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young-astro · 20 days

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Sorry if this is invasive in any way, but I host a queer library at my university and noticed we do not have many authors of colour hosted in our collection. I enjoy sci fi and would like to put more of it into our collection, but I'd really like for some amount of it to feature authors of colour. I know Samuel Delany is a good author for this, but I was wondering about any beyond this.

I'd love to connect more people to works by people of colour, and I think it is a genuine necessity for our library to do so to be worth maintaining. Would you have any recommendations? Thank you.

Not invasive at all! I definitely do have some recommendations for books by BIPOC + queer spec fic authors, but they're mostly fantasy. Hope that's okay--if anyone has any queer BIPOC sci-fi books to add, please do so! (There'll be a lot of overlap with my earlier post.)

Anything by Octavia Butler. My personal favorites are Dawn, The Parable of the Sower, and her short fiction collection, Bloodchild and Other Stories (sci-fi)

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (sci-fi)

The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley Parker-Chan (fantasy)

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez (fantasy)

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo (fantasy)

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard, who also writes absolutely wonderful short fiction (fantasy)

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera (fantasy)

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark (fantasy)

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri (fantasy)

#an unkindness of ghosts #the radiant emperor #the vanished birds #fireheart tiger #the unbroken #science fiction #fantasy #bloodchild and other stories #ascendant #the burning kingdoms #the singing hills cycle #books #asks

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sapphic-book-tournament · 6 months

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Blind Beauty by Jasmine Garcia-

On the isolated isle of Sarpedon, cold blood under scaly flesh pumps into a creature with snakes for hair, and serpentine features. Cast from society by the wrath of a Goddess, she is shielded by the bodies of stone along the shoreline. They warn off mortals; victims of her curse that had come to harm her. Soldiers, huntsmen, adventurers. Her curse afflicted all. All but one. A beauty by the name of Mirra washes ashore and doesn't succumb to Medusa's menacing sight. Thus begins the tragically romantic tale of a blind seer, and an untrusting gorgon.

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she’s returned to her mother’s imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria’s royal palace.

Thanh’s new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh’s home. Eldris won’t take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions.

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words-and-coffee · 11 months

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Anyway, the fire doesn’t matter. There will be other fires, my love, and we will survive them all.

Aliette de Bodard, Fireheart Tiger

#Aliette de Bodard #Fireheart Tiger #quote #quotes

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libraryleopard · 11 months

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Adult fantasy novella

A princess sent as a political hostage to a foreign country as a child must regain her footing her mother's court upon returning home while haunted by the memory of a terrible fire and the appearance of her former lover

Explores colonialism & emerging from an abusive relationship

Vietnamese lesbian main character

#this is a quick read!#enjoyed the way that de bodard tied the main character's growth to broader politics #there's a romance that pops up at the and and i thought it was rather rushed but otherwise an interesting story #i should read a full-length book by this author at home point hmmm #fireheart tiger #aliette de bodard #lulu speaks #lulu reads #2023 reads #books #lulu reads fireheart tiger

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lgbtqreads · 1 year

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Fave Five: Queer Fiction About Politics

For more, check out this post. The (Un)Popular Vote by Jasper Sanchez (YA) Something Like Possible by Miel Moreland (YA) Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony White Houses by Amy Bloom (Historical) Bonus: These are all “realistic” fiction, but for political SFF, check out The Councillor by E.J. Beaton, Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard, and Winter’s…

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#Aliette de Bodard #Amy Bloom #Casey McQuiston #E.J. Beaton #Enter the Aardvark #Everina Maxwell #Fireheart Tiger #Jasper Sanchez #Jessica Anthony #Miel Moreland #Politics #Red White & Royal Blue #Something Like Possible #The (Un)popular Vote #The Councillor #White Houses #Winter&039;s Orbit

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wizardsvslesbians · 2 years

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In this episode we tackle two books which feature lesbians and are set in fantasy Asia but don’t have much else in common. Also something weird happened with Alexis’ mic. But we soldier on!

#wizards vs lesbians #fireheart tiger #when the tiger came down the mountain

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st-just · 2 years

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Starting Fireheart Tiger because it was on the Hugo nominee list and I’ve been meaning to give de Boudard a try for a while, and it seems I have entirely accidentally stumbled into yet another book about imperialism and lesbians.

#good so far for the record #books #fireheart tiger #aliette de bodard #lesbian space atrocities

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booksandwords · 4 months

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Life is too short to be ringed by other people’s expectations of proper behavior.

Fireheart Tiger, Aliette de Bodard

#fireheart tiger #aliette de bodard #literary quotes

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bookshelfmonkey · 10 months

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queer books for pride month: day 7

Fireheart Tiger- Aliette de Bodard

Genre: Fantasy LGBTQ+ Rep.: lesbian MC, lesbian LI CW: abusive (emotional & physical) relationship, attempted rape, parental neglect, arson, gaslighting, blackmailing, grooming (discussed), trauma

Plot: Thanh was sent away to a foreign country as a child to play the role of political hostage. It's no wonder, therefore, that when she returns, she brings with her the trauma, ghosts, loves and magic of her past.

Why I'd recommend this book: This book is a neat, self-contained novella. It's perfect for if you want a quick read, and it's also a wonderful, memorable fantasy story.

#fireheart tiger #books #book #book reviews #book review #bookblr #reading #queer books #queer #lgbtq #lgbtq books #lesbian #lesbian books #lesbian rep #fantasy books #my posts #my posts books

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mommyclaws · 8 months

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Mentor Tigerclaw and Firepaw Au

#warrior cats #art #Tigerclaw #tigerstar #tigerstar 1 #fireheart #firestar #mentor tiger au

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hear-the-ocean · 2 years

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Fireheart Tiger book review

Very long and Spoiler-y review of Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

Summary (pulled from goodreads) :

Award-winning author Aliette de Bodard returns with a powerful romantic fantasy that reads like The Goblin Emperor meets Howl’s Moving Castle in a pre-colonial Vietnamese-esque world.

Fire burns bright and has a long memory….

Can Thanh find the freedom to shape her country’s fate—and her own?

Review:

When we first open with the story, I thought it would be interesting. We start it right in the middle of a scene with the first sentence "they were coming." It set the tone and gave me this urgency. Add the little confusing flashback scene of a burning palace and random objects catching fire, I thought wow things are tense, action packed and dire already! Only to be met with exposition, politics, a meeting, and a romance that had been established outside the pages. It abruptly cut off the feelings I had reading the start of the story.

There's too much exposition without any kind of set up or foundation. We don't have a ground and we are being told the details of tree leaves and flowers. There’s also too much repetition. The same little bit of that burning palace and the servant girl got repeated like 3 times in the first 20 pages (I'm reading the ebook so first 20 pages of the ebook) and the Eldris and her blue eyes bringing a single rose to her was repeated twice which obviously isn't that much but when the story has barely begun, we have very little info other than the political stuff, it's very noticeable. But even as we go on, the repetition doesn't stop and it gets exasperating. It just made me think that the story needed another round of editing.

The difficulty with short stories and novellas, especially fantasy ones, is that you have so little time to set everything, worldbuild, introduce and develop characters, stories, and arcs. Making the reader care about the characters and their problems is going to be difficult because you just don't have the space. With Fireheart Tiger, I had a hard time, after the initial beginning, to care at all about the characters. Part of me wanted to know about this mysterious fire but I also just didn't care. The repetition, instead of building anticipation like I assume it was trying to do, was instead just frustrating. The characters overall just felt flat and not real. The type of characters you would see in children’s stories each with 1 trait and black and white morality.

I didn't care for the romance and felt frustrated with Thanh's focus on it and lack of focus on her position and responsibility. There's a lot of self-pity and self-hate with her. She doesn't feel like she can achieve much and has fallen in her sisters' shadows. She lives her life confused and in fear. This isn't bad though. It's totally understandable given she was essentially a political hostage for years. There was no way for her to learn the skills needed for her position and with the fire that she barely survived, of course she will be traumatized. Doesn't mean it's not frustrating though.

That being said, literally the 2nd scene of this novella proved that wrong, gave us what I thought to be a key character trait; Thanh being skilled in politics and negotiation. People aren’t usually born with those skills so I have to assume she learned it but that means she should have other skills royals need for their positions but the decisions she makes really challenge that established characteristic lol. Like I don’t know much about royal rules but I’m pretty sure that as a Princess you would consult with the Empress about potential political alliances with other nations against one specific nation and then have a scribe or someone or maybe yourself write the letters to those nations. But? Thanh? Just? Suddenly makes the decision for alliances, writes the letters on her own and then just sends them. Hello? She gets reprimanded of course but ultimately her decision is shown as being the right one.

Over and over she makes bad decisions and gets upset when her mother is rightfully upset/angry at her. She never discusses things with her mother, they never work together and in any other story that took its politics seriously, it would be a sign of a coup. The Empress and the Princess that do what they want regardless of the other weakens the monarchy and throws everything in chaos. Worse is that the narrative keeps painting the mother as stupid and Thanh as the chess genuis who can spin a story to her favour like she did in the end.

Also I didn’t appreciate Thanh being rude to her mom. Not once did we get these 2 to sit down and talk and work through their issues and work together. It felt like Thanh was running around making bad decisions, her mom being upset and trying to figure out what happened so she can do damage control but Thanh doing whatever she wants to “fix” her mistake cuz her mom “just doesn’t understand” and thereby undermining the literal Empress?? And getting upset at her mom being upset. Absolutely wild.

It’s supposed to be a royal court but it feels so empty? Like it feels like it’s literally just Thanh and her mom running everything.

It’s annoying that Thanh talks about filial piety yet hasn’t done anything? She’s rash! Despite what we are told, her decisions show us that she IS rash and doesn’t think things through. She doesn’t understand what it means to be in charge of a nation and gets upset when her mom puts her responsibility to her people above her. Unfortunately, the life of a royal is that of a pawn. The power royals have is sometimes nothing but shadow; you can see it but can’t touch. The real power is usually held by multiple people along with the empress. At least that’s how I understand it.

By far the biggest stupid decision was her having an affair with the princess of the nation that’s trying to slowly take over her land? Of having sex out in broad daylight in the gardens and then being shocked that they were later discovered. And when she gets blackmailed about this, she accepts the terms instead of coming out clean to her mother!! Someone who is essentially her enemy and is actively negotiating with her, blackmails Thanh into giving her a favour…. Because Thanh is more scared about her mom seeing her as weak. This one decision put her entire nation at risk.

There’s a strong theme of being filial but honestly I never actually saw anyone be filial.

I don’t know why but I couldn’t connect with Thanh and at a certain point I was almost disliking her. It came to a point where any scene with her justifiably feeling scared or confused, her wanting more for herself and wanting to be seen and loved, would still annoy me. I could step away and agree that it makes sense for her to have those feelings but with the earlier frustrations with her and her stupidity, it stopped me from caring, which makes me sound so rude lmao. But honestly the contradictory actions and the self-pity was too much.

The romance was not great. Because it happened off page, I didn't care and was instead annoyed every time Thanh missed or wanted Eldris. And like I get it. Her and Eldris aren’t really the true romance but we don’t know that till the end so I count it. Plus the romance between Thanh and Giang was insta-love too. So I’m just gonna ignore the romance. To be honest, I don’t see this being about romance. To me it felt more like hey here are some different types of relationships! Thanh and Eldris have a romance going on but it's manipulative and abusive? And it does a great job of showing how Eldris manipulated Thanh, of Thanh’s feelings and reactions as a victim. To me Fireheart Tiger isn’t a romance novella. And I have to believe that because the romance between Thanh and Eldris isn’t a good one and isn’t healthy of course and the real couple get together at the end and their love had no development anyways so I’m not sure romance in general had any kind of purpose here.

The ending felt rushed and honestly the entire story felt like 5 or 10 chapters taken right from the middle of a 500 page novel. Basically it felt like we didn't get a proper beginning or ending, just a random middle. Even the conflicts that were setup didn’t get developed let alone get resolved; we just got a “we will have to deal with that in the future but we can do it!” vibe.

I said it already but truly if this story was expanded into a full novel, where everything from world building to characters was given the space to be properly set and developed (and with a healthy amount of editing) Fireheart Tiger would have been much more enjoyable for me and probably a favourite. In the end it is all preference, there are more people who have enjoyed this than not and unfortunately i was in the latter.

#book review #fireheart tiger #aliette de bodard #novella #fantasy #all female cast #vietnamese inspired #i think?#books and reading #bookblr #books #booklr #writing portfolio #my writing #my reviews #lgbt #wlw books #sapphic

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sapphic-book-tournament · 6 months

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Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan-

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu uses the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.