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A review by mary_soon_lee
The Red Threads of Fortune by Neon Yang
3.0
This is the second of a paired set of silkpunk novellas by JY Yang. I would advise reading the other novella, “The Black Tides of Heaven,” before this one.... Where the first novella centered on Akeha, this one centers on Akeha’s twin, Mokoya. It’s a strong, vibrant, entertaining novella, if a little less striking to me than Akeha’s tale.
Mokoya is a deeply felt character, shaped by the grief she carries, but I didn’t initially sympathize with her. Indeed I was almost exasperated as people demonstrated compassion for her, while she demonstrated little reciprocal kindness. Maybe I was a harsh critic because I had heard such high praise for these novellas that my expectations were unrealistic. By the end I understood Mokoya better, and was far more in accord with her.
I love the setting of these novellas: a vivid, fascinating, fantastical secondary world that draws on Asian legacies rather than those of medieval Europe, but that is its own true self, a world in which children are nonbinary until they choose their gender, a world in which the sun rises and sets many times a day, a world in which Machinists vie against the established magic of the Tensorate. Recommended, but not so much that your expectations are unreasonable!
Mokoya is a deeply felt character, shaped by the grief she carries, but I didn’t initially sympathize with her. Indeed I was almost exasperated as people demonstrated compassion for her, while she demonstrated little reciprocal kindness. Maybe I was a harsh critic because I had heard such high praise for these novellas that my expectations were unrealistic. By the end I understood Mokoya better, and was far more in accord with her.
I love the setting of these novellas: a vivid, fascinating, fantastical secondary world that draws on Asian legacies rather than those of medieval Europe, but that is its own true self, a world in which children are nonbinary until they choose their gender, a world in which the sun rises and sets many times a day, a world in which Machinists vie against the established magic of the Tensorate. Recommended, but not so much that your expectations are unreasonable!