Another super good story from Aliette’s Xuya universe.   I’m thinking this is probably the longest one so far: it’ll certainly keep you occupied for a good while.

Our protagonist, and her mindship friend, have both come back from the dead (that’s the exile bit) hell set on revenge against those who executed them.   But revenge isn’t quite as straight forward as they would like it to be.

If you haven’t read any Xuya stories yet then get yourself over to Aliette’s “all things Xuya page” and find out where to start and what it’s all about.   Basically, it’s just really good sci-fi, from a really good writer, with a wonderful Asian flavour to it all.

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It had certainly been a while since i read any Xuya stories when i finally got this in my Kindle’s memory bank, but i soon fell back into the universe like i’d never been away.

‘The Red Scholar is dead.’   So begins the story.   And left behind in her wake is her wife, the mindship Rice Fish.

The Red Scholar was the head of the Red Banner of the pirates and Rice Fish wants to stake her claim as banner head, but to do so she needs to find out who arranged the death of her wife.   In order to do so she enlists the help of a captured scavenger, Xich Si.   And so begins a story of intrigue, deception, betrayals, love, and all kinds of crazy pirates’ political machinations.

Super good stuff, as are all the Xuya Stories i’ve read.

Next in the Xuya universe is A Fire Born of Exile.

Bye for now.

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When i first read all the Xuya stories i didn’t have a copy of this one because i refused to be ridiculed by some luddite (whoever dictates the pricing for the Solaris Rising anthologies) with their ridiculous pricing tactics, so, sadly, i just had to skip over it in the timeline.   But i never stopped hoping that one day Aliette would take back control and release this in a more reasonably priced, ebook, alternative, and she did: thank you Aliette!

You can find this in the collection The Dragon that Flew Out of the Sun and Other Stories, and hopefully like me you’ll just stop whatever it is that you’re doing and dive straight back into the Xuya-verse and get some reading done.   This has been a long time coming.

My other thought was that i really needed to reacquaint myself with the series before beginning this story, so i jumped back one story to A Slow Unfurling of Truth and re-read that to settle back in.   And i have to say, i’m really glad i did.

While the Xuya stories jump around the galaxy quite a lot, you do occasionally get two or three books that run in a sort of mini-series, and The Frost on Jade Buds certainly follows on wonderfully from A Slow Unfurling of Truth.

What struck me this time with A Slow Unfurling of Truth that i didn’t pick up on last time is how much of these stories are influenced by Aliette’s heritage.   One can see so many similarities between Earth’s Western countries and the Galactics lining up against Earth’s Eastern countries being represented by the Scattered Pearls Belt: a daughter with one parent from each caught between.   Both books are brilliantly written and a must read as a pair.

All i can hope for now is some more Xuya books to fill the later years of my life: such a great universe.   Meanwhile, i’m definitely planning to begin reading the rest of Aliette’s other stories once i’ve finished reading all of P. Djèlí Clark’s books (only three of those to go).

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