Another fun novella from someone who is rapidly shifting from “author I really like” to “one of my favorite authors.” De Bodard is just always so creative, distinct, and evocative, at this point I’d be excited to read the back of a shampoo bottle if it was written by her. And I’d assume there’s some interesting bits of Vietnamese culture sprinkled among the ingredients.
This is something between a murder mystery and a heist story. The main protagonist is a tutor, talented but from a lower-class family, helping a young wealthy woman prepare for the civil service examinations. The other main protagonist is someone she knows from her poetry club, the holographic (or something) avatar of a sentient starship. Both the tutor and the mindship have a secret, and both are so caught up in their own secret that it takes them a long time to consider that maybe the other is hiding something of her own.
The stakes rise early on, when the tutor’s student has an unknown visitor who promptly drops dead in their sitting room.
The mystery of what is going on is fine, but what really shines is the setting (de Bodard is absolutely brilliant at settings) and the relationship between the tutor and the mindship. Another gift of de Bodard’s is writing books about relationships between very, very unequal beings (check out In the Vanishers’ Palace for a great story featuring a relationship between a village girl and a dragon). Also, and this is something I've only noticed in hindsight, I don't think there's a single male character anywhere in this book.
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