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A review by charlotekerstenauthor
In the Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard
There'll never be a place where everything is right, but we can try our best to strive towards it."
So What's It About?
When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement.
But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets...
What I Thought
I read several novellas this year and I have a feeling that I'll be saying the same thing in each of them: I loved the premise and the bones of the story but I would have enjoyed it much more as a fully-developed novel. In this case de Bodard developed an amazing postcolonial setting with strange magic, mysterious remnant technology and rampant diseases, and I would have loved to explore it even more. The book was largely about people trying to heal, I think, in the literal sense with diseases but also in the sense of grappling with a legacy of destruction and exploitation. There were some great reflections on the way that a destructive mindset of dehumanization and utilitarianism remains even when a colonizer is gone:
"It wasn't just the broken world that the Vanishers had left behind. They'd left, too, their true victory: the standards by which people treated each other. Seeing limited resources as things to fight for, people as bodies to safeguard the villages, the old and sick as needless burdens. Weighing everyone against necessity and survival."
I could have gladly read a whole novel about Yên and the rest untangling that legacy and striving for something different and better.
I never felt strongly about Yên as a protagonist and Vu Côn mainly bothered me because she literally bought Yên and slept with her and then went around talking about the importance of consent:
"We’ve discussed this before. Not just other people saying yes, but whether they mean it, or whether they’re just doing it because they’re afraid."
Beauty and the Beast just isn't my fairy tale of choice and it was hard for me to feel much of anything positive about a romance where Yên kept repeatedly reminding herself that Vu Côn was imprisoning her and could have her killed with impunity. At the same time, it felt like Vu Côn and Yên interacted very little, which is something else that could have been improved in a full-length novel. It's possible that I might have felt differently about the romance if it had had more space to breathe.
The author has created a thoroughly queer world with significant and background lesbian representation in addition to nonbinary characters, which was thoroughly refreshing and appreciated. Sometimes it's meaningful to read a story where queerness is unquestioned and simply an accepted part of the world.
When I was reading reviews I saw a lot of people complaining about the sex scene because of how Vu Côn was repeatedly described as being wet, slimy, cold and oily. I actually liked that de Bodard wrote a sex scene that might not be considered traditionally sexy and was unique, interesting and very dragon-y instead.
Finally, I did really love the writing in this one, from the names of the diseases to the descriptions of the baffling Vanisher's palace. de Bodard did use the word "vertiginous" a few too many times but otherwise I thought the writing was very nice.
So What's It About?
When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement.
But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets...
What I Thought
I read several novellas this year and I have a feeling that I'll be saying the same thing in each of them: I loved the premise and the bones of the story but I would have enjoyed it much more as a fully-developed novel. In this case de Bodard developed an amazing postcolonial setting with strange magic, mysterious remnant technology and rampant diseases, and I would have loved to explore it even more. The book was largely about people trying to heal, I think, in the literal sense with diseases but also in the sense of grappling with a legacy of destruction and exploitation. There were some great reflections on the way that a destructive mindset of dehumanization and utilitarianism remains even when a colonizer is gone:
"It wasn't just the broken world that the Vanishers had left behind. They'd left, too, their true victory: the standards by which people treated each other. Seeing limited resources as things to fight for, people as bodies to safeguard the villages, the old and sick as needless burdens. Weighing everyone against necessity and survival."
I could have gladly read a whole novel about Yên and the rest untangling that legacy and striving for something different and better.
I never felt strongly about Yên as a protagonist and Vu Côn mainly bothered me because she literally bought Yên and slept with her and then went around talking about the importance of consent:
"We’ve discussed this before. Not just other people saying yes, but whether they mean it, or whether they’re just doing it because they’re afraid."
Beauty and the Beast just isn't my fairy tale of choice and it was hard for me to feel much of anything positive about a romance where Yên kept repeatedly reminding herself that Vu Côn was imprisoning her and could have her killed with impunity. At the same time, it felt like Vu Côn and Yên interacted very little, which is something else that could have been improved in a full-length novel. It's possible that I might have felt differently about the romance if it had had more space to breathe.
The author has created a thoroughly queer world with significant and background lesbian representation in addition to nonbinary characters, which was thoroughly refreshing and appreciated. Sometimes it's meaningful to read a story where queerness is unquestioned and simply an accepted part of the world.
When I was reading reviews I saw a lot of people complaining about the sex scene because of how Vu Côn was repeatedly described as being wet, slimy, cold and oily. I actually liked that de Bodard wrote a sex scene that might not be considered traditionally sexy and was unique, interesting and very dragon-y instead.
Finally, I did really love the writing in this one, from the names of the diseases to the descriptions of the baffling Vanisher's palace. de Bodard did use the word "vertiginous" a few too many times but otherwise I thought the writing was very nice.