On a Red Station, Drifting
Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard's On a Red Station, Drifting has the virtue of being relatively simple. "Relatively" means "compared to other Xuya Universe stories". It takes place in an empire at war. As usual, there are a million dangers and a million characters, interacting through a complex system of rules and etiquettes that are nearly impenetrable to anyone who didn't grow up in a Vietnamese family.
But that is all translucent. It's not transparent -- if, like me, you have a vanilla middle-class American upbringing, you're gonna work to see through it, and even when you do, what you see will be colored by de Bodard's background and story-telling. That's a good thing!
But fundamentally, it's a simple story. There are three main characters: Quyen, Mistress of Prosper station, her cousin Linh, a former scholar and magistrate down on her luck, and the Honoured Ancestress, who is also the mind of Prosper Station. Linh and Quyen don't get along. They strike sparks off each other, just like your sister and your old uncle at Thanksgiving dinner. They act out, and damage is done. Despite the exoticism, it felt very familiar to me.
I enjoyed this a lot.
Comments
Post a Comment
Add a comment!