SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

Advance SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez: https://t.co/VgObW2Frkz Short Review: 8.5 out of 10 (1/3)

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 13, 2019

Short Review (cont): An utterly fascinating SciFi tale of a Spaceship Captain, A Brilliant lonely Innovator, and a boy who might possess power to transform travel throughout the galaxy, and the costs of pursuing desires and dreams to one and one's family & friends. (2/3)

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 13, 2019

Full Disclosure:  This work was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on January 14, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

The Vanished Birds is the debut novel from short fiction author Simon Jimenez.  It was not a book on my radar at first (although one of my favorite authors blurbed it, so it might've been later), but after a review of another book by the same publisher, that publisher (Del-Rey) offered it to me for a preview if I wanted it on Netgalley, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I'm really glad I did, because The Vanished Birds is a fascinating Sci-Fi novel about the trade-offs and sacrifices made and chosen when one pursues one's professional - and sometimes non-professional, dreams, especially the sacrifices of one's family, loved ones and personal connections.  It's a story of selfishness and searches for redemption, and of characters who are very three dimensional and conflicted from beginning to end.  I use the word "interesting" or "fascinating" quite a bit on this blog, but The Vanished Birds truly deserves these labels, and if it doesn't succeed at hitting every theme/idea it touches, it does a pretty good job exploring most of them and is a book I should really reread a second time to get the most out of it.


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Kaeda was a man from a small farming world, on the fringes of galactic civilization, who fell in love with a woman from the stars, a captain named Nia Imani, who came back every 15 years or so, only a bit older, to trade for their product.  And when a boy from the stars crash lands on the planet, Kaeda can think of nothing to do but give the boy - a boy who loves music - to Nia to return to the stars.

Nia Imani was a captain on the independent trade ship Debby, with a past she's escaped and a crew she somewhat thinks of as family, and who was used to leaving and coming back to places with time barely moving for her and years passing for everyone else.  But having the boy aboard seems to change something for Nia, even as it puts her at odds with her crew, as she can't seem to part with him.

Fumiko Nakajima was born a thousand years ago, when she cast aside her one moment of love to work for a soulless corporation on the project that would send humans to space.  Now, as that corporation controls and restricts all it touches, and seeks further expansion into the galaxy, Fumiko acts publicly as a celebrity, but secretly wishes to find some redemption.  And when she discovers the boy and his connection to Nia, she sees a chance to act, providing Nia with a new crew and a mission of caring for the boy as he grows up.

For the boy, who seems at first mute, may possess a power that could transform humankind, and Nia and her new crew must teach him as he grows so that he can bring that power to fruition.  But as the years go by, Nia, the boy, and the rest of the crew's loves change, bringing a confrontation that will change the Galaxy - and more importantly the lives of Nia, Fumiko, and the Boy, forever.
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The Vanished Birds is a fascinating book in many ways, one of which is its structure, which jumps perspectives from chapter to chapter, often taking the perspectives of characters whose stories we may never see again - including that of the first chapter.  At one point in fact, the book's narrative follows the diary entries of a side character for a particularly long chapter out of nowhere, and then never returns to that perspective or diary again.  The book is not at all about a single overarching plotline, really, so this works really well to carry the story and the reader's interest.

Instead it's a book about people, their choices and the costs of those choices, particularly in what they give up to make them.  Multiple members of the cast all have moments in their past, most notably Fumiko and Nia, where they make choices to further their futures at the expense of the loves and families they've already found.  In the case of Nia - who's our most prominent character - that first involved deserting her family and later involved her taking actions in her seemingly selfish desire to protect the boy that ostracize her from the crew members she has come to trust, particularly one such member she was really close with.  In the case of Fumiko, she found her one true love just before she was ready to start the job that would eventually change the galaxy, only to choose that job over her love....causing her to feel miserable and lonely, and to try and make up for it all over the years by trying to save people similarly wrecked.  The rest of the major cast has similar such backstories and choices, for instance, and its a fascinating use of this science fiction story to show personal costs of chasing desires, professional and otherwise, and how hard it can be.  There are no easy answers here by the way.

Then of course there's the one character who doesn't quite fit this framework, the Boy himself, who hasn't yet made those ill-fated choices just yet.  Over the course of this book, he comes of age, and minor spoiler, he'll begin to find himself wanting to make such a choice, as the only other option is to be restricted in captivity with Nia and her crew.  His choices and his bonds to the others, particularly Nia, drive everything in the end towards the book's introspective conclusion, as they drive the other characters to also make choices when it all comes to a head that take them down their own final paths, for good or for ill.  It's really fascinating to read. 

If I have an issue with The Vanished Birds it's that not all of its ideas are really followed up upon to their fullest.  The oppressive soulless corporation provides a strong backdrop for the setting and much of the conflict, but still almost feels out of place in a book dealing more with personal relations and desires and professional dreams and the sacrifices of existing loves and families - yeah it's an example of the sheer coldness of it all, but its existence as a clear enemy just seems unexplored and unnecessary. 

Still, it's a minor issue, and The Vanished Birds in the end is such an interesting book - one that could definitely inspire a whole essay or two on its exploration of these ideas.  I am....not the writer to make such an essay, but I greatly encourage you to give it a try for a really interesting use of the genre, so that you can see and think about these ideas yourself.