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annemaries_shelves's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
While you can never go wrong picking up a book about gay space pirates, there much less pirate-ing going on in this book.
It's split in focus between 1) discussing the morality and violence of the greater societies/competing empires (An O and Dai Viet) vs. that of the pirate society, and 2) the burgeoning sapphic romance between Xích Si (human scavenger turned pirate wife) and Rice Fish (a Mindship - aka sentient spaceship - and soon to be head of the Red Banner pirate ships).
The worldbuilding was so interesting - it's an alternate scifi history based on Vietnamese and Chinese societies rising to dominance. de Bodard's world used a lot of technology to integrate the virtual world (overlays) into the physical world (and everyone has bots too). Given the relatively short length of 291 pages, there wasn't enough world-building to satisfy me, personally. Recognizing this is one entry into the Xuya Universe series, there's more development overall across the series, but I felt this novel lacked some.
Similarly, the romance. Because the whole novel takes place in less than month (really a handful of days when it comes to actual events), our two main characters barely know each other by the time shit really goes down. And that's to their detriment. They claim to love each other, but they don't know the other, don't fully trust the other (especially Rice Fish), and easily miscommunicate. It very much read as insta-love and/or confusion of lust for love. I think we could've benefitted extra pages to facilitate a longer period overall for Xích Si and Rice Fish to really fall in love, or adjust their behaviour and emotions to better reflect reality (wild thing to say with scifi, I know).
In contrast, I really liked the exploration of parent-child relationships with Xích Si and Rice Fish's young and grown children, respectively.
Overall, it's a fun read and I would pick up another book in the series because it's an interesting universe and themes. But I wouldn't go into this expecting an actual scifi romance (unless insta-love is your jam).
Content warnings: grief, indentured servitude, violence, references to child indenturing and general concept that some people would sexually abuse children, death of spouse (offpage/pre-novel), references to rape of bondspeople
It's split in focus between 1) discussing the morality and violence of the greater societies/competing empires (An O and Dai Viet) vs. that of the pirate society, and 2) the burgeoning sapphic romance between Xích Si (human scavenger turned pirate wife) and Rice Fish (a Mindship - aka sentient spaceship - and soon to be head of the Red Banner pirate ships).
The worldbuilding was so interesting - it's an alternate scifi history based on Vietnamese and Chinese societies rising to dominance. de Bodard's world used a lot of technology to integrate the virtual world (overlays) into the physical world (and everyone has bots too). Given the relatively short length of 291 pages, there wasn't enough world-building to satisfy me, personally. Recognizing this is one entry into the Xuya Universe series, there's more development overall across the series, but I felt this novel lacked some.
Similarly, the romance. Because the whole novel takes place in less than month (really a handful of days when it comes to actual events), our two main characters barely know each other by the time shit really goes down. And that's to their detriment. They claim to love each other, but they don't know the other, don't fully trust the other (especially Rice Fish), and easily miscommunicate. It very much read as insta-love and/or confusion of lust for love. I think we could've benefitted extra pages to facilitate a longer period overall for Xích Si and Rice Fish to really fall in love, or adjust their behaviour and emotions to better reflect reality (wild thing to say with scifi, I know).
In contrast, I really liked the exploration of parent-child relationships with Xích Si and Rice Fish's young and grown children, respectively.
Overall, it's a fun read and I would pick up another book in the series because it's an interesting universe and themes. But I wouldn't go into this expecting an actual scifi romance (unless insta-love is your jam).
Content warnings: grief, indentured servitude, violence, references to child indenturing and general concept that some people would sexually abuse children, death of spouse (offpage/pre-novel), references to rape of bondspeople
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Grief, and Violence
Minor: Child abuse, Torture, Rape, Death, and Death of parent
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