This was absolutely wonderful.
Having read the Machineries of Empire, which I describe as a New Weird space opera, I was expecting the same kind of mind twisting here. Don't get me wrong, I like New Weird, so I wouldn't have been upset, but I was nevertheless surprised by how easy to read this was.
This book is set in a thinly disguised secondary world version of Korea, occupied by a thinly disguised secondary world Japanese Empire. The protagonist is Jebi, a not-Korean artist just trying to get buy. They've learned not-Japanese and adopted not-Japanese mannerisms and even taken a not-Japanese name, to make it easier to get work. (Non-gendered pronoun use is deliberate: Jebi is non-binary, which their culture is fine with and the not-Japanese occupiers are just kinda baffled by.) All of this infuriates their sister, who's late wife died fighting the not-Japanese invasion.
Jebi hears of a job offer from the not-Japanese Ministry of Armor, responsible for producing weapons, armor, and, most importantly, the magically powered soldier and tank automata constructs that made the conquest of not-Korea so easy. They're offered a job painting the magical glyphs that make these constructs work ("offered" in the sense of "the secret police know where your sister lives" kind of offer). Once they've accepted this kind offer, they find out what their assignment is: the Ministry is having trouble with the automata dragon they've constructed, and it's Jebi's job to find the problems in the controlling glyphs and correct them.
Now, automata are made to be mindless, mute golems, executing their instructions perfectly. But while working on fixing the dragon's glyphs, he secretly adds the glyphs that will give the dragon a voice.
What follows is a truly wonderful story of many different kinds of love. The love of Jebi for art, the love between Jebi and their sister, the inconvenient love that Jebi develops for a high-ranking Ministry member, and what might possibly be my favorite love between person and dragon outside of Hiccup and Toothless.
But this isn't a light-hearted book by any means. Colonialism is a heavy theme, and cultural erasure. Yoon Ha Lee managed to upset me in a way that no book has really ever been able to, when Jebi learns the secret behind the pigment used to make the glyphs. Yoon, if you happen to read this, that was seriously upsetting. Loyalties are tested all over the place, and the line between good guys and bad guys gets more than a little blurry in places.
One thing this is not is a book about trans rights. Jebi's non-binary gender identity is simply an accepted part of who they are. No struggles for acceptance. This is neither a feature or a bug: stories about that kind of struggle are important, but stories showing non-binary as a normal and accepted part of society are valuable as well.
I'm not sure if this book will have a sequel or not. It doesn't need one: the story ends on a perfect note as far as I'm concerned, but Yoon left themselves room for one. I kind of hope there isn't a sequel, honestly. This book was wonderful all on its own.
Bingo categories: published in 2020 (should be out in October), book that made me laugh (several times) (hard mode).
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