Nghi Vo

I've been reading mostly Hugo/nebula nominated novellas lately but not been having much luck with finding a really good one, even the winners. This is one of the better ones in terms of concept, it just feels like it's missing something. The ending is one of those things that recontextualises some of what's gone before, but it felt like it just shifted the issues I had rather than resolving them.

I think in terms of plot problems there's one really big one - it's not clear what the titular character actually does. I can only explain this with spoilers so she is somehow like, coordinating an invasion through messages delivered by fortune telling? Except she can't be because the messages she sends are vague and very short. It seems like really the invaders are doing everything and she's just being kept in the loop. Even the one practical thing she does - changing her escort on the pilgrimage - is completely unexplained in how she does it. She's talked up as this really impressive person but it's just left very vague what role she actually played

I think in a sense there's a trick here where the narrator of the events presents herself as less important yet really it's her story especially with the ending twist and yet at the same time... it's hard to get over that she still seems to hero worship the titular character even when the empress is behaving in extremely selfish ways. It feels like there's a kind of critique against the presumption that the empress must be the important one but it's undermined constantly. I think there's something interesting going on here, which puts it above say, the murderbot diaries, but ultimately it feels it doesn't quite get there.… (mere)