Neon Yang

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This one is hard for me to rate/review. There were a lot of concepts I really liked about the book and I was really compelled by the idea. It started a little slow and some of that was just getting used to the universe and terms. The middle really picked up and I was super invested and then I felt like it slowed down again. Some of the parts seemed really disparate and felt like they had different tones which led to the book not feeling like it flowed well for me. One of the big things for me was after the big event in the middle of the book (which was the part I loved and got really invested in) the characters really seemed to change. And I get that they went through something life/self altering but I felt like the princess became an entirely different person and didn't retain much of her old personality. I would have loved more detail and background on the world too (but maybe this is my fault for simultaneously listening to another space opera that was twice the length of this).… (mais)

this is an important newish writer in this field, and it's a fine first novel, after some brilliant novellas. it's a study of young Misery as Joan of Arc in a far-future space opera, fighting an intensive religious war with glorious and misguided conviction. brilliantly written, but it's difficult at times to keep that conviction on track when Misery's singularly ecstatic point of view as Chosen conflicts too much with her assessment of the real situation on the ground. a wonderfully detailed world though, well worth every glimpse we get of it. and the story itself has a lot to say.… (mais)

This had some of the makings of a great novel, and I think suffers quite a bit from being pared down to a novella (even if it is part of a pair.) So some parts are rushed, or just undetailed/blurry, you're left with some idea of how this world works, but it is thin. Where does the Protectorate fit into this... world? Planet? Is it a planet? Everyone hates it because domination, but where did it come from? Why has it lasted this long? Just cruelty and power and nothing else? Other peoples exist to have other peoples/races, and that seems to be it. Everyone is sex (not just gender, as some reviews say) nonbinary, how did that happen? How did that work before? Did the Protectorate force that on everyone?

Okay, so those are all things that actually interested me. I'm complaining because I wanted more. But then there is the other stuff... Oh, look, they are going to create telephones and someone invented handguns and *low yield nukes.* Its like steampunk, but pieces of industrial and modern era technology are getting created in like 20 years time. And so in 40 or 50 more years, they will be conquering neighboring star systems...?… (mais)