When you enjoy a writer's work and they are, so far, producing only shorter fiction (up to novella length), you are obviously going to be excited about their first novel-length work, right? So was I when I heard that Aliette de Bodard had written a science fiction romance between a sentient pirate space ship and a data analyst/bot maker. Unfortunately, every single one of my hopes for this book was disappointed. I kid you not, this novel all by itself made me reluctant to pick up any more stories by de Bodard. 
THE RED SCHOLAR'S WAKE
by Aliette de Bodard
Published: Gollancz, 2022
Hardback: 336 pages
Series: Xuya Universe, but can supposedly be read as a standalone
My rating: 3/10
Opening line: 'The Red Scholar is dead.'
Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates' enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.
Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si's help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si's technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it.
But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together...
An exciting space opera and a beautiful romance, from an exceptional SF author.
I hate it when lots of people seem to love a book and I'm standing on the sidelines, thinking how terrible I found it, wondering if I did something wrong. Did I read it right? Is there even a wrong way to read a book? Maybe my mood didn't fit? But no, I was really looking forward to it. Sentient spaceship, lesbian pirates, marriage of convenience, slow burn enemies to lovers - those are all things I enjoy. Didn't work out the way I had hoped, though.
The book has many problems, and I'll have to tackle them in an organized way if I don't want to end up rambling and ranting incoherently.
The characters:
Our two protagonists are the only ones we spend a significant amount of time with, and they are both as one-dimensional as can be. They have very little about them that's interesting, although Rice Fish at least is working through some issues from her past and learning to deal with her wants and emotions in a new way.
Xích Si is introduced to us as a bot maker and a woman with this brilliant mind, but sadly we never get to actually see any of that. She might as well have been a brilliant space ship sweeper or a game designer for all the difference it makes. Whenever the (paper thin) plot calls for some computational mumbo jumbo, Xích Si can just do it and that's that. We're also not let in on her skills, we're just told "she fixed the bots, ooooh how amazing" or something like that. I don't need a writing class to know that this is a really bad case of telling rather than showing.
What irked me the most about Xích Si, however, was that in the first chapter, she had so much potential. She was freshly caught by pirates and her thoughts went immediately to her daughter, left behind at home. She has lost companions and that weighs on her as well, but she is also a mother separated from her only child and she gets over that WAY too quickly! My own recent motherhood may be at fault here but, holy shit, can you really just forget your only child for long periods of time because you're horny for someone?! How am I supposed to root for this person?
The other characters were mostly cardboard cutouts, with one minor exception (the son, I forget his name) but the novel doesn't really focus on them much.
The romance:
Nothing about this is slow burn, no matter what some reviews say. Both Rice Fish and Xích Si are immediately attracted to each other. Sure, their marriage is one of convenience, but they both wish for more right from the start. The fact that it takes a while for them to act on it, is another thing. But their thoughts and feelings are one thing from the get go and don't evolve or change much throughout the novel. Sure, Xích Si has her single prejudice against all pirates that's the official obstacle to a romance, but that is so flimsy an excuse and so often repeated, sometimes verbatim, that no reader could take it seriously. It made me roll my eyes whenever it came up again.
Mostly, the romance consists of descriptions of Rice Fish's beautiful robes and hair, and the two of them lusting after each other, citing the same reasons to themselves over and over again why that's impossible, until they finally do end up together. There was nothing very satisfying about it because it was clear from the start and there were no real obstacles to overcome. To be fair, though, the actual sex scene between the two was the best written part of the book!
The honorifics:
Let me preface my next complaint with this: I get it! I understand that de Bodard is trying to use honorifics based on Vietnamese culture (which is the whole premise of the Xuya universe books) and simply "translating" them for us. However, as any translator or interpreter worth their salt will tell you, there's more to it than simply changing a word from language A into langague B. Cultural norms, connotations, nuances of meaning - they all have to be taken into consideration if your goal is to convey a certain meaning to your audience. In this case, the audience is us, reading this book in English. And in English, it sounds so damn wrong to have to women who are obviously hot for each other, adress each other as little or big sister.
Maybe it's just my translator brain but I couldn't get over that! It literally shocked me out of the reading flow (what little there was in the first place) and made me stumble each time it came up. I had to mentally brush myself off, remember how it was meant - a way to differentiate power and social status - and then continue reading. I simply can't imagine that this was what the author had intended. For her readers to be ripped out of the narrative and having to make a conscious effort to move on. Compared to my other qualms, this was actually fairly small beans but it didn't help my overall enjoyment of the book.
The world building:
Yeah, yeah, the Xuya books are all standalones in a wider, shared universe and you can read whichever one you like in whichever order. Or so I'm told. I can't confirm this for this particular novel because for the most part, I didn't know what the hell was going on, who was who, what the hell is the Citadel, why is the Red Scholar's death such a big deal, how do these sentient ships work and what part do they play in society... None of it is explained at all, and while I'm okay with missing certain nuances or inside jokes or easter eggs because I haven't read many Xuya stories yet, shouldn't this one novel make sense as a self-contained story, at least? It doesn't. Or if things make sense internally, the depth and meaning of certain things is lost on me because the author didn't bother to elaborate or show us how the world works in this one novel. And without the vital information of how the politics work, I couldn't really get myself to care about the problems that arise. Maybe also because they were just as contrived as the romance.
The writing:
How many times have i read praises of de Bodards lyrical writing? Too many, when it comes to this book. Descriptions of clothing and people's phyiscal appearance were nice, I give you that, but otherwise, the most glaring part of the writing was the mindless repetition! A particular pet peeve of mine is when authors describe a scene, let us witness it alongside one of the characters, and then later that character has to relate the events to someone else - I DON'T WANT TO ACTUALLY READ THAT! Just say "They told them what happened" or "They filled Character XYZ in on the events". Don't actually describe to me again what I have just read in the last chapter. That's like a student looking for filler words to make a paper longer, despite the contents remaining the same. Gaaaaaah, it drives me nuts!
And that wasn't the only thing de Bodard liked to repeat ad nauseam. Certain key elements of the story, if you will, were mentioned over and over, and most of the time the author didn't even bother to paraphrase. If I'd had to read one more time how all pirates are bad and that's why Xích Si can't be with Rice Fish, I would have gone up a wall.
Conclusion:
Well, there's not much of a surprise here, is there? If you've read this far you will know that I didn't enjoy myself at all while reading this book. Why did I not simply DNF it? Because, dear reader, I had read a previous de Bodard story that I quite liked (In the Vanishers' Palace) and - more importantly - so many people were raving about this book that I simply wouldn't let go of the hope that I would, eventually, get it too. I mean, it worked with the Locked Tomb series. Sadly, The Red Scholar's Wake did not hold any happy surprises in store and I ended up closing the book mostly relieved that it was over and I could go back to reading a story that had things to say. This also turned me off de Bodard's writing in general, at least for a while.
MY RATING: 3/10 - Bad
No comments:
Post a Comment