Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders, by Aliette de Bodard

This book takes two characters from the Dominion of the Fallen series, Thuan from the dragon royal family and Asmodeus the main Fallen angel, and puts them in a murder mystery. I haven't fully kept up on the series so I may be missing some context for their relationship. And that's the core of the book. If you're a devoted fan of this series you get a nice helping of story in the space, well written and satisfying. Otherwise it's kind of confusing.

My Goodreads Review

The Red Scholar's Wake, by Aliette De Bodard

Romance stories aren't usually my thing but I can enjoy a good one. Not so much here. This book is really light on plot, really light on characterization, not even a whole lot of sex (though what there was, was uniquely described and interesting speculation), but much, much, much feelings. All the feelings. Romance is supposed to be about feelings, but there has to be something to hang the feelings on, and there's just not enough here. Other critics mentioned the way the mindship and the protagonist wanted to bang each other right away, the romance kind of exploded rather than developing. It's a love overcoming differences story, but the differences (pirates do bad things! They steal, kill and indenture! I got kidnapped by the pirates and given no choice! But I love the pirate leader anyway!) just get stated over and over rather than developed in any way. De Bodard has written a lot in the Xuya space and there's plenty to speculate on with mindships, but we don't see it here. A ship is just a person with a large and complex mechanical body.

This got a Locus nomination. Oof.

My Goodreads Review

Mulberry and Owl, by Aliette de Bodard

I read Mulberry and Owl because it's nominated for a Locus award in 2022.  This story is set in the Xuya universe, with mindships as characters. The title is a reference to the location of the story and one of the characters, a ship named The Owl with the Moon’s Tongue.  It's an enforcement ship, holding up a horrible dictatorship.  The protagonist has rebelled against that dictatorship along with her friend Kim Lan, but Kim is now giving in and seeking amnesty.  The protagonist is buying that amnesty by increasing the capabilities of that enforcement ship.  This tortures her in ways one would expect, and is well told.

Sort of reminds me of trying to rebel in modern China.  But as we have seen, Chinese citizens succeed in this sometimes.  Ok for fans of De Bodard.

Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette De Bodard

 Well...it's a novella, and I read it. Very standard plot for De Bodard and not as much heart as usual. She could have chosen to play this as a romance that just happens to be between women, but she throws in the mother's potential disappointment in sapphic romance without making it serious, and at that point it's a below-average entry in LGBTQ+ literature. Oh well.

My Goodreads Review

The Inaccessibility of Heaven, by Aliette de Bodard

This novelette is kind of in the same universe as de Bodard's Dominion of the Fallen series, but it's not part of the sequence and is meant to stand alone. It has a lot in common with that series--fallen angels and all--but with different characters. Our protagonist is a mortal dedicated to helping those fallen angels, and is enmeshed in their politics but trying to be authentic in it.

This is a somewhat less breathless tale than those in Dominion of the Fallen, though not a lot. It comes from a somewhat different place than the main series, and I'd say I liked it better. We actually got a little taste of motivation--of how the angels fell. I'd like to know more about that in the main series.

My Goodreads Review

The House of Binding Thorns, by Aliette de Bodard

I'm at 2.5 stars on this one. Like the first entry in Dominion of the Fallen, the dialog in this book is heavy with melodrama. Every single line is breathless. This has its place, but if it never lets up it gets hard to enjoy the plot or understand the characters. Everyone is overwrought and overwhelmed, all the time, except Asmodeus who is equally melodramatic in being above it all (though he has character building moments at the end). I think this gets better in the later stories.

In some ways this style conveys the inhuman nature of the Fallen, so it has that going for it. But we get no contrast with humans--they are all in with the melodrama as well. Including dramatically stating all their intentions, and responses. "You'll find I'm no easy prey"--anyone or thing that has to say this is, in fact, easy prey.

This reading experience obviously appeals more to some than others. Not so much for me.

My Goodreads Review

Children of Thorns, Children of Water, by Aliette de Bodard

Children of Thorns, Children of Water by Aliette de Bodard

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Children of Thorns, Children of Water is an interesting story and adds more depth to the Dominion of the Fallen universe. The baking element really does add an interesting twist. Whether it's enough to keep me going--not sure, I think I'm just a bit worn on Great House feuds, and beasties in the walls aren't quite enough to save them. Oh well.



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The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette de Bodard

The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I just read this one, considering whether to read the series. I read books nominated for major awards, and de Bodard gets nominated a lot. And while she uses a variety of settings--Southeast Asia, Central
America, France, spaceships--the structure of the setting seems to end up very similar. We have feudal Houses vying for control of a space and culture. In this one, it seems like a lot of reviewers got frustrated with de Bodard for presuming that we understand how the characters would sacrifice for a Great House, rather than building that understanding. As far as I can tell it's just how she rolls.

I enjoyed this book more than most of hers, actually. The writing is engaging and flows well. But it's the same old stuff. Made worse by the fact that this Great House stuff is a Thing now, and it seems like most of the award nominees structure their narratives around sparring feudal houses. I actually think the characters have potential to drive the plot further. But please tell us a new story!



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The Breath of War, by Aliette de Bodard

The Breath of War is the first of the Nebula short story nominees I'm reading this year.  And it's a pretty good start to the year's crop.

Our protagonist, Rechan, is pregnant and near term.  On this planet, Voc, humans need the help of a Stoneman to quicken their children.  The Stonemen (not necessarily men) are the creation of the women who wish to have children--at puberty they make one out of a special stone and give it their breath.  From that point on the Stoneman accompanies the woman as a companion and is available to quicken her children.

But Rechan is in a peculiar situation.  Her Stoneman is not with her.  But she has decided to get pregnant anyway, and must now go track down the Stoneman she created under mysterious circumstances.

This is my favorite story of de Bodard's so far--very coherent narrative, with interesting characters.  Her strength has always been bringing a unique combination of cultural backgrounds to her storytelling, but in this case it's a good plot also.  It ties in well with some of her other work that envisions interstellar ships as living beings.  A good read - 3 stars.

The Waiting Stars, by Aliette de Bodard

I never quite know what to make of Aliette de Bodard.

Critics like her work a lot, she gets nominated for awards every year.  But I find her work difficult to read--not that it's gross or anything, it just seems heavy.  Now that I've read a few other pieces, The Waiting Stars makes more sense to me.  The Mind Ships and their companions are more interesting.  But in the shorter fiction, there just seems to be a lot left out.

In this story, we have a Ship and its human companions searching a Ship graveyard set up by the Outsiders--a group of people very offended at how Mind Ships come about.  The story comes together from two perspectives--a woman named Catherine, who has been "rescued" by the Outsiders and somehow rebuilt to fit into their society, and Lan Nhen, the human companion of the Ship searching the Outsider graveyard.

As her stories go, I was able to follow this one better than most, and the Mind Ships are growing on me a little.  But not really enough to spend a lot of effort searching it out.  Two stars from me, probably more from the critics.

On a Red Station, Drifting, by Aliette de Bodard

On a Red Station, Drifting was nominated for a Nebula award in the Novella category in 2012.  My library did not have it, so I have purchased it for donation.  Now, lots of people liked this work--it has good ratings on Goodreads and Amazon, in addition to the Nebula nomination--but I had a few beefs with it:

1. It's billed as a novel, and priced like one.  But it's a novella.  Novels don't have to be thick, but I felt this was asking a lot for what I got.
2. The production values from Immersion Press were so-so.  Somewhat compressed type and spacing, and several grammatical and spelling errors detracted from enjoyment.

That said, we move on to the substance of the story itself.  The setting is Prosper Station, a permanent installation run by a Mind (born of humans but now operating a ship or station).  And that Mind is breaking down.

Reading this work is an interesting cultural exercise because it's very non-Western--the basis of the Empire's culture is classical Vietnam.  The dynamics of family relations and achievement in that culture are fully played out in the relationship between the two main characters, Quyen and Linh.  The story is driven by how they understand, and misunderstand, each other.  And in the end, even though they never truly reconcile, their strong traditions lead them to do the right thing.

A funny thing--planets get numbers in this story, and I guess they work like the numbered streets in New York--character associates with them even though the names are generic.  Linh is from the twenty-third planet (always spelled out), and a thirty-first planet is mentioned.  But only a few planets are covered (maybe three) so the device doesn't really get explored.  All the action takes place on Prosper Station.  The supporting cast development is somewhat spotty also.  A cousin's father (everyone on the station is related) is portrayed as drunk and unreliable, and commits a serious sin against family tradition (essentially selling off the ancestors), but when he actually interacts with people (Linh mostly) he comes off as uniquely wise.  We have no bridge from here to there.

So it's interesting, but probably had room to be a real novel.  Worthy of a longer review, but only 2 stars for enjoyment.  See what you think.

Immersion, by Aliette de Bodard

Continuing my reading of the Nebula short story nominees for 2012.  Immersion is a straight-up story, focused effectively on an extension of smartphone dependency.  What if our devices could steer and cue us through our lives so effectively that we didn't have to think about it?  We would always know just what to say or do, even in foreign places.  De Bodard speculates dependency, and tells a moving story of a woman trapped by her device, and another who recognizes it.  It's pretty easy to see where else this could go--could it prop up the demented past sanity, and would it still be them responding?  Fun.  3 stars from me for a solid read.

Reading the author bios for this year, I am struck by the fact that most have day jobs.  I think that to live as an author must be to really scramble, take a vow of poverty or be a best-seller.  Awards don't help much.  Probably has always been that way.

Shipbirth, by Aliette de Bodard

I have read just a few of de Bodard's stories, but would have to say that for me they are a hard march.  They might be worth it in longer form, but am just not sure, and Shipbirth doesn't answer the question for me.  The relationship between the characters, Ships, and Minds (which run ships) is hard to fathom.  de Bodard works at conveying the story through protagonist Acoimi's complicated history--as a woman, as a man, as a solider, as a physician.  Notice how the work metaphors keep coming up here.  Reading this story is work.  In the end, I think I was glad to have done it, but am still deciding.  Her work is probably very rewarding to those who come to appreciate it, which is why the Nebula nomination.  We'll see if I get there.

The Jaguar House, In Shadow, by Aliette de Bodard

Aliette de Bodard, according to her website, sets many of her stories in Mesoamerica.  This one is, I think, part of the Xuya series, where China got to the New World first.  I'm setting a lot of context here, because the story seems to need it.  On its own, The Jaguar House, In Shadow is OK, but hard to see as a Nebula nominee.  The system of Houses, which seem to be sort of Mesoamerican ninjas/CIA folks, is central but not real clear here.  This is an episode out of context, where a commander sells out in order to stay in favor with a mad dictator.  Two stars, on its own.