I first want to give a shout-out to the Asian Readathon, which Cindy Pham (@WithCindy on Youtube) hosts during May. While we’re near the end of the month, the associated Directory of Asian Books is an incredible resource year-round, and both it and this year’s challenge contain an LGBT category.
With that in mind, I’ve read several great sapphic SFF novellas this year and wanted to highlight three by Asian authors in a round of short reviews.
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
Sisters Esther and Ysabel live in Thistleford, a small town on the border of the realm of Faerie. Though a human suitor seeks to marry Esther to profit off of the Hawthorn family’s enchanted willow trees, Esther is in love with Rin, a nonbinary shapeshifter. Ysabel now faces the threat of losing Esther, either to the fae or human schemes.
Amal El-Mohtar, one half of the cowriting team for the breathtaking This Is How You Lose the Time War, is also a poet, and her skill with words is on display in her first solo novella. The story features plenty of song lyrics and riddles, and the prose itself is just as poetic. Even the magic system displays the author’s love of words, as it’s based in grammar, with the idea that just as grammar has rules that change a sentence’s meaning, it can also alter time and space. As in This Is How You Lose the Time War, the protagonists have a devotion for each other strong enough to break the world, and a fairy tale lends itself to creating a world that feels like it can be broken. Though there is a charming romance, the main relationship is the one between the two sisters. I found it heartwarming to read a story prioritizing a sisterly bond.
The titular story is about 100 pages, including illustrations; the last 30 pages are a preview of a short story from an upcoming collection. The short story is similar enough in tone and genre to The River Has Roots to complement it, and the illustrations suit the book as well. Though I haven’t listened to the audiobook, I’ve heard it’s recommended for those who enjoy singing and sound effects in their audiobooks, so between that and the illustrations, any format will add to the experience.
I recommend this to fans of fairy tales and stories of sisterly devotion.
Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang
The masked guildknight is known for slaying dragons and always wearing their armor. Behind the helmet is Yeva, who was sent away from her hometown as a child to become an imperial knight. Her armor allows her to be known only for her deeds, not her origins or personal feelings. However, when she is sent to Quanbao to hunt a hidden dragon as a pretext for her empire to conquer the ore-rich nation, she becomes close to its girl-king, Lady Sookhee, and gets the chance to connect with lost parts of herself—if she’s willing to remove her armor.
In every regard, Yeva is torn in two: whether to prioritize duty to the empire or her own ideals, as represented by her parents’ separate heritages, and whether to guard herself physically and emotionally or experience life to the fullest. I really enjoyed how the story explores these dualities, as well as the way the worldbuilding is used to support the story’s themes. For instance, it draws on culturally distinct ideas of dragons. The empire projects their own view of dragons as savage beasts onto Quanbao, using Quanbao’s belief that dragons are sacred beings as an excuse for violence. I also enjoyed this book’s take on mythology itself, as it shows both the public perception of figures in stories and the very human reality behind them.
What I’d seen of this book made me expect it to focus on the romance. While I enjoyed the dynamic between Yeva and Lady Sookhee, and both characters are very up my alley, their romance largely develops off-page. This isn’t inherently a problem, as I was invested in the rest of the story and themes. However, as the story’s resolution relies partly on the reader being invested in the romance, getting to see it fleshed out a bit more would have heightened that. Additionally, the passage of time felt a little clunky in parts. Regardless, I recommend it for those who enjoy knights, dragons, and theme-driven fantasy novellas.
Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard
Việt Nhi of the Rooster clan is a skilled space navigator who dislikes most people; Hạc Cúc of the Snake clan is a skilled assassin who often likes people, when she’s not killing them. Fortunately, they and two members of other rival clans have been tasked with hunting a monster called a tangler, not a person. Unfortunately, they all have to work with each other despite their various conflicts—and the conspiracy they might have gotten tangled up in.
As a fan of both Aliette de Bodard’s sci-fi and fantasy works, I had been looking forward to this space opera where the characters have supernatural abilities. Việt Nhi and Hạc Cúc’s romance has some sweet moments, with them being surprisingly understanding toward each other considering their positions. I was especially invested in the overall quartet. I always love a group of misfits with various specialties who create friction even as they need to pull together against a greater enemy, and each character added more layers to the internal conflicts as well as room for growth. While this wasn’t stated, Việt Nhi read to me as neurodivergent, and I particularly enjoyed this aspect of her sections.
At times, the way the characters’ traits and internal conflicts were described felt redundant and a little blatant for my tastes, but I nevertheless had a good time with this book’s blend of genre elements and group dynamics. I recommend it to people who like genre mashups and messy women coming together.
