REVIEW: The Dragon that Flew Out of the Sun and Other Stories by Aliette de Bodard
Here is The Dragon that Flew Out of the Sun and Other Stories, a short compilation of Xuya universe stories: sentient spaceships, the dark between the stars, and–always–food and memory and family.
Review
Several reviewers here have read and raved about Aliette de Bodard but up until now, I’d not managed to delve into her books or short stories. Then I saw that she’d packaged three short stories set in the Universe of Xuya, offering them for free download at her blog and I decided to plunge in here. I can’t say it was the wrong place to start nor the right one. It helped that I knew a teensy bit about this space opera but here’s some more information.
Xuya is a series of novellas and short stories set in a timeline where Asia became dominant, and where the space age has Confucian galactic empires of Vietnamese and Chinese inspiration: scholars administrate planets, and sentient spaceships are part of familial lineages.
I might not have known exactly what was going on but the writing and excellent world building carried me along and soon I was lost in this world of people among the stars. All of these stories have been available but as the author says “they aren’t easy to find.” The stories are about rivalry, the birth of a mind ship and how that affects the rest of the family, and how even deserved revenge can twist and warp a person. Family life is woven through them all as well as how war can devastate cultures and worlds. These are all Space Age stories set on “colonized space stations” and though I’m just starting to learn this world and at times it’s grim, I want to learn more. B
~Jayne
The Dragon that Flew Out of the Sun and Other Stories — download link
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