After her planet is over-run by rebels against the Da Viet Empire ,Magistrate Linh arrives on Prosper space station which is run by her family. Can she adjust to her change in status in the face of hostility from Quyen, the insecure acting Administrator of Prosper, as the Honoured Ancestress, the station's AI, starts to fail?

One of the best from an author who always intrigues me even when I'm not sure I've really understood her. ( )

I thought this was actually quite impressive. It's only a 100 pages, but there is quite some world-building and character development in this story, and on top of that some really good characters, and two of them are female. Another is an AI. All of them are impressive. The two female characters unfortunately do not like each other, but their dislike is described realistically without hitting the reader over the head with it. Both of their POVs are understandable. I thought the ending was also well done, not an 'all is well that ends well', but something realistic. In a way, I think it is a pity that this is only 100 pages. I think there was enough there to make it a full book, which could have made it more immersive. ( )

More from "The Universe of Xuya".   This one comes with some high credentials as it was on the Locus Recommended Reading List for 2012, and also a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards for Best Novella -- which is nothing to be sniffed at for all you weirdos who claim to prefer the smell of real books.

You can buy your very own copy over at Amazon.

So, in sticking with our theme of Vietnamese family culture and ties, and mind ships, and all that; we now find ourselves on one of the big space stations that is, like a mind ship, run, maintained and controlled by one of these ship minds.

Just like the ships' minds, the stations' minds are also born to humans and families and it is those families that ultimately get to control the stations.   And so along with a good story about this station's mind heading for a total break down and desperately needing fixing, we also have a good story about the family from which that ship mind was born -- all while there's a rebellion/war going on and mixed into the story.

So yeah, plenty going on, and plenty to keep all us fans of Xuya happy and content.

Next up: The Days of the War, as Red as Blood, as Dark as Bile. ( )

DNF - I listened to this as an audiobook knowing nothing of the history of Xuya. I only it made it to the halfway mark and was unbelievably bored. I may return to this universe as it sounds really interesting, but this may not be the right entry point. ( )

This is an interesting novella. I honestly wasn't sure what to expect when I started this, and I'm not sure I fully understood what I found.

First, it was so utterly refreshing to find a science fiction story based on a non-Western culture. The futuristic empire is Asian-based and despite growing up steeped in the tradition, it still took my Western-acclimated brain a bit to get myself mentally situated in the story.

There's a lot going on in the background that involves war and politics, and I need to explore some more of the stories that de Bodard's written in this universe; it's fascinating. This novella, however, focuses on one space station which is seeing an influx of refugees thanks to the war overtaking nearby planets. The family that controls the station is aided by an AI which has the memory of a family ancestor and is treated as such.

Such cool world-building.

There's also a lot of inter-familial politics in addition to the external politics going on. It's a really dense story with a lot crammed into it. ( )