Fireheart Tiger
by Aliette de Bodard
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted January 29, 2021
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Aliette de Bodard's Fireheart Tiger will be published on February 9, but I received an e-ARC from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, I didn't like it as much as I'd hoped, yet it's hard to explain why. It's well written, lyrical, full of emotion, yet it took me way too long to finish. It's a novella, a little more than 100 pages, which I should have been able to read in just a few hours, yet I found reasons to do many other things instead of finishing it.
It's not connected to any of her other fictional sequences, but the country in which it takes place is again patterned after Vietnam, although details might be completely fabricated. Names of people and places indicate it is at least suggested by that, but I don't know if there are any historical referents. Almost all of the main characters are women, even the fantastical fire elemental of the story's title. Thahn is the youngest of three princesses in her mother's imperial court in Bình Hai. As a child she had been sent to the rival nation of Ephteria, to be both educated there, and act as a hostage for negotiations between the two countries. While in Ephteria, Thahn had a brief relationship with Eldris, a princess of that nation, but that had ended before the great fire in the palace of Yosolis. If not for the help of the servant girl Giang, Thahn might have died. Afterwards, she could not find Giang, nor did anyone at the palace know of a servant by that name or description. Years later, Thahn is back in Bình Hai helping her mother negotiate another treaty with Ephteria, made more complicated with the appearance of Eldris, who wishes to rekindle their romance. But Giang has returned as well.
A sapphic love triangle amidst court intrigue should appeal to many. It also has elements of colonialism, with Eptheria a possible stand-in for France. As I said above, it is full of emotion, but none of the emotion felt that real to me, but rather calculated and cold, as sincere as the imperial court's manipulative diplomacy. Does Eldris truly love Thahn, or is Thahn being used as a hostage once again? Is Giang just as manipulative as Eldris? It's not that I won't answer those questions, it's that I can't. The conclusion didn't ring true based on what I had come to expect of each of the characters. I'm sure many others will like it, but it was the first of Aliette's stories to disappoint.
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