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citronella_seance's reviews
327 reviews
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
5.0
I want to start this review off by saying that I am quickly becoming a Tor.com fangirl. It started with Gideon the Ninth and has increased with exponential speed since then. I’ve had the pleasure of reading a few of their galleys through NetGalley and have also been reading some of the back log, including the fantastic MurderBot series. As a publishing company, they are giving a voice to LGBTQ+ and POC writers and characters in a way that no other publisher really is right now. They’re catalog is diverse, not only in terms of inclusivity but also culturally. There is absolutely no reason why, in the year of our lord 2020, sci-fi and fantasy and horror should still be a bunch of cookie cutter, white, straight, anglo-saxon based, stories. None.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a perfect example of how giving writers of various cultures a platform can only enhance genres and the stories available to us. The story opens with a cleric travelling the countryside. Cleric Chih is making a pilgrimage to the capital to witness an eclipse but they stop along the way when they meet a mysterious woman living by a lake who invites them into her house.
This story is told through Chih’s point of view and everything they find in the woman’s house that they think is of historical significance and should be documented, given that is their job as a cleric, and also from Rabbit’s point of view, the lady of the house, as she shares her story.
I absolutely loved everything about this novella, so much so that I read it in one quick sitting, completely devouring it. The character development that Vo manages to get across without saying too much is a sight to behold. Reading between the lines you can see how Rabbit’s story starts to break through Cleric Chih’s preconceptions about what their job entails.
As a person who is prone to small bouts of depression that I’ll never get to be a passive observer of times past and clenches their fists at the mere thought of the Library of Alexandria, I’m a little jealous of Chih’s job. I wish I could experience the telling of history and mark it for those in the future without having any stake in the game.
Maybe that’s why I loved this novella so damn much. I eagerly await anything else that Nghi Vo puts out, because I know my wanderlust heart will crave it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor.dom Publishing for providing me with a free galley of this book for the purpose of this review.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune is out now! Learn more below.
Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Goodreads
The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a perfect example of how giving writers of various cultures a platform can only enhance genres and the stories available to us. The story opens with a cleric travelling the countryside. Cleric Chih is making a pilgrimage to the capital to witness an eclipse but they stop along the way when they meet a mysterious woman living by a lake who invites them into her house.
This story is told through Chih’s point of view and everything they find in the woman’s house that they think is of historical significance and should be documented, given that is their job as a cleric, and also from Rabbit’s point of view, the lady of the house, as she shares her story.
I absolutely loved everything about this novella, so much so that I read it in one quick sitting, completely devouring it. The character development that Vo manages to get across without saying too much is a sight to behold. Reading between the lines you can see how Rabbit’s story starts to break through Cleric Chih’s preconceptions about what their job entails.
As a person who is prone to small bouts of depression that I’ll never get to be a passive observer of times past and clenches their fists at the mere thought of the Library of Alexandria, I’m a little jealous of Chih’s job. I wish I could experience the telling of history and mark it for those in the future without having any stake in the game.
Maybe that’s why I loved this novella so damn much. I eagerly await anything else that Nghi Vo puts out, because I know my wanderlust heart will crave it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor.dom Publishing for providing me with a free galley of this book for the purpose of this review.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune is out now! Learn more below.
Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Goodreads