A Palace Near the Wind by AI Jing
AI Jing has been an author on my radar for a while. I was there when she won her Stoker award, and had read a few short stories. I know I am more in touch with 1960s SF scene than the current one but something about the online description of the novel made me feel very out of touch.
“A story of family, loss, oppression and rebellion for readers of Nghi Vo's The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Neon Yang's The Black Tides of Heaven and Kritika H. Rao's The Surviving Sky”
I have never heard of all three books Titan Books felt were marketable enough to compare this book with. Let me be clear, I'm putting that on myself. That is besides the point. That also made me question if I was the right reader to understand this book. It has a fairy tale feeling to it. Going into it cold, I thought it was a fantasy novella taking place in the ancient past, and eventually it felt like a reveal to me when I realized that this was a far future tale. That is not exactly right because there are pure fantasy characters made up of trees, which gave it a new-weird early China Mieville feeling. I like that I am not entirely sure, I believe that is a feature, not a bug.
“In Gear, Wind Walkers, and Water Shifters work in harmony with the Land Wanderers and the Desert Shredders within factories, ensuring smoother inner workings of the city of Engine.
Harmony. I wondered how true that was.
Engine is a vibrant city that will fulfill its citizens' wildest wishes. Browse the glorious selection of movies, shows, and subscribe to comvid with your family and friends! The online mega shots are great for the latest deals and products!
It has a couple of royal families, arranged marriages, and fascinating kingdoms, which are not exactly the type of stuff I normally read. This is out of my comfort zone for sure. A woman from the tree-people has to marry a human king. She thinks she can slow the human destruction of nature if the families come together. A plan that is not appealing eventually…
“What would happen if we broke the contract? Fled? Hid?”
Her smile was the dreaming stem of a river weed scorched by the sun, unseen by the rain for too many moons. “Death.” She paused. “Not for us, but for Fang, though we’d likely be found out quickly and brought to the prison in engine, like Shanshu, though she was able to escape.”
That is the intrigue at the heart of this story. Considering the short 192 pages, plenty of story happens in this short novel. I was a bigger fan of the world-building than anything else. The message is great, but I suspect it will fly over the heads of many readers. That is not Jing’s fault; she did her job. The metaphors and analogies are delicately laid out. The point is that that different from the highest-grossing science fiction movie of all time but limitless human greed and the impact on nature is a point that cannot be made enough. Apparently.
One major problem. 192, and split into two books. It felt incomplete, this story with such an epic was likely a single 400-page novel. Conventional wisdom right now that 330 or shorter books are more marketable, unlike the old days when publishers wanted doorstops. Not sure if turning this into two novels was the right choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment