chau. The story isn't a whodunit, de Bodard just tells the story, she doesn't ask you to help solve the crime. Though she does give hints and I've readers the option to figure out Long Chau's past (as she is asking The Shadow's Child to). It is the right balance for a novella. Some leading some thinking.

Long Chau and The Shadow's Child feel like and reversal of types. Long Chau is the colder of the two, the more objective. The Shadow's Child comes across as more fragile and emotional. Though these traits suit professions Long Chau is a detective, The Shadow's Child is a tea maker. As much as The Shadow's Child claims she isn't she absolutely traumatised after the events of a war and the loss of her crew. I look at their developing relationship as something like creating a brew, brewing a tea. It takes time for them to understand each other's elements and figure out how to work together. Well since we're in The Shadow's Child's head it takes a while for her to understand how she feels about Long Chau.

The writing style used by de Bodard is pleasing. The sentences can be quite long but it is descriptive and lyrical. It is well suited to The Shadow's Child's intelligence and soul (?). Long Chau's language is different but this is only right. I like the pronouns used throughout/. There are so few characters in the book both The Shadow's Child and Long Chau are female. So many of the characters that have an impact on the plot are which I have no problem with at all, there is something to be said about using a single gender to prove a point. But the ones that are the most interesting to me are the shipminds. Traditionally ships are female but de Bodard uses a mix of masculine, feminine and neutral. Sharpening Steel into Needles is referred to as they, The Three in the Peach Gardens and The Sorrow of the Four Gentleman are referred to he.

Some quotes I liked... • But I liked the previous one. Strong chemistry between the characters. And to have a small mining operation was a smart change of setting. I loved the mindship and their habitat's Mind's lover, trying to find each other after decades had passed. — There is something pleasing about this line. I read a lot of romance novels, I have favourite authors that I can say things like this about. This I will read near everything they read and compare book to book. (The Shadow's Child) • The walls had caved in now, receding in what seemed a long and profound distance; the table was folding back on itself, showing the metal it had been made from, the bots that had hammered it into shape—the broken scraps of what it'd be, when it finally broke down, every moment existing tightly folded on top of one another. — This is a description of going into deep space. Kinda like a parker pocket of space, this feels like some form of hyperspace. Either way, it messes with the mind, the deeper you go the worse you get. The Shadow's Child makes teas to protect people'm minds in deep space. I said the lore was understandable, this was the only bit I didn't quite get. (The Shadow's Child) • "It was a long way away from here—the currents of unreality carried her a long way: you can see it in the way the shadow skin got shredded. And I could speculate, but it's an unhealthy pastime. We need certainty, not smokescreens." — I like Long Chau. I like the way her mind her analytical mind works. The language she is given is great too. (Long Chau) • "She'll be back." "Of course. She attacks problems the same way crocodiles attack prey, with relentless abandon. Giving up would be physically painful." — This is a well-respected and connected shipmind talking about Long Chau. Quite frankly I like it because it says a lot about her. This is Long Chau's reputation with shipminds in general. (The Shadow's Child and Sharpening Steel into Needles) • Long Chau lounged against the wall with the ease of someone who owned the compartment. Bots hung on the back of her hands—gilded and ornate like jewels, the needles on the tips of their bodies almost invisible. — This is just such a visual description. (The Shadow's Child) • Long Chau had been about to rise from the table. She sat down now. The languidness was gone, leaving only the sharp, fast and wounding edge of a blade. — Ditto on the visual description. This and the previous quote are pretty good examples of The Shadow's Child's language. (The Shadow's Child)

The Tea Master and the Detective has been sitting on my tbr pile for far too long. Honestly, I'm glad I've finally read it. I can definitely see how it won the 2018 Nebula award it did (plus a nomination for a Hugo). It was actually the cover that originally attracted me to this. Both covers I've seen are lovely, though Derek Berger's perhaps slightly better reflecting the characters better. Berger's is the cover I read.

oh man all the italics in this review. Out of respect to Aliette de Bodard I have kept her formatting for the shipminds names while maintaining my own formatting (italics for quotes and titles).

#the universe of xuya #book review #science fiction #sci-fi #read 2022 #ktreviews #booklr #the tea master and the detective #aliette de bodard

[fictionkinfessions]

once-upon-a-fuckery, on-sunset-wings, and the anon that guessed grillby all got their guesses right! the one with the dead brother is tim stocker, the bartender is grillby, and the wish granter is jirachi!

for mpc, i dont know who thuan is, but after searching the series i might just add it to my to-read list! it seems interesting! -🐼♦️🎭

Grabbing your hands with my paws, yess! Please read dominion of the fallen if and whenever you do! Everyone is must love my husband or else! Ignore that he's fr*nch, it's only technically…. :T Ms de Bodard writes some amazing novels, I wish I had enough money to buy all of them instead of borrowing from the library all the time!!!

Also fair warning, in the first Dominion book there's some explicit torture scenes, imprisonment, sexual assault [in a medical context that's usually(?) not considered assault?], slavery, and colonization. Amongst other stuff, anyways. Do check for CWs if you happen to need them, for each book. It's not softcore ya levels, but it's not hardcore splatterpunk either.

Connie / Mod Party cat!

#fictionkinfessions #ask response #mod party cat! #guess the name #not confessions #mod response #i want to live in the Xuya Universe tbh

[miserywizard]

friendship with orientalist space fantasy Star Wars is OVER now orientalist space fantasy Dune is my best friend

#friendship with Star Wars has been over for years lol #actually the xuya series is my favorite sci fi I need to read the latest one

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#scifi #books #The Red Scholar's Wake #Aliette de Bodard #Xuya #poll #result: no #l: English

[gollancz]

A Fire Born of Exile is a sapphic story based on Nirvana in Fire/The Count of Monte Cristo: ​​a scholar, betrayed and left for dead, returns in disguise for revenge. She plans to bring the entire opulent, decadent society of the habitats crashing down. Except that falling in love wasn’t part of the plan.

It’s basically a novel about the wounds of the past, how far one would go for revenge, and a pair of disaster lesbians trying to do the right thing, with very different ideas of what constitutes the right thing. 

#aliette de bodard #A Fire Born of Exile #Xuya Universe #Sapphic SF #Asian SF #disaster lesbians in space

[netmassimo]

Il romanzo "The Red Scholar’s Wake" di Aliette de Bodard è stato pubblicato per la prima volta nel 2022. Fa parte della serie ambientata nell'universo Xuya. È inedito in Italia.

Quando Xích Si viene catturata dai pirati del Vessillo Rosso, si aspetta di essere uccisa, probabilmente non in modo rapido. Invece, Pesce del Riso, la nave senziente che guida i pirati, le propone un matrimonio di interesse.

Pesce del Riso ha perso sua moglie, la precedente leader del Vessillo Rosso, in circostanze che ritiene sospette e crede che nella sua flotta vi sia una talpa che passa informazioni ai loro rivali. Xích Si è molto brava nel recuperare parti di robot da riassemblare e programmare perciò le sue capacità tecniche potrebbero essere la chiave per far luce sulla situazione.

#fantascienza #romanzo #recensione #Xuya

[signourneybooks]

A Fire Born of Exile | Part of Universe of Xuya | ARC Review

Thank you to JAB Books for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.   Book: A Fire Born of Exile (Universe of Xuya) by Aliette de BodardRelease Date: October 12th 2023Tags: Science-Fiction | Romance | Revenge | Bio Ships | Space Opera Trigger/Content Warnings: Corruption | Murder | Torture | Kidnapping Other books in this series I reviewed The…

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#A Fire Born of Exile #aliette de bodard #bio ships #Revenge #romance #sci-fi #Science-fiction #Space Opera #tw: corrupion #TW: Kidnapping #TW: murder #TW: Torture #Universe of Xuya

[fahye]

book recs: august '23

(I want to try and do these posts more frequently because I DEARLY miss yelling about books, txitter is [poop emoji]-ing, and bluesky is promising but I don't have much of an audience there yet)

ok! stuff freya has read recently and enjoyed:

A FIRE BORN OF EXILE by aliette de bodard -- did you enjoy nirvana in fire? this is for YOU. it's a revenge story set in aliette's xuya space opera universe, with a pile of complicated characters with mixed or obscured motives, a sapphic romance, and just really incredible use of worldbuilding and politics.

THE SLEEPING SOLDIER by aster glenn gray -- I am an enormous sucker for aster's historical m/m romances, and this one was incredible. a union soldier goes to sleep in 1865 and wakes up in 1965, and his new college roommate has a series of gay crises about it. sweet, exuberant, well researched. both a wonderful romance and an absolutely fascinating examination of male friendships and homosexuality in two different historical time periods.

A DEADLY EDUCATION by naomi novik -- doing a reread of the first two scholomance books before I dive into the third. these books are so disgustingly tailored to ME, a huge fan of magical academia stories with a truly deliciously unnecessary level of worldbuilding detail about how the magic works (and how the school is trying to kill you).

BATH HAUS by p.j. vernon -- a man goes to a gay bathhouse, cheating on his partner, and narrowly escapes being murdered. things get worse from there. I can only recommend this to you if you enjoy thrillers that STRESS YOU THE FUCK OUT, which I normally don't; I nearly put it down a couple of times, but I HAD to know what was going on. it's a masterclass in propulsive tension and does some really cool things with unreliable narration.

HAVEMERCY by jaida jones and danielle bennett -- seven hundred years late to this party, but OH MY GOD. this is the completely gay political/military fantasy of my dreams (the YEARNING), plus there are magical-mechanical dragons. I will be devouring the other books in this series in short order.

EVERY VERSION OF YOU by grace chan -- a beautiful and fascinating literary scifi book about humanity and family and love, and being given the choice to upload your consciousness to a digital paradise as the planet dies around you. unsurprisingly it deals with some heavy stuff, but it's fantastic. and australian!

A THIEF AND A GENTLEMAN by arden powell -- another m/m romance in arden's flos magicae series. the title alone is probably enough to tell you why I enjoyed it, but I especially liked the way it kept subverting my expectations in favour of more chewy emotional honesty and complexity.

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER by fern brady -- a memoir by a scottish comedian about being diagnosed with autism in her thirties, and her life up to that point. funny and chaotic and an all-around amazing read. I loved fern on taskmaster and I love her even more now.

#book recs

[augustinajosefina]

A request

Please suggest books to me! Preferably in the glove kink/lesbian space atrocities, urban fantasy or dark academia genres but I'll happily try any SF/fantasy at least once.

So far I've read and loved:

Before 2023

The Imperial Radch (Ancillary Justice/Sword/Mercy) - Ann Leckie

Jean le Flambeur (The Quantum Thief/The Fractal Prince/The Causal Angel) - Hannu Rajaniemi

The Windup Girl/The Water Knife - Paolo Bagicalupi

Memory of Water/The City of Woven Streets - Emmi Itäranta

2023

The Locked Tomb (Gideon/Harrow/Nona the Ninth) - Tamsyn Muir

The Masquerade (Traitor/Monster/Tyrant Baru Cormorant) - Seth Dickinson

Teixcalaan series (A Memory Called Empire/A Desolation Called Peace) - Arkady Martine

Machineries of Empire (Ninefox Gambit/Raven Stratagem/Revenant Gun/Hexarchate Stories) - Yoon Ha Lee

The Murderbot Diaries (All Systems Red to System Collapse) - Martha Wells

The Broken Earth (The Fifth Season/The Obelisk Gate/The Stone Sky) - N. K. Jemisin

Klara And The Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

Xuya universe (The Citadel of Weeping Pearls/The Tea Master and the Detective/Seven of Infinities plus short stories) - Aliette de Bodard

This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The Goblin Emperor/The Witness for the Dead/Grief of Stones - Katherine Addison

Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh

2024

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab

The Craft Sequence (Three Parts Dead/Two Serpents Rise/Full Fathom Five/Last First Snow/Four Roads Cross/Ruin of Angels) - Max Gladstone

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution - R. F. Kuang

The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling

Last Exit - Max Gladstone

Dead Country - Max Gladstone

Read and liked:

The Moonday Letters - Emmi Itäranta

Great Cities (The City We Became/The World We Make) - N. K. Jemisin

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

Autonomous - Annalee Newitz

Dead Djinn universe (A Master of Djinn/The Haunting of Tram Car 015/A Dead Djinn in Cairo/The Angel of Khan el-Khalili) - P. Djèlí Clark

Even Though I Knew the End - C. L. Polk

Station Eternity - Mur Lafferty

The Mythic Dream - Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe

Shades of Magic (A Darker Shade of Magic/A Gathering of Shadows/A Conjuring of Light/Fragile Threads of Power) - V. E. Schwab

The Stars Are Legion - Kameron Hurley

Ninth House/Hell Bent - Leigh Bardugo

Machine - Elizabeth Bear

Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield

She Is A Haunting - Trang Thanh Tran

Was uncertain about:

Light From Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki

The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi

Paladin's Grace - T. Kingfisher

The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune

In the Vanishers Palace - Aliette de Bodard

And read and disliked:

To Be Taught, if Fortunate - Becky Chambers

A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon

The Calculating Stars - Mary Robinette Kowal

The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson

How High We Go in the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu

Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo

(My pride insists I add that I have, in fact, read other books as well. Just to be clear.)

#books #lesbian space atrocities #imperial radch #ann leckie #locked tomb series #the masquerade #baru cormorant #seth dickinson #teixcalaan series #arkady martine #machineries of empire #yoon ha lee #the murderbot diaries #martha wells #broken earth trilogy #nk jemisin #tamsyn muir #this is how you lose the time war #the goblin emperor #katherine addison #aliette de bodard #annalee newitz #paolo bagicalupi #some desperate glory #emily tesh #hannu rajaniemi #a master of djinn #p djeli clark #max gladstone #craft sequence

[rhetoricandlogic]

Liz Bourke Reviews A Fire Born of Exile by Aliette de Bodard

October 21, 2023

A Fire Born of Exile is Aliette de Bodard’s second novel-length Xuya universe space opera. It’s a compelling, atmospheric tale of consequences, romance, and revenge. (I should note that I’m mentioned in the acknowledgements, which may cause you to consider me a biased observer.)

Minh is the daughter of the prefect of the Scattered Pearls Belt, raised in sheltered luxury, her future laid out for her regardless of her own desires. Her mother is emotionally distant at best, though it would be more accurate to categorise her as abusive. A brief moment of rebellion sees Minh, in disguise, attending the Tiger Games to enjoy the entertainment: in the aftermath of a riot, she’s rescued from a kidnapping attempt by the mysterious ‘‘Alchemist of Streams and Hills,’’ the cultured, cosmopolitan scholar Sương Quỳnh and her companion, the mindship Guts of Sea.

Thiên Hoà is a struggling engineer keeping a business going with her sister, Thiên Dung. Hoà’s elder sister, a scholar, was disgraced in the aftermath of a rebellion, the Ten Thousand Flags Uprising, and is years dead, while Dung, whose skills include working on mindships, is very ill. Dung was supposed to take a job repairing a very badly wrecked mindship, Flowers at the Gates of the Lords, but her illness means Hoà needs to go in her place, pretending to skills she doesn’t have, if they’re to keep going. When she visits her dead elder sister’s grave, she encounters a cultured, at­tractive upper-class stranger who corresponded with the elder sister before the Uprising making offerings there: Quỳnh. Quỳnh offers to help Hoà with the mindship job, and Hoà accepts. But Hoà suspects that Quỳnh is ‘‘hurtling along some private path to some disastrous, distant conflagration.’’ Hoà doesn’t really want the risk of associating with someone who might well set others on fire along with herself.

Quỳnh had a different name, once. A survivor of the Uprising – from the wrong side – she’s planned for revenge for years: Revenge on the prefect who put down the rebellion and on the general, General Tuyết, who stood by her side. Tuyết, who had once denounced Quỳnh to the magistrate to be condemned to death. Now she and Guts of Sea are putting their plans into motion, and she has left her toddler child (also a mindship) in another person’s care in order to execute it. Quỳnh does not expect to survive her revenge, but she plans to ruin the lives of all the wealthy, powerful people who were happy to condemn an innocent woman to death before she dies. She didn’t expect to meet Hoà. She didn’t expect to be attracted to her. There’s – just barely – room for a small kindness to Hoà in her plan. There’s no room at all for attraction.

There’s a saying about best laid plans and how often they go awry. In this case, it definitely ap­plies.

De Bodard has said that A Fire Born of Exile was inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo, and while I can’t remember much of the original (it was not formative literature for me, I do not recommend reading it aged ten), the revenge plot that teeters a little off the rails because the avenger catches an unfortunate case of compassion for the collateral damage – and because other people’s choices tilt the scales – is a fascinating one. This doesn’t mean that Quỳnh abandons her revenge, but it does end up looking different than she anticipated. That happens in part because her burgeoning relationship with Hoà, and Hoà’s resolute determination not to be part of Quỳnh’s revenge, pushes her off-balance. And in part because Minh, and the choices Minh makes as she tries to navigate a way out from underneath her mother and her stepmother without losing herself, end up having consequences Quỳnh didn’t entirely take into account.

De Bodard’s work is often concerned with power: with the indifference or cruelty of people who hold it and the difficulties of finding ethical paths to any kind of real justice or fair dealing in societies that enforce hierarchical structureswith exemplary legal violence and call it just; with the problems posed by power differentials in interpersonal relationships even when all parties try to act with kindness and good faith; with the responsibilities owed by parental figures to their children and the power that parental figures and teachers have to help or harm those children by action or omission. In A Fire Born of Exile, Minh’s family situation mirrors in microcosm the greater injustices of her society, a smaller and perhaps more intensely personal version of the injustice that Quỳnh once suffered at Minh’s mother’s hands. Hoà, who has never expected either justice or revenge but who has not let the injustice in her make her cruel or cynical, changes them both.

Minh’s growing recognition of her mother’s cruelty, her longing to be valued, to be loved, and her eventual realisation that she’ll never get this from her mother, is painfully well-drawn. So too is the romance between Hoà and Quỳnh, a romance that is against each of their better judgement. For Quỳnh, Hoà is a breath of happi­ness but a terrible vulnerability, and though she knows that her commitment to revenge means their romance is doomed, she can’t quite draw back from it either. For Hoà, Quỳnh is unex­pectedly compelling, fascinating, someone who makes her feel something new, but she’s afraid of the consequences of Quỳnh’s revenge, for Quỳnh and for her. Their relationship is fraught with that push-and-pull, but the ultimate resolution feels decidedly earned.

A Fire Born of Exile opens with a riot and doesn’t let up from there. Poisonings, intrigue, terrible secrets and tense confrontations combine in a tense, accomplished space opera, told with de Bodard’s usual vividness and verve. For my money, it’s an even better novel than The Red Scholar’s Wake, which I loved.

#Aliette de Bodard #A Fire Born of Exile #mahreviews #long post