384 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication: September 8, 2026 by Titan Books
I may or may not finish this novel poolside at a fancy hotel I was not staying at. If anyone asked, I am there for an education conference, visiting from, uh Ohio; I mean, I am not lying if I say I am Indiana.
Ai Jiang is an important new voice, and I have enjoyed her short stories for a little while. It was her appearances in Clarkeworld that first got my attention; she is an excellent writer, and I dipped my toe into her first novel, A Palace Near the Wind. Her bio says Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte, Nebula, Bram Stoker Award winner, Hugo, Astounding, Locus, Aurora, and BFSA Award finalist, and an immigrant from Changle, Fujian, currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She is greatly influenced by Chinese fantasy, Peking Opera, and you can see hints of the classics of Western genre. All this gives Ai Jiang the tools to write novels you can´t really compare to anyone else. Every author has their own alchemy, but Jiang’s personal mix is singular. As a long-time reader of Louis Cha translations, I recognize some of the elements, but there are not many of us around. This novel is like court intrigue mixed with Dune, Princess Mononoke, Wuxia, and Peking opera. But that combo is a bit reductive. This novel feels like it is in the same universe as Natural Engines Duology; since it is from different publishers, they may not be considered one series. I may be mistaken, but that is my impression.
The Ai Jiang short stories that I have read have a bit more standard horror or SF, but I reading that first novel really felt like nothing I had read before. As a lifelong Wuxia fan, I was interested in what the novel was offering up. The thing is, I enjoy Wuxia and fantasy more as a movie guy than reading. Fantasy novels don't reach me as much these days, but these books are not exactly pure fantasy. They have a fantasy feel, but hints of technology are the primary way the novels force you to acknowledge the SF elements.
It is easy to go pages feeling like you are in an ancient world and then a scene like this one whips you back. “Next to the man sits a child without the blue outline glow to his mask. Smog filtration off.
“Smog eaters,” he wrinkles his nose. “Tasked with literally consuming the smog in hopes of lessening the amount in the atmosphere.”
“Does it…affect their bodies? Negatively?”
So you see it is actually set in a far future; these characters are bioengineered for this. In Ai Jiang’s first books, I got the sense that there are memories of technology; a few survive into this future, but this feels just as cyberpunk-influenced as Peking Opera. The story follows an opera trope in this sometimes ancient-feeling, sometimes far future land; it is very Chinese, but it is a fantasy kingdom, Piāo, the floating empire of lotuses. The emperor's sister escapes to a high-tech land called Opera where she joins the performers there, and an outcast No Face.
The question then becomes: is this a debut novel as it is marketed, or a third novel, a second novel? The Natural Engines books clearly felt like a novel broken in half, and each were longer than many novels considered complete works. The only problem I have with this novel is not the fault of the author or the story, but I don’t think it is fair to call this novel a debut. Might be a second or third; either way, you cut this is a fantastic work that feels like it was a 10th or 12th work by the author.
In the end, An Empire in the Clouds balances feeling fresh and inventive at times and comfortable and familiar at other times. Is it for everyone? Not sure I can say that. Jiang doesn’t compromise and Westernize all the languages. There is heavy use of Chinese terms, and that will lose some readers. Fantasy readers should love the setting and vibe. Opera is such a richly described fantasy world; it feels like a tangible place, and it seems like Ai Jing has been dreaming about it her whole life.
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