You can find this free to read at Aliette’s website. It’s also in the collection Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight.
Another Nebula, Locus and Hugo finalist from Aliette, and having just finished reading it one can see why it was a finalist: very good indeed.
But quickly back to our previous two books, The Weight of a Blessing and Memorials, where i was utterly confused as to what any of it had to do with the Xuya universe, well, in this story they kind of join up a bit. The Galactics from our previous two books have been shooting up/down the Vietnamese mindships and taking them away and putting them in a grave yard in space, and this is the story of the family of one of those mindships going to reclaim their relative. The book begins with a lot of unknowns for a lot of people: memories missing, ships missing, shipminds damaged or dead, places in the galaxy that the Vietnamese aren’t allowed because they’re Galactic territory, Galactic territory that’s only filled with shot up/down damaged/dead Vietnamese mindships.
As the story goes on, things reveal themselves and gain focus until everyone in the story and you, the reader, realises the truth.
Like those previous two books which were great to read — in and of themselves — this is likewise. But — and it’s a big fat BUT — who are these Galactics? Where did these Galactics come from? What’s their place in all of this story? Why are they so against the mindships and the Vietnamese? Me thinks there are some books that need writing explaining this. Or maybe things will be revealed as we read the last few books of Xuya?
That all said, we’re now off to read A Slow Unfurling of Truth.
Aliette’s Page