SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

This thread is for the Universe of Xuya by Aliette de Bodard series buddy read. I believe the novellas are not particularly sequential, so it's easy to drop in whenever. Here is the tentative schedule:

December 29: On a Red Station, Drifting
January 17: The Tea Master and the Detective
January 29: The Citadel of Weeping Pearls

Please use spoiler tags and indicate which book your referring to. I'm really looking forward to these.

I'm in the process of reading this series right now.

You're not planning to read all the shorts and things that happen before "On a Red Station, Drifting?"

Yay! I've read Station and Tea Master, but I'll join for Citadel.

MrsJoseph wrote: "I'm in the process of reading this series right now.

You're not planning to read all the shorts and things that happen before "On a Red Station, Drifting?""

We could! I know there's a lot of short stories in the same universe, so I thought we'd start with the novellas first, but if you have favorite shorts please point is in that direction! Especially if they're available online :-)

Aliette de Bodard has a page on her website with the Xuya chronology and links to any stories that are available online: https://aliettedebodard.com/bibliogra...

So, this is the list I started with, I pulled it from the author's site. It's in chronological order.

The Modern Era
Circa 1982: Revered Speaker Ixtli is named to the head of Greater Mexica by a divided council. Anxious to establish his legitimacy, he purges the council and the government at all levels. This degenerates into a bloodbath, and a rebel faction seizes the opportunity to start a civil war.

1985-1992: Mexica Civil War. The war ends when Palli, a youth of imperial blood, seeks shelter in Xuya, and gives the Xuyans a pretext to intervene in their neighbours’ affairs. After a protracted invasion, Palli is instated as Revered Speaker in 1992, conducting a policy of open trade.

1986: Events of “The Jaguar House, in Shadow” (Asimov’s, July 2010).

1990: Events of “Fleeing Tezcatlipoca” (Space and Time, June 2010 issue).

2004: Racial riots in Fenliu, started by a magistrate ignorant of Mayan rites.

2005: Events of “The Lost Xuyan Bride” (Interzone, issue 213, November 2007).

2006: Events of “Butterfly, Falling at Dawn” (Interzone, issue 219, November 2008. Reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection

2009: Events of Foreign Ghosts (unpublished novel).

The Space Age
21st century: The development of Minds, large AIs capable of piloting ships into deep space, soon becomes the key to colonising space.
Somewhere in the 21st-22nd century:
-events of “Starsong” (Asimov’s, July 2012). The events in “Starsong” are the inciting incident that leads to the development of Minds.
-events of “Shipbirth” (Asimov’s, February 2011)
-events of “The Shipmaker” (Interzone 231. Reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection).
-events of “Ship’s Brother”, Interzone July 2012
-events of “Two Sisters in Exile”, Solaris Rising 1.5
-events of “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”, Clarkesworld, January 2015
-events of “In Blue Lily’s Wake”, Meeting Infinity, ed Jonathan Strahan, December 2015
-events of “Crossing the Midday Gate”, To Shape the Dark, ed Athena Andreadis, May 2016
-events of “A Salvaging of Ghosts”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, March 2016
-events of “Pearl”, The Starlit Wood ed. Navah Wolfe and Dominik Parisien, Saga Press, October 2016

Also somewhere in the 22nd Century but in another corner of space altogether:
-events of “Scattered Along the River of Heaven”, Clarkesworld, January 2012
-events of “Immersion”, Clarkesworld, June 2012
-events of On a Red Station, Drifting, Immersion Press, December 2012
-events of “The Days of the War, as Red as Blood, as Dark as Bile”, Subterranean Spring 2014 issue
-events of “The Weight of a Blessing”, Clarkesworld, March 2013
-events of “Memorials”, in Asimov’s. Reprinted in Apex Magazine, June 2016
-events of “The Waiting Stars”, The Other Half of the Sky, ed. Athena Andreadis, 2013
-events of “A Slow Unfurling of Truth”, Carbide-Tipped Pens, 2014
-events of “The Frost on Jade Buds”, Solaris Rising 3, 2014
-events of “The Citadel of Weeping Pearls”, Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2015 issue
-events of “A Hundred and Seventy Storms”, Uncanny Magazine July 2016 issue

Those are my “colonised space stations” stories, which take place in a corner of space where a Galactic (Western) culture rubs against a diminished imperial Chinese/Vietnamese culture. I didn’t specifically write them as part of the Xuyan universe, but they became part of the larger chronology with the bridge work On a Red Station, Drifting, the novella with Immersion Press, which has both a space station and the Minds characteristics of the Xuya continuity in space.
(and yup, the universe is totally getting bigger all the time. Hopefully there’ll be space for a larger-scale planetary romance or space opera-y sort of thing where I get to blow up ships and feature awesome characters)

And in a completely different corner of space:
–“The Breath of War”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies March 2014

This appears to be the best publication order list a friend located for me: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?3...

I'm still working my way through this one (well, both of them). The stories can be hard to locate - but that has been some fun as well. The link has (additional) links that tell you where each story appear(s).

The Lost Xuyan Bride (2007) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: La novia xuyana desaparecida [Spanish] (2014)
Butterfly, Falling at Dawn (2008) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: Chute d'un papillon au point du jour [French] (2010)
Translation: Caída de una mariposa al amanecer [Spanish] (2013)
Fleeing Tezcatlipoca (2010) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: La persecución de Tezcatlipoca [Spanish] (2014)
The Jaguar House, in Shadow (2010) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: La Casa del Jaguar, en la sombra [Spanish] (2014)
The Shipmaker (2010) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: La creadora de naves [Spanish] (2014)
Shipbirth (2011) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: El nacimiento de una nave [Spanish] (2014)
Scattered Along the River of Heaven (2012) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: Separados por las aguas del Río Celeste [Spanish] (2013)
Translation: Éparpillés le long des rivières du ciel [French] (2014)
Immersion (2012) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: Immersion [French] (2013)
Translation: 没入?

[Japanese] (2014) [as by アリエット・ドボダール?
]
Translation: Inmersión [Spanish] (2014)
Ship's Brother (2012) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: Vaisseau-sœur [French] (2013)
Translation: El hermano de la nave [Spanish] (2014)
Two Sisters in Exile (2012) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Variant: The Two Sisters in Exile (2014)
Translation: Las Dos Hermanas en el exilio [Spanish] (2014)
Starsong (2012) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: Canción de estrellas [Spanish] (2014)
On a Red Station, Drifting (2012) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: En una estación roja, a la deriva [Spanish] (2014)
The Weight of a Blessing (2013) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: El peso de una bendición [Spanish] (2014)
The Waiting Stars (2013) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: Las estrellas esperan [Spanish] (2014)
Memorials (2014) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: Panteones [Spanish] (2014)
The Breath of War (2014) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: Le souffle de la guerre [French] (2015)
The Days of the War, as Red as Blood, as Dark as Bile (2014) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard
The Frost on Jade Buds (2014) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard
El ciclo de Xuya (2014) [C] by Aliette de Bodard
A Slow Unfurling of Truth (2014) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: La verdad se desvela poco a poco [Spanish] (2014)
Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight (2015) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard also appeared as:
Translation: Trois tasses de deuil sous les étoiles [French] (2017)
Translation: Tres tazas de aflicción a la luz de las estrellas [Spanish] (2017)
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls (2015) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard
Ships in Exile (2015) [C] by Aliette de Bodard
In Blue Lily's Wake (2015) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard
A Salvaging of Ghosts (2016) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard
Crossing the Midday Gate (2016) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard
A Hundred and Seventy Storms (2016) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard
Pearl (2016) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard
The Dragon That Flew Out of the Sun (2017) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard
The Tea Master and the Detective (2018) [SF] by Aliette de Bodard

@MrsJoseph: Thanks for posting the list! I know I enjoyed the author's Dominion of the Fallen novels more after reading the short stories that came first, so I'll try to read as many of these as I can before the first novella.

Yes, thanks! This is great. But now I can't decide where to start :-/

I'm planning on starting On a Red Station tomorrow, but in the meantime I wanted to jot down a few notes on the short stories I've read so far. I used spoiler tags to be safe, but none of it is really all that spoilery, just general thoughts on the stories.

"The Jaguar House, In Shadow"; "The Lost Xuyan Bride"; and "Butterfly, Falling at Dawn": (view spoiler)[These alt-history stories set on Earth provide a good grounding on the sociocultural context for the later Space Age stories, as well as being entertaining stories in their own right. (hide spoiler)]

"Starsong": (view spoiler)[An interesting glimpse into the origins of the Minds - I found the prior three stories very relevant to understanding the dynamics in this one. (hide spoiler)]

"The Shipmaker"; "Ship's Brother"; and "Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight": (view spoiler)[I loved these stories because of the way they illuminated the familial dynamics surrounding the Minds. Three Cups of Grief was especially lovely, although quite sad. (hide spoiler)]

"In Blue Lily's Wake" and "Crossing the Midday Gate": (view spoiler)[I'd read Midday Gate previously, but it was nice to come back to it with more familiarity with the Xuya universe, and especially more knowledge about the specific backstory explained in Blue Lily. (hide spoiler)]

"A Salvaging of Ghosts": (view spoiler)[Another sad but lovely one. (hide spoiler)]

"Scattered Along the River of Heaven" and "Immersion": I'm fairly certain I've read both of these before, but not recently enough to have more than vague recollections. (view spoiler)[Ok, off to a different part of this universe. These stories are both incredible, meshing the political and the personal in a really powerful way. (hide spoiler)]

I finished In the Vanishers’ Palace last week (not in the Universe of Xuya but highly recommended) and went looking for more by this author. I ended up with On a Red Station, Drifting and now I see that there's a buddy read for it just starting. How cool is that? I'm looking forward to reading along.

Raucous wrote: "I finished In the Vanishers’ Palace last week (not in the Universe of Xuya but highly recommended) and went looking for more by this author. I ended up with ...

Good timing! I have In the Vanishers’ Palace on my TBR, glad it gets a thumbs up. Enjoying OARS so far, although I'm not very far in. On first impressions it makes me think a lot of the Radch from Ancillary Justice, et al. Which is good! I loved that series.

I read & enjoyed The Tea Master and the Detective a few months ago, so I'm picking up the other 2 novellas for this discussion. :-) I'm now 2/3 through On a Red Station, Drifting. What an intriguing universe! I'll probably look up some of the short stories too.

I finished Red Station last night and loved it. I think, for me, it was a very good idea to read the short stories along with the novella, because one of the parts I liked best was the breadth and detail of the universe. Understanding the social and cultural context of the story gave it even more emotional impact. I thought both Linh and Quyen were great characters, and flawed in ways that were painful because they were so relatable.

So far, I have really enjoyed everything I've read by the author - I've also read all of her Dominion of the Fallen stories and In the Vanisher's Palace.

I finished Red Station today and also really liked it. I totally agree about Linh and Quyen, I was rooting for both of them even when they were at cross-purposes, and I was also annoyed with them both in equal measure.

I can't wait to read more from this universe. Kaa I'm glad to hear you've enjoyed some of the short fiction, I'm looking forward to that as well (sometime I'm not overwhelmed by buddy reads :-/).

Next up, The Tea Master and the Detective on Jan. 17.

More short stories:

"The Days of the War, as Red as Blood, as Dark as Bile": This story focuses on the war that is the backdrop to On a Red Station, Drifting. I found it very powerful - the author says that she wrote it ten days after the birth of her first child, which is interesting context, given the story.

"The Weight of a Blessing" and "Memorials": Also heavier stories about a different war. It took me a little while to figure out some of the important history, but once I did I really liked both these stories.

I'm going to be early to Tea Master, as the library book is due back on 1/10.

Kaa wrote: "I finished Red Station last night and loved it. I think, for me, it was a very good idea to read the short stories along with the novella, because one of the parts I liked best was the breadth and detail of the universe ..."

I decided, after seeing interesting background mentioned in passing, to also take a look at some of those short stories. Clarksworld has podcast versions of 7 of the listed stories and so I've been listening to those in parallel with reading On a Red Station, Drifting. They're all standalone and I was enjoying the novella without them, but adding the short stories gives it more depth. Thanks Kaa and MrsJoseph for the encouragement there.

Raucous wrote: "Clarksworld has podcast versions of 7 of the listed stories and so I've been listening to those
..."

Ooh, that sounds great. Thanks for the tip!

@Raucous: Glad you're enjoying the short stories! I love that they are all stand-alone, as that makes it easy to dip in and out of the universe.

I just finished reading "The Waiting Stars" and "A Slow Unfurling of Truth." I loved both of them - again, heavier stories, (view spoiler)[with a theme of memories and the removal of memory that I found very powerful and intense. (hide spoiler)]

On to Tea Master!

I found short story "The Shipmaker" to be, of the stories I listened to, perhaps the most useful background for Red Station. However they're all good.

I liked On a Red Station, Drifting but not as enthusiastically as In the Vanishers’ Palace. Red Station is powerfully written but I had a harder time investing in the characters. (view spoiler)[In particular I spent enough time in a large difficult family to be conflict averse in these situations. The second half of the book also filled me with a growing sense of dread. I appreciated the way she resolved that in a family affirming way, but it wasn't easy getting there. I should have had more faith in her ability to write her way out of the obvious ending. (hide spoiler)]

Alex, I deleted your post because it wasn't in spoiler tags. I would've sent you a message with a copy of the text so you can repost, but you're not accepting messages.

Anna wrote: "Alex, I deleted your post because it wasn't in spoiler tags. I would've sent you a message with a copy of the text so you can repost, but you're not accepting messages."

Ah, sorry! (a Pink momentary lapse of reason on my part.)

While reading On a Red Station, Drifting, tears came to my eyes (view spoiler)[when Quyen told the Honoured Ancestress that she'd get back Du Khach's memories in the mem-implant. (hide spoiler)]

Started The Tea Master and the Detective tonight!

(view spoiler)[Very different portrayal of a shipmind here vs. in Red Station. Still a little confused how a shipmind can really be "down on her luck," but happy to see where the story takes us. (hide spoiler)] (spoilers for very early on, maybe 10%)

Ariana wrote: "Started The Tea Master and the Detective tonight!

[spoilers removed] (spoilers for very early on, maybe 10%)"

Nice!

A striking cover.

I finished On a Red Station, Drifting last night, and I loved it! I love the Viet influence which gives it a southeast Asian flavor. Just like with JY Yang's Tensorate series, I've discovered that I adore the silkpunk genre, with its roots deeply anchored in folklore and mythology. It's also just refreshing to read stories from something else than a Western perspective.

Overall, it's not a complicated story, and it felt a bit young, but within the universe they acted and felt true to themselves and I appreciate that. I was hooked and wanted to know what happened to the characters and how they solved their issues, even if I was not emotionally invested per se.

I'll be reading The Tea Master and the Detective asap!

Just finished The Tea Master and the Detective. That was completely brilliant! I loved the characters in this one far better than those in A Red Station, Drifting, they were much more fleshed out and whole.

(view spoiler)[I didn't know going in that it would basically be John and Sherlock in space but it quickly showed. That she reads fanfiction in her spare time is very obvious, as this is basically an AU Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but she manages to make the characters their own and it doesn't feel contrite or cliché at all. I thought it worked really well in the Xuya universe and I gave it 5 stars. (hide spoiler)]

I'm so so so happy to have discovered her!

Just realized that I'd never posted after reading Tea Master... I enjoyed it a lot, although probably not quite as much as Red Station.

Like Dawn, (view spoiler)[I thought that the Sherlock Holmes aspect was really well done. I'm fairly indifferent to the original, but I love a good, creative Sherlock re-telling. I especially liked that the Watson character was an AI, as I thought that was a nice way of giving the character certain mental abilities that Sherlock didn't have. (hide spoiler)]

I'm joining in. I read Tea Master and the Detective a couple months back and really enjoyed the story and the universe de Bodard created, at least the portion we get to see in this story. Like others have said, (view spoiler)[ I enjoy a Sherlock Holmes re-imagining and this was such a cool take on the role of Watson. (hide spoiler)]

I'll probably start reading On a Red Station, Drifting this weekend (yay, snow storm!), and I might revisit Tea Master so I can follow that discussion too.

Just read On a Red Station, Drifting. Really enjoyed it. I found it and The Tea Master and the Detective last night. I’ll start to read Tea Master later this afternoon.

I’m still fangirling over The Tea Master and the Detective. (view spoiler)[I agree that Watson as an AI spaceship was genius, and I also loved what she did with Sherlock’s drug addiction, it made sense in the context of the story that already dealt with a mind altering tea used for deep space travels. It didn’t feel like a cheap gimmick at all. (hide spoiler)]

Dawn wrote: "I’m still fangirling over The Tea Master and the Detective. [spoilers removed]"

Yes! (view spoiler)[I felt the same way about how she approached giving the shipmind a medical-related career - it fit the story without being gimmicky. And I loved how she used both pieces as the hook to bring the two characters together. (hide spoiler)]

Oh god yes (view spoiler)[, I didn't even connect that the AI had a sort of medical career, like Watson of course does! Just goes to show how naturally de Bodard has adapted the characters to be their own and fit her universe. (hide spoiler)]

I am processing my thoughts on Tea Master. I quite liked it, but I wasn't as drawn in as i was with Red Station, and I'm not quite sure why.

Is anyone else using Tea Master as a 7 kingdoms v. Heptarchate book? I have one idea about where to put it, but it's not very satisfying to me, and I was hoping to borrow a better idea from one of you creative folks.

I'll be putting my Xuya read (Citadel of Weeping Pearls) into Nirai3 for the mindships. Unless I change my mind after reading it of course. Could also work for Nirai1 for the same reason.

Anna wrote: "I'll be putting my Xuya read (Citadel of Weeping Pearls) into Nirai3 for the mindships. Unless I change my mind after reading it of course. Could also work for Nirai1 for the same reason."

I have Red Station in Nirai1; it does seem like the best fit. But I have something else in Nirai3 for the resourceful protagonist (Black God's Drums).
But shuffling titles around is pretty fun, so maybe I'll lean in to the uncertainty :-) Just wanted to hear other folks's choices!

I put Tea Master in Vidona3, since (view spoiler)[Long Chau used to be a teacher, and there's a religious element to the deep space thing. (hide spoiler)]

Kaa wrote: "I put Tea Master in Vidona3, since [spoilers removed]"

Ooh, I like that!

This is where I admit that I read The Tea Master and the Detective last summer and it was a bit of a tepid cup of tea for me. I think that was mostly because I wasn't very familiar with the source material. (view spoiler)[In particular, I wasn't up on the "Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective" thing and so mapping the two main characters to Watson and Holmes didn't work as well for me as it might have. Yeah, I know that I need to get out more. Add in being unfamiliar with mindships and I spent most of the time wondering what was going on. This time around I was more grounded in both. The interactions between "Watson" and "Holmes" were an interesting parallel and I loved seeing tea play such a central role in the plot. (hide spoiler)]

Being more familiar with Xuya and the rest of her source material meant that I went from lukewarm to enthusiastic about The Tea Master and the Detective. I'm looking forward to the last piece in this buddy read.

Not directly related but I also just finished listening another short story in the Xuya universe that, like @Kaa, I want to recommend: The Waiting Stars. (view spoiler)[It's a compelling story built with twinned threads, one focusing on family loyalty and the other on technology-driven cultural imperialism. (hide spoiler)]

I found The Citadel of Weeping Pearls a more difficult read than the other two novellas. I don't know if it was the number of POVs or the plot, but I struggled to get immersed in the world and characters in the same way. I did end up rating it 4 stars, but it was more of a 3.5-rounded-up. (view spoiler)[The time travel piece, with the things that just went back to the way they used to be, didn't entirely work or make sense to me. It seemed a little bit too hand-wavy. (hide spoiler)]

I recently finished On a Red Station, Drifting and while I liked the ideas, the conflict was a bit gratuitous (view spoiler)[with each women sitting and fuming about the other , but not just go and talk. I've seen similar situations in real life but [if it sounds a little sexist] it's a female way, nor confronting neither forgetting/forgiving the other side. (hide spoiler)]

The book surged my interest in Vietnam history, if anyone interested there are several lectures on it on youtube

I’m also having trouble getting through The Citadel of Weeping Pearls. I can’t keep track of all the characters and their motives and I just can’t get into the plot. I love the mindships, though, and the Vietmanese scifi universe, so I’ll finish it, but I’m guessing I’ll land at 3 stars.

I forgot it was time for Weeping Pearls! Maybe I'll skip it and read some of the well-liked shorts instead.

Anna wrote: "I forgot it was time for Weeping Pearls! Maybe I'll skip it and read some of the well-liked shorts instead."

I also spaced on this one. I am going to start Citadel in the next few days, but I have little time for eye-reading these days, so it might take me a while to finish, despite the length.

I was sitting in bed last night, trying to decide what to start reading next. I actually looked at Citadel, but then decided I'll wait until the buddy read, sigh. I somehow remembered it was later in February. But since I haven't absolutely loved everything in this universe, maybe I shouldn't read the one that's not as good as the others?

I had originally planned on reading Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight next, since that Clarkesworld issue has other short fiction I'm also interested in. But who knows when I'll finally get to it.

I read the last three Xuya stories that are easily available to me last night:

"A Hundred and Seventy Storms" and "The Breath of War": (view spoiler)[These were both really lovely stories with a shared theme around supporting a loved one to follow their dreams, even when that takes them away from you. As with many of the Xuya stories, these deal beautifully and in detail with some heavy emotions - in Storms, mainly fear, and anger in Breath of War. The endings to both felt a little abrupt, but overall I really enjoyed them. (hide spoiler)]

"The Dragon That Flew Out of the Sun": As sad as I am not to have more Xuya stories to read, this was a very powerful story to end my reading with. (view spoiler)[The way it depicts different experiences of the same event and the use of stories to process trauma is incredible. (hide spoiler)] One of my favorite from a series full of amazing stories.

I read her short story "The Waiting Stars" yesterday, what a beautiful story that really gripped me. I definitely think it pays to be at least a bit familiar with the Xyua universe before reading it as it'll have more impact this way.

I'd love to read more of her shorts but I prefer to be able to download them as epub or at least pdf, but a lot of them are only available to read online, and then they tend to get lost for me as I always read on the road and have a lot of browser tabs open. If she published a whole collection of all her Xuya shorts I'd definitely buy it!

Dawn wrote: "If she published a whole collection of all her Xuya shorts I'd definitely buy it!"

Oh that's a great idea: I hope that happens! :-D

Joelle wrote: "Dawn wrote: "If she published a whole collection of all her Xuya shorts I'd definitely buy it!"

Oh that's a great idea: I hope that happens! :-D"

Yes, that would be so amazing! I would definitely buy that!

I think that I escaped the multiple POV issue in The Citadel of Weeping Pearls by reading most of it in one go. It's a convoluted plot, but it feels like it fits well with what I'd imagine would be the intrigue of an Imperial Court and the family at the center of it, with hidden implications for every action. Overall I liked this one better than On a Red Station, Drifting but perhaps not quite as much as my second reading of The Tea Master and the Detective. (view spoiler)[That's despite my fondness for happy, neat endings (neither of which characterizes this story). But it's such a wonderfully atmospheric piece on family conflict, regret, grief, and eventual resolution, all with an Eastern perspective. I'm currently also reading The Chronicles of Amber. That has some of the same family issues, but written from a Western perspective. They couldn't be more different. (hide spoiler)]

I would definitely get a collection of Xuya shorts as well.

Finally getting into Citadel of Weeping Pearls, though it took me a couple tries to get going with it. I'm enjoying the multiple POVs, but agree that I needed to read a ways in before things started to click. I'm over halfway now.