Review: The Red Scholar's Wake

I first encountered de Bodard’s Xuya Universe through a short story I read in one of my SFF magazines. A science fiction world based on Vietnamese culture was fascinating. But what sucked me in was the way that de Bodard writes her characters. The emotional interplay between characters is key to the stories.

Like some other SF universes, the Xuya universe (and this book in particular) have the concept of mind-ships; ships controlled by an entity that is a fusion of biological and mechanical technology. If I read things correctly in this book (and remember from other Xuya stories) it is implied that the bio part of the ships comes from someone who was once a human being. This story is a romance between a mind-ship and a human. On the surface is sounds absurd. In practice it works out quite well for the story’s purpose.

In some ways the mind-ship, as conceived by de Bodard, reminds me a bit of the Ancillary Justice ships, although instead of taking over flesh to represent itself in the real world, the ships in this book use holograms with bots providing tactile capabilities.

The story progresses quite quickly and seems to be mostly setup for stories taking place in this time/place in the Xuya universe. My only critique is that the romance happens a tad too quickly and felt slightly unearned. That said, I enjoyed reading it quite a bit and would recommend it to anyone who wants a different type of sci-fi story.

• Books

• Xuya