Reviews with content warning for Body horror - In the Vanishers' Palace

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

In the Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard

9 reviews

kaiyakaiyo's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

done! I’ve decided that I really dislike novellas. they always feel rushed, incomplete. there is soooo much going on here, but it feels like the author just shoves info into our brain and starts the story. there was also a lot of repetitive language; how many times can one person write the word “broken” before it loses meaning. I didn’t have time to love any of the characters, or even dislike any. they were such bare sketches that I felt nothing as they moved through the story. maybe novella-lovers like the shortcut to action, but I just like buildup, showing vs telling. probably a me issue

pacing and char development issues aside, this is a really interesting world that could be great with some building, and girl/dragon is my new favorite sapphic trope. the kisses were A1!!!! would’ve liked some more logistics on how a dragon lady fucks a regular lady but maybe im just unimaginative. anyways, this took me a while to get into, and even longer to finish; not sure why i keep picking up novellas. last time, for real!

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lanid's review

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dark mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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quorumbutton's review

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

F/F MC relationship which was almost a backdrop to the themes of medical ethics, personal & societal responsibility, and the understanding of how to become a better person. Post-apocalyptic sci-fantasy retelling of what felt like a vietnamese fairy tale (I see other reviews say it's Beauty and the Beast, but is there really not a Viet equivalent?)

A novella with interesting worldbuilding and quite a few feelings.

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peachani's review

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tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

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silvern's review

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adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I’d describe this book as soft medical/body horror.

It was okay.

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nmcannon's review

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emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

My 2021 Reading Challenge is going to be super long mlm doorstoppers and bite-sized wlw novellas, it seems. I'm on a roll with these. I picked up In the Vanishers' Palace for a couple reasons: (1) my wife just read it and loved it; (2) the new Trash & Treasures podcast is doing an episode on it, and hey, it's nice to read along; and (3) I've been meaning to read Aliette de Bodard since forever!

At around 145 pages, In the Vanishers’ Palace tells a complex story. In a magical Vietnam reeling from the invasion, and then abrupt disappearance of, the alien Vanishers, Yên is a failed scholar who returned to her village in disgrace. She’s been awkwardly shuffled off to her assist her aging mother in healing and educating the village’s youth, but both of them live under constant threat. Once the village’s elders deem someone has lost their “use” to the village, the person is sacrificed to the Vanishers’ constructs, bloodthirsty inventions who haunt the forest. If that isn’t bad enough, pollution and magical retroviruses run rampant. When the headwoman’s daughter is infected, Yên’s mother calls upon a dragon spirit to heal her, but the dragon demands a sacrifice too. Volunteering as tribute, Yên is whisked away to a palace out of an M.C. Escher painting, and the dragon, Vu Côn, asks her to…tutor her children. Yên’s surprised, to say the least. It doesn’t help that Vu Côn is super attractive.

Reading the other reviews, many readers remark that the world is too complicated or confusing. I will admit it’s a lot, especially for so short a book. However, while I wasn’t always sure exactly what a Vanisher is or why the palace is Like That, I always knew what elements stood for. Vanishers are colonizers, and the repercussions of them are metaphors for colonization’s devastating after-effects. I’m unsure if something went sideways with the book’s marketing, but some readers went in expecting a story exactly like the Disney Beauty and the Beast movie but queer, and no, this is much more complicated that that. And also not YA. If a reader is patient, everything’s explained in more clear terms later in the novella.

As for my own reading experience, I’m a little bit obsessed with de Bodard’s writing style. Her words are at once under-stated, but evocative. She somehow made me literally nauseous and dizzy with her descriptions of the palace, just like Yên is. The blending of the hard science and linguistic magic is something I haven’t seen so well-done since G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen, and Wilson’s one of my favorite authors. If I had a quibble, Yên and Vu Côn seemed to spend more time in denial than being in love. Then again, that’s more my personal preference when it comes to romance.

All in all, I love In the Vanishers’ Palace. A masterfully told tale that knows the story it wants to tell. I’m already reading Fireheart Tiger and very excited to delve deeper into de Bodard’s bibliography.

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ephemeralbreeze's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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millow333's review

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tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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moonlitemuseum's review

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

To be honest I have been reading In the Vanisher's Palace for a lot longer than the logged time on StoryGraph says. It's been a comfort read of mine for many months now, and eventually I chose to only check in on Yên and Vu Côn when I was bathing. Then I could give it my undivided attention and fully drink in every word, and this is a story where words matter.

The world building is almost painfully rich, depicting a world in ruin that doesn't feel at all dissimilar to our own, but the detail never feels as though it detracts from the central love story. The love story itself is deftly told, acquiescing to all the questions and doubts a reader might have but convincing them that yes, it can work, and should work, and both should stand to grow from it.

The range of sexualities and genders in the cast is astonishing. I felt a deep, warm ache reading this story—is this how it feels, to read compelling literature about gay women and nonbinary characters? I don't doubt that Asian readers, especially LGBT Vietnamese readers, will feel even more sated.

This is an incredible story and it is stunningly easy to read. If you want to read about dragons, women-loving-women, and an intriguing world ravaged by magical plagues, then you owe it to yourself to pick this up.

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