The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard is the latest science fiction story from the author’s Xuya universe. Each story can be read as a standalone however, it helps to have an understanding of the history and the current composition of the universe before jumping in to this book.
Xuya is an alternate history inspired universe where Asia rose to Terran dominance and subsequently, Vietnamese and Chinese empires have spread across the galaxy. AI singularity has occurred and mindships are now a thing – that’s right folks, sentient spaceships. These ships usually present themselves via human-esque avatars composed of bots and overlays.
This particular story is about space pirates (SQUEEEE!) and one of the romantic interests is a mindship (DOUBLE SQUEEEE!).
The Red Scholar and the Red Consort are legends. Founders of the pirate alliance, they work tirelessly to create a society free from the corruption that plagues the empire, But when the Red Scholar is ambushed and killed by imperial forces, Rice Fish (the Red Consort and a mindship) suspects betrayal.
Xích Si is a scavenger, scraping together a meager living salvaging and selling whatever tech she can. Times are lean and she can barely keep her and her daughter fed, even if she is a tech savant. When her friend Ngá suggests they join a trade ship, she has no choice but to take the risk and head out into the void. Their ship is inevitably attacked by pirates and she is taken captive. Prepared for the worst, she is surprised by not only who her captor is, but also by what she proposes.
Rather than thrusting Xích Si into indentured life, Rice Fish’s proposition is … marriage. A strictly formal partnership wherein Rice Fish will use her status to protect Xích Si and in return, Xích Si will use her tech skills to determine if a traitor is responsible for the death of the Red Scholar, Rice Fish’s wife. With little options (even indentured pirates face corporeal punishment in the empire), Xích Si accepts the offer.
What starts as a business arrangement slowly morphs into something more personal and more pleasurable, but can Xích Si face life as a pirate, and can Rice Fish keep her promise of protection when the forces conspiring against her are more powerful and closer than she had imagined?
Pros And My Favourite Parts
There is so much to love here. Politics, pirate politics (more openly violent), examinations of different types of relationships (familial, sexual, marriage, friendships and so on), but lesbian space pirates and sentient ships for the win!
I seriously can’t get enough of the antics of intergalactic infidels nor the infinitely delicious potential of sentient spaceships. But as much as the space rogues and cool tech send my heart palpitating, the way Bodard describes not only the appearance of the mindship’s avatar, but also the biotech mash up descriptions of kissing her, nearly sent me into cardiac arrest. Rice Fish’s robes reflect swirling stars and nebulae, her eyes are the black of the void and – “she tasted like brine, like oil – a sharp tang on Xích Si’s palate – the lips under her faintly oily, faintly pulsing with a beat too slow to be a human, tightening in response and pressing back, and Xích Si was afire now, breasts and belly aching…” Phew! I am entranced by the way Bodard artistically transforms the mechanical into something so alluring and beautiful.
Cons And Heads Up
There are quite a few content warnings for this book including torture, violence, death, and the indenture of captives. Fortunately, the worst of which, child abuse and rape, do not occur on page but they are referenced in the narrative.
I had not read any other books from this universe previous to this one so I was a little lost at first regarding the technology and world building. It was a quick fix, thank you google, and looking into the background definitely helped with the enjoyment of the story.
The Conclusion
This was my first excursion into the Universe of Xuya and I am glad I made the trip! If you are a fan of space opera, excited by pirates, or intrigued by sentient ships, then you should read this. If you want to explore an original and compelling universe, or see love conquer the most monumental obstacles, then you need to read this.
Excerpt from The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard
‘The Red Scholar is dead.’
The words, at first barely a whisper, passed through the fleet, gaining strength as they went – from the largest midships to the smaller three-plates craft, from the open-the-voids to the planet hoppers.
‘The Red Scholar is Dead.’
There were defiant firecrackers; noisy, screaming processions of mourners; drunken meals which degenerated into fights; all the while, Xích Si, leaning against a wall in the darkness of the hold where the pirates had imprisoned her, prayed to her long-dead ancestors to be forgotten.
She was one of their only captives: taken from a small and insignificant scavenger the pirates had attacked almost as an afterthought, charring her battered-down ship and breaking her bots with frightening ease, then marching her into this small and suffocating space. Of course they would not expect ransom from such a poor-looking ship. They would press her into service as a bondsperson on their own ships, using her until she broke, if she was lucky. If she was not…
There were other, darker uses for bondspeople, especially once wine had flowed feely, and if the pirates were in the mood for pain or pleasure, or both…
The door opened, the stench of cheap wine and the din of firecrackers blowing in.
No, not so soon. Please.
Xích Si tried to fold herself as small as possible against the bulwark, hands scrabbling for purchase against smooth, oily metal.
‘So you’re the one.’ The voice was low, and cultured. For a moment its owner was only a dark silhouette in the doorway, and then the lights came on in the hold, and some kind of ambient filter descended, silencing the noises from outside.
The newcomer was a mindship – and not with a ship’s usual avatar, but a human shape: a female official with long flowing robes and a topknot – except that where the hair flowed done and met the cloth, there were stars and nebulas, winking in and out of existence – and her eyes had no whites or irises: they were the color of the void, dark with no glimmer of light…
‘My name is The Rice Fish, Resting.’ Rice Fish used ‘child’ to refer to Xích Si, ‘elder aunt’ to herself. A gulf, but not such a wide one, between them.
Xích Si knew the name. This was not just any ship. Rice Fish was the Red Scholar’s wife. Her widow, now. The Red Consort, they’d called her in Trieu Hoa Port. The Red Scholar and the Red Consort. Legendary pirates. A ship and a human, the founders of the Red Banner pirate alliance that plagued the Twin Streams, the two asteroid groups stretching in the shadow of the Fire Palace, the red-hot mass that was long-dead civilization’s destroyed homeland.
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Series: Xuya Universe Romances
The Red Scholar’s Wake
linked series: Xuya Universe
Seven of Infinities
Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls
The Tea Master and the Detective
On a Red Station, Drifting
Tea and Murder
Bits and Bobs
ISBN number: 978-1399601382
Publisher: Indie Author
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