The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard

I would like to thank Gollancz for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Gollancz

Published – Out Now

Price – £18.99 hardback £11.49 Kindle eBook

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...

For me a great book needs relationships and that can be just interactions but also romantic relationships too. The idea od romance in a dramatic rale seems to make some people become the child from The Princess Bride and ask ‘Is this a kissing book’ but as that tale showed you can get invested. Romantic relationships are a part of life and a novel where the world is strangely absent would seem more artificial and emptier compared to our own. Aliette de Bodard’s great The Red Scholar’s Wake offers us far future science fiction drama; pirates (in space) and also complex relationships as well as a rather powerful romance. The combination is too strong to resist.

Space scavenger, data analyst and engineer Xich Si’s luck has finally ran out. Trying to get artifacts to make a living to support her family that she finds herself captured by the notorious Red Banner pirates. She is too poor to be ransomed so this means a life of indentured servitude and as a consequence she will be a criminal on her own home station, and she can never see her young daughter again. However, Xich Si arrives just as the pirate fleet is rocked to learn its lender the infamous The Red Scholar is killed in battle. The leader of the five Banner fleets means the pirate realm is about to go into a flux over who should be in charge.

Xich Si though thanks to her skills has attracted the attention of the Red Scholar’s wife the mindship The Rice Fish Resting and Rice Fish knows in order to secure her own position and show she is able to lead she needs for now to have a wife again particularly to avoid other suitors. Xich Si decides this offers her a better deal and signs the contract. She is also asked to review the data of the Red Scholar’s last battle to see who caused her death. She will now get to experience the pirate’s world from the inside; realise that there are many factions trying to lead it in different directions and meet the people trying to bring all the pirates down too. Her enigmatic new wife is also proving more surprising than she ever expected.

This takes place in the Xuya universe that de Bodard has used in various tales where in the far future the influence is Vietnamese and Chinese culture covering everything from fashion, food, language and systems of government. Human beings also live alongside mindships; the Ais that operate shift who adopt a human avatar and operate also in our world with all rights and responsibilities. You do not need to have read any previous stories (although they’re all great) as de Bodard will nimbly set up all you need to know bout this particular part of the universe which we have not seen before – because this offers space pirates!

The space pirate storyline is fascinating. We have five fleets that The Red Scholar and Rice Fish have spent years slowly moving towards acting as a unified force and also increasingly one that has its own rules of conduct that not all agreed with. The pirates are becoming a power in their own right and so increasingly viewed by the neighbouring Empires as a force to stop. The Red Scholar’s mysterious death re-opens the debate as to what the pirates should do next – return to their old habits for profit with additional violence or continue to and together and keep up a programme of reform. The novel gives us a murder mystery as to how the Red Scholar died and also a tale of intrigue with the fleets led by a mix of humans and mindships all vying for power. Xich Si has to learn quickly to understand this world and decide where she fits in it and also how to stay alive.

Cementing this part of the tale is the dynamic that grows between Xich Si and Rice Fish. Initially this is purely a marriage of convenience for political reasons but the skill that de Bodard has as the story unwinds is that we discover these two characters are both carrying a great deal of personal trauma and unusually have more of a connection than they expected even though they are so very different in natures and stations in life. Both characters we see have had difficult past relationships; neither been able to be who they wanted to be and therefore have had to settle for less than they dreamed about. This story explores these two realising that they understand each other better than anyone else. As well as that emotional connection we get a very skilful building of the attraction these two have for one another. A shared hand, kiss or even touching of hair is here a big emotional release that slowly and achingly builds up the tension before these two finally admit this is no longer a simple contract anymore. You get invested in wanting these two to have a very long honest conversation…and finally be happy!

But of course, love doesn’t run smooth and these two plotlines in the final half intertwine in really interesting ways. Xich Si has to try and get her own daughter back when she discovers she is not as safe as she thought while Rice Fish needs to build bridges with her stepson Ho an ambitious young man far more interested in piracy than diplomacy. The dovetailing of these two sub-plots leads to a bigger confrontation across multiple flanks as the tensions in the fleet finally are released with additional elements on top. Prepare for pirate fights, space battles, betrayals, and reversals of fortune. I really liked that the outcomes felt realistic rather than ultra-convenient as there are some wins for our group but also losses. No one gets to win everything and change the world all at once but you do live to have adventures again for another day. It was a refreshing and emotionally powerful ending I really enjoyed as the final outcome was unexpected. I’d love for it to be revisited one day.

The Red Scholar’s Wake is an immensely satisfying read. An inventive tale, full of drama, characters that you really care about and a grown up romantic core that I got fully invested in wanting a happy ending. A tale that can skilfully make a spaceship battle or a shared glance just as intense as each other is a skill that I wish I saw in more books but this reminds me why I always enjoy de Bodard’s work. Highly recommended!

PS there is a sign more novels in this universe are to come – hurrah!