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This story was pitched to my interest by a comparison to the fairy tale Beauty & the Beast, and yeah, those bones are under there, but the referent to which I was put most disturbingly in mind was Cordwainer Smith's classic short story "A Planet Named Shayol". Incomprehensible magical-technological alien invaders have landed, occupied, and absconded, leaving lasting devastation in their wake in the form of plagues human, animal, botanical, and magical, something of a cross between genetic gray g...
There'll never be a place where everything is right, but we can try our best to strive towards it."So What's It About?When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement.But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, b...
2.5 starsThis book was eye-opening for me because I've had multiple realizations while listening to it, first and foremost the realization that not caring about a book is a much worse feeling than not liking it.This book was... objectively fine. It had things I like in theory but didn't care for here and things I actually liked. I just really didn't care about any of it and I feel so bad but it is what it is.It might be that as soon as I started listening I realized that I actually really hate t...
In the Vanishers’ Palace is an adult fantasy f/f retelling of Beauty and the Beast with an all-Vietnamese cast. In this book, the “beast” is a shapeshifting dragon, and since the only thing that is better than both f/f romances and monster romances is an f/f monster romance, I knew I had to read it.Monster romances have always been one of my favorite kinds of romance. I’m sure there are others out there, but In the Vanishers’ Palace is the first f/f one I’ve ever read, and I’m glad I found it –
Dark and dreamlike and wonderfully surreal. There were so many exquisite details I loved, like the words that trail behind Vu Côn and the beautiful names of the illnesses.
A wonderful SFF book (I love a blend of tech and magic so much) set in a post-colonial dystopia where the brutal ruling people have wrecked the place including the climate, left a horrifically damaged society behind them, and buggered off leaving their victims to make something of what little they have left. /looks at camera/ It's superbly depicted with magnificent economy, and utterly miserable, until our heroine is taken by a (lady) dragon as sacrifice and the story moves into a Beauty and the...
The issue with speculative fiction (a genre that is essentially science fiction and fantasy together) is that it can be very confusing. I love the idea of really unique stories being told; but when you take out a base premise that is easily understood by your reader then you need to provide some tethers. Aliette de Bodard is missing the points of context that allow a reader to stay engaged in a story and able to process the information. In the Vanishers' Palace is so convoluted at times that it
Loved it. A beautiful read - rich, detailed, enjoyable, meaningful.
In the Vanishers' Palace is the third Beauty and the Beast retelling I've read recently (I can't help it, it's my favourite fairytale so I can never resist retellings!) and I think it was the most unique of the three. Aliette de Bodard has created a really interesting world based on Vietnamese mythology which I just wanted to spend more time exploring. I could happily read book after book set in this world learning more about the Vanishers who devastated the earth before disappearing and leaving...
My Love for beauty and the beast retailings felt more for nostalgic reasons lately. I pick them up for time to time hoping I will have the same excitement as I had years before but often finish them with a disappointing feeling. But this one was a clear winner for me. It had enough of the "classic" detailed yet had some new and exciting ones that made it an entertaining read. Only draw back is that I wanted it to be a full novel but it was definitely a good read
Intense, dark, and very lovely. Aliette de Bodard is marvelous at building broken, grimly beautiful worlds. I loved the fairy tale feel of this book and the way Viet culture is woven into the retelling of a classic story. It was also fantastic to see a Beauty and the Beast story that made freedom of choice and personal autonomy such strong themes. I think I was a little thrown at first because I was expecting more of a romance and this is really about attraction and potential rather than a full
The setting is a post-apocalyptic disaster left by a biotech-based singularity with Clarke's Law in full effect. In that completely alien setting de Bodard gives us a queer retelling of Beauty and the Beast, where the Dragon Vu Côn accepts the life of the young scholar Yên in payment for an act of healing. Yên thinks she's doomed, bu Vu Côn has her teaching the Dragon's two foundling children Thông and Liên in an effort to ready them for a life beyond the Dragon's abode in the Vanishers' Palace....
This was both interesting and weird and finally, let me unsure about my feelings for the book. The Vanisher’s Palace was kinda cool but the magic system with words was pretty confusing. The characters were okay but I liked the twins more than the MCs or their romantic plotline. And I think I’m having quite a bit of bad luck that I keep picking up these books with contagious diseases or viruses during the pandemic - so if you wanna read this novella, this is probably not the right time. I loved t...
Her gaze swept the room, stopping for a bare moment not on Elder Giang but on Yên, and in her eyes, Yên saw the contained fury of the river’s storms, the floods that killed, the cold that froze bones until they shattered.Fish, river, gate, storm.Dragon.This stunning f/f Beauty and the Beast retelling is so much more than a retelling. Aliette de Bodard did the thing when she thought of this poetic and out-of-this-world concept. Like it is utterly amazing in its lore and worldbuilding. I am in awe...