i've been reading a lot of Aliette de Bodard's work over the last few years, and loving every bit of it, but this collection of various stories lands with great power, because in this format they are so connected by theme or folklore or feeling they play like a novel even though they are not. her favoured background setting involves an alternate Earth in which the Chinese empire discovers the American continents early on, eventually reaching the stars and continuing to dominate there for many years (as the Xuya Universe), until they are gradually overtaken by another Asian Empire developing out of this alternate history of Dai Viet. these diasporas combined with very old traditions attract many issues of identity and social class issues, and utilize differing symbolic cultural stories. the result is that they contain both exotic locales for far future cultures and wars, as well as addressing the usual issues of developing technology (for instance in one story humans are birthing their own shipminds), leading to a terrifically thoughtful and stimulating set of stories that can be treasured and reread long after because of all they are tied to. ( )

A collection of 12 short stories from her Xuya universe and a novella and short story from her Dominion of the Fallen series.

I preferred the Xuya stories - there seemed to be too much background I was missing about the Dominion of the Fallen back story. The Xuya stories explored themes of mourning, memory, and cultural transmission in a fascinating if not always easy to follow way. ( )

You can now read this for free over at Clarkesworld.

As with our last book, Two Sisters in Exile, we're once again visiting death.   This time it's not the death of a mindship but the deaths of the humans in a long-lived mindship's life.   Imagine that you knew you would live for centuries while all the people you know and care for would only have decades.

We're also introduced to the idea of having a person's memories condensed and inherited by their next of kin who then has them implanted, and how the powers that be will, when it suits them, take and use those memories as they see fit.   Consider also that the person whose memories you just inherited may have also inherited memories of their forebears who have also inherited memories or their forebears.

To be honest, i can't imagine anything much worse than having your ancestor's floating around in your head, pestering and badgering your every decision.   I could have a big long rant about this but i won't.   Read it yourself and draw your own conclusions.   Suffice it to say, i'm with The Tiger in the Banyan in that i wouldn't want them even if you offered.

And so...

...coming soon: In Blue Lily’s Wake.

Merged review:

You can now read this for free over at Clarkesworld.

As with our last book, Two Sisters in Exile, we're once again visiting death.   This time it's not the death of a mindship but the deaths of the humans in a long-lived mindship's life.   Imagine that you knew you would live for centuries while all the people you know and care for would only have decades.

We're also introduced to the idea of having a person's memories condensed and inherited by their next of kin who then has them implanted, and how the powers that be will, when it suits them, take and use those memories as they see fit.   Consider also that the person whose memories you just inherited may have also inherited memories of their forebears who have also inherited memories or their forebears.

To be honest, i can't imagine anything much worse than having your ancestor's floating around in your head, pestering and badgering your every decision.   I could have a big long rant about this but i won't.   Read it yourself and draw your own conclusions.   Suffice it to say, i'm with The Tiger in the Banyan in that i wouldn't want them even if you offered.

And so...

...coming soon: In Blue Lily’s Wake.

Merged review:

Originally published in Interzone Issue 231.   Or you can read it for free over at Clarkesworld.

Aliette lists this on her Xuya page as being after Shipbirth, but i feel it would have been much better read before that because in The Shipmaker we are informed of all the various things that would have occurred in Shipbirth before Acoimi turned up, albeit this is a completely different ship and birth, but the issues remain the same.

As you can probably surmise from the title, this is a story mostly about the person who makes these ships -- or is in charge of doing so.   We're given quite a good tour behind the scenes of construction and the chaos caused when the woman, fully pregnant with the ship's mind, turns up a few weeks early to give birth.   All the parts of one of these mind births that were missing from Shipbirth are filled in for us -- including a description of one of these minds as it is birthed.   We're also told how the different cultures within the Xuya universe view the women who gestate and birth these beings.

Once again, Aliette continues her universe building, this time adding Vietnamese characters -- and lesbians -- and how those people who chose to live lives without creating children are shunned within conservative Viet culture because there won't be any future progeny to maintain the graves of their ancestors.   I'm not sure why we're given a lesbian couple to make this point because there's nothing to prevent a lesbian having a child; contrary-wise, there are plenty of hetero couples who either chose not to have children or aren't able to.   Curious.

I could go on a big rant here about my thoughts on burial and the fucked up ideas that certain cultures have with keeping and collecting dead people, but i won't, i'll keep it short.   Needless to say, i won't be maintaining anyone's grave, ever -- heap your shunning and scorning upon me all you like.   If i had my way i'd dig all the grave yards up, grind up all the bones for bonemeal fertilizer and return all that land to the living where it rightfully belongs.

Yeah, sometimes i get really annoyed when i read something in a book and my inner curmudgeon ventures forth.

So yeah, i'll stop me ranting now and go and read the next book: Ship's Brother.

Merged review:

Currently available to read at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

And so we're back to the endings of mindships, this story being about those that are lost when things go wrong, broken apart in the deep spaces.   We're told about this through the adventures of the scavengers, the divers who throw themselves out of other mindships to collect the gems that the bodies of the passengers become in the unreality of the deep spaces when they no longer have the protection of the mindships.

Mmmm, so yeah, this one's a bit weird: like a bunch of odd-ball poets who like dropping too much lsd while base jumping and free diving -- all at the same time -- just to pick up their next fix as cannibal junkies.   I've often wondered what mind altering substances future hominids will encounter when we spread out across the galaxy and it seems like Aliette's been thinking along the same lines, but i got to say, Aliette's imagination is way beyond mine in this matter.

So yeah, the future, dude!

My only thing is that while this is a fun read in and of itself, i'm not sure how this is fitting with what we've been reading.   We just had several books telling us how rare and unbelievable it is for a mindship to be lost and/or die -- that, by human standards, they seemingly live forever -- yet now we have a story where it seems like broken mindships are scattered all over the deep spaces with scavenger junkies being able to find enough of them to pick clean enough of the dead passengers' gems for their own addictions but also enough to sell to cover the costs of their own mindships and living expenses.   One can only presume that this story is about a different culture/people than the recent stories dealt with and that this new lot aren't very good at making mindships.

So yeah, bit of a weird one. ( )

This was an excellent collection of stories and one novella from de Bodard. Exploring the Xuya universe is a delight, and the stories are a variety of fascinating and thought-provoking and emotional. I very much enjoyed this.

I received a free eARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ( )

DNF. Awesome ideas in a unique story universe--imperial Dai Viet interstellar civilization with neat tech, memplants and mindships in conflict with others; many themes but that of personal memories and how they can be maintained from one generation to the next looms large--but too much interior monologue and vague metaphorical phrasing instead of physical action, dialogue, and decisions slow the pacing down to a standstill.