Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained from the author in advance of the book's release on October 12, 2023 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.
A Fire Born of Exile is the latest novel by Aliette de Bodard, and the second full length novel in her Xuya Universe - A universe where humanity has spread to space and grown with its dominant cultures originating in Vietnamese and Chinese cultures and where humans live alongside living ships ("Mindships") whose minds are birthed by human beings. This universe had originated in de Bodard's novellas and short fiction (On a Red Station, Drifting, The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, the Tea Master and the Detective, Seven of Infinities) and had its first novel in last year's "The Red Scholar's Wake" and frequently deals with issues such as power, family piety, justice, and class differences, among other things.
As a white American reader, the themes and perspectives of de Bodard's work (and her excellent characters), especially in this universe, are especially different and fascinating to read and as a result I've become a huge fan of de Bodard. Oh and they often deal with F/F Sapphic (and occasionally other queer) Romances in very excellent ways, even as de Bodard uses this universe to play on some classic stories of western canon - like Sherlock Holmes, & Arsene Lupin.
A Fire Born of Exile is de Bodard's long promised adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo. The novel is her longest Xuya story yet and features Quỳnh, the "Count"-esque character, who was once under her old identity unjustly executed for treason by a cruel Prefect and Quỳnh's disloyal and ambitious lover, as Quỳnh returns years later, actually alive, to try and get revenge. Along the way she encounters two others - the prefect's daughter, Minh, who is innocent of her mother's crimes and is constantly pressured by her mother into trying to be something she's not, and Hoà, the sister of Quỳnh's original identity's mentor, with who Quỳnh starts to fall in love. And so we have a story that deals with family piety, love, choosing one's own destiny, power and justice and more as Quỳnh tries to enact her plot for revenge only for Minh and Hoà to not fully intentionally get in the way. It's a very good work, even if I think it's not quite up to the same level of de Bodard's incredibly good other works.
Note: As the characters and setting are based in and inspired by Vietnamese culture, certain names have use the Vietnamese Latin Alphabet. I am trying to use those same letters when appropriate below, but for a few characters I was unable to find a letter to easily put in the review, so my apologize for the slight inaccuracy in character names.
Plot Summary:
Minh is the daughter of the Prefect of the Scattered Pearls Belt, the ostensible ruler of this outer and sometimes considered backwards part of the Empire. But while Minh's mother pushes and pushes and tries to guilt Minh into being the established scholar her mother wishes Minh to be, Minh just wants the freedom to find her own path. But when an attempt at getting a moment of freedom goes terribly wrong, Minh finds themselves saved by a strange and alluring woman named Quỳnh, who goes by the mysterious title "the Alchemist of Streams and Hills" who begins to push Minh to believe she might be worthy of something other than her mother's desires.Okay that's a long plot summary, longer than I usually like, but like the original Count of Monte Cristo, there's a lot of plot wheels going on here with three main protagonists in this story. On one hand you have Minh, who struggles with the cruel parental emotional abuse from her mom, the Prefect, (and with an abusive stepmother who blatantly favors Minh's younger half-sister). Minh doesn't know what she wants to do, but she knows she doesn't have the aptitude nor the desire to be the brilliant Scholar that her other wants her to be...and yet Minh is constantly worked on with the same emotional manipulation that her mother the Prefect, whos motto is "Harsh but Fair", works on prisoners and her people...a manipulation that is far more "Harsh" than actually fair. Minh's mother exploits filial piety to its fullest, and Minh struggles with her own good nature wanting to be true to filial piety while also finding some happiness and enjoyment for herself. It doesn't help that that good nature makes her easy for others to manipulate - like Quỳnh - leaving Minh open to being devastated if she finds out the truth about her newest friend.
But Quỳnh is not the generous and well established scholar Quỳnh pretends to be. Instead, she is secretly Da Lãn, a scholar who was executed by being exposed to vacuum by Minh's mother and Quỳnh's former lover, General Tuyêt, supposedly for treason, but really for just being associated with someone who had rebellious thoughts. Minh's mother talked Da Lãn into confessing to what seemed a greater crime than she actually had committed, and punished her far beyond what would be reasonable by trying to kill her, her faily and to ruin their names. Now, Quỳnh is back and intends to get vengeance upon the Prefect and the General, and if Minh gives her that opportunity, she will take it gladly.
Yet what Quỳnh did not expect was to have her path cross with Hoà, the younger sister of Quỳnh's mentor Thiên Hanh, who had disgraced herself and died trying ot defend Quỳnh's life and honor. Hoà is just a near-destitute engineer who works with Hoà's sister in just trying to make enough to keep the two of them alive, but Quỳnh finds themselves inexorably drawn to Hoà and their kind understanding demeanor...and even though it can only be a liability, she finds that she wants to help and be around Hoà.
But as Quỳnh's revenge plan goes forward, and as Quỳnh and Hoà's mutual attraction gets deeper, Quỳnh finds herself struggling between the vengeance she so desperately wants and the love that she has so unexpectedly found....one that could result in Quỳnh once more losing everything....
On the other hand you have Quỳnh and Hoà, two people who are far less naive than Minh about the ways of the world and the elites (like Minh's mother), and who have come out of their harsh experiences with different viewpoints. For Hoà, who is destitute and has every reason to be jaded and pessimistic, she still retains that hopeful caring about people, that attempt to try to make things better and to do what's right that once got her elder sister killed, and now might stand in the way of her caring for her younger sister. For Quỳnh, that reality has led her to be desperate for revenge, even if that revenge ends up with Quỳnh not surviving the fall of her enemies and even if that revenge causes harm upon innocent people along the way. Quỳnh has dedicated herself to the cause, even if it means that her own daughter, a youthful mindship, is unable to know her true parentage and might be left without either of her parents...but Hoà threatens to change all that by giving Quỳnh something to actually live for once more besides her daughter...and a person to live for who is constantly there and pressing Quỳnh to be good once more.
And so these three characters, as well as several side characters, combine in a plot that works generally pretty well and deals with themes of power, abuse of filial piety, justice, and more. We have Minh discovering that the Prefect enjoys being harsh to the point of not being fair and discovering that her own abuse by the Prefect is grounds to take a step beyond filial piety out on her own. We have Quỳnh and Hoà discovering the differences between revenge and justice and the limits of trying to obtain the latter....but also the reason why they should keep trying, because revenge doesn't leave anything left in its wake. And the way the plot turns through it all generally works pretty well, even if the themes here aren't quite as strong or as relatable to our current world as some of de Bodard's other works.
The result is another excellent novel in this Xuya universe and an excellent adaptation of the source material: The Count of Monte-Cristo. de Bodard fans won't be disappointed and new readers of her work will find an excellent starting point for her here.
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