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A review by metafiktion
The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard
5.0
I loved the original, and I loved this one even more. While my heart ached for more Emmanuelle, Madeleine and Philippe were absolutely the right characters to stay with, especially thrust as they were into new...ish circumstances. (I want a standalone book—I'll even take just a chapter!—on Samariel though. Dude has added so much to the plots and texture of both books yet gets so little page time.)
The book is told from Madeleine and Philippe's perspectives as well as that of a handful of new (and wonderful) characters. The central mystery is such that you can start piecing it together from the various fragments uncovered by the different characters, in contrast to that of [b:The House of Shattered Wings|23601046|The House of Shattered Wings (Dominion of the Fallen, #1)|Aliette de Bodard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1431963046s/23601046.jpg|43203048], which relied on an unguessable deepening of the magical plot. [b:The House of Binding Thorns|27693272|The House of Binding Thorns (Dominion of the Fallen #2)|Aliette de Bodard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1469032191s/27693272.jpg|47690322] also more directly engages with colonial history—specifically, the British Opium Wars in China, mapped onto French interference into Vietnamese political society—and I was fully immersed in it even without being particularly familiar with either of these histories (or, for that matter, the geography of Paris, which lends heavily to the mood and setting) but I imagine the reading experience would be much different if I were.
It's also a lot queerer than the last book! Queer characters are everywhere and often central to the story, sometimes in plot-affecting ways, but without everything being just about their queerness. I loved Françoise and Berith in particular, even if the nature of Berith's powers and predicament was never entirely clear to me.
I don't know if [a:Aliette de Bodard|2918731|Aliette de Bodard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1261567215p2/2918731.jpg] is planning another book in this world, but I'd definitely read it if she were. And most importantly: S a m a r i e l. Just think about it.
The book is told from Madeleine and Philippe's perspectives as well as that of a handful of new (and wonderful) characters. The central mystery is such that you can start piecing it together from the various fragments uncovered by the different characters, in contrast to that of [b:The House of Shattered Wings|23601046|The House of Shattered Wings (Dominion of the Fallen, #1)|Aliette de Bodard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1431963046s/23601046.jpg|43203048], which relied on an unguessable deepening of the magical plot. [b:The House of Binding Thorns|27693272|The House of Binding Thorns (Dominion of the Fallen #2)|Aliette de Bodard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1469032191s/27693272.jpg|47690322] also more directly engages with colonial history—specifically, the British Opium Wars in China, mapped onto French interference into Vietnamese political society—and I was fully immersed in it even without being particularly familiar with either of these histories (or, for that matter, the geography of Paris, which lends heavily to the mood and setting) but I imagine the reading experience would be much different if I were.
It's also a lot queerer than the last book! Queer characters are everywhere and often central to the story, sometimes in plot-affecting ways, but without everything being just about their queerness. I loved Françoise and Berith in particular, even if the nature of Berith's powers and predicament was never entirely clear to me.
I don't know if [a:Aliette de Bodard|2918731|Aliette de Bodard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1261567215p2/2918731.jpg] is planning another book in this world, but I'd definitely read it if she were. And most importantly: S a m a r i e l. Just think about it.