Navigational Entanglements
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A "Best of" Pick by Lit Hub | Amazon | New Scientist!
Award-winning author of The Red Scholar’s Wake Aliette de Bodard comes for your heart with a compelling tale of love, duty, and found-family in an exciting new space opera that brings xianxia-style martial arts to the stars.
Jockeying navigator clans guide spaceships through the Hollows: an area of space populated by the mysterious but deadly creatures known as Tanglers. When a Tangler escapes the Hollows for the first time in living memory, each clan must send a representative to help capture it—but the mission may be doomed and the hearts of two clan juniors may be in danger too.
Việt Nhi is not good with people. Or politics. Which is a problem when the Rooster clan sends her on the mission against her will, forcing her to work with an ill-matched group of squabbling teammates from rival clans, including one who she can’t avoid, and maybe doesn’t want to.
Hạc Cúc of the Snake clan has always been better at poisoning and stabbing than at making friends, but she’s drawn to Nhi’s perceptiveness and obliviousness to social conventions—including the ones that really should make Nhi think twice about spending time with her.
But when their imperial envoy and nominal leader is poisoned, this crew of expendable apprentices will have to learn to work together—fast—before the invisible Tangler can wreak havoc on a civilian city and destroy the fragile reputation of the clans. Along the way, Nhi and Hạc Cúc will have to learn the hardest lesson of all: to see past their own misconceptions and learn to trust their growing feelings for each other.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This magnificent space opera from Nebula Award winner de Bodard (A Fire Born of Exile) is simultaneously electric and heartwarming, full of breathless queer romance, shifting clan politics, and many cups of tea. Young misfits from each of the four navigator clans are sent on a near-impossible mission: find and "deal with" a Tangler. Hard to detect and harder to kill, these long, spindly beasts live in the Hollows, a void where ships travel faster than light. Following an accident, however, one Tangler has escaped this zone and is on the loose in occupied space. With their clans' reputations on the line, the four envoys—Nhi from the Rooster clan, Hạc Cúc from the Snakes, Lành from the Oxes, and Bảo Duy from the Rats—must overcome their dislike for one another and find the courage and means to do the right thing. Nhi is a shy "book nerd" obsessed with secrets and prone to sensory overload, while Hạc Cúc is prickly and quick to violence, convinced that she will never live up to her mentor. The two have an instant connection, but both struggle to create lasting relationships. De Bodard loads the narrative with unexpected twists and intricate interpersonal relationships. Fans and new readers alike will devour this.
