| Title | : | The Citadel of Weeping Pearls (Xuya Universe) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1625672551 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781625672551 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 164 |
| Publication | : | First published September 12, 2015 |
Thirty years ago, threatened by an invading fleet from the Dai Viet Empire, the Citadel disappeared and was never seen again.
But now the Dai Viet Empire itself is under siege, on the verge of a war against an enemy that turns their own mindships against them; and the Empress, who once gave the order to raze the Citadel, is in desperate needs of its weapons. Meanwhile, on a small isolated space station, an engineer obsessed with the past works on a machine that will send her thirty years back, to the height of the Citadel's power.
But the Citadel's disappearance still extends chains of grief and regrets all the way into the fraught atmosphere of the Imperial Court; and this casual summoning of the past might have world-shattering consequences...
A new book set in the award-winning, critically acclaimed Xuya universe.
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls (Xuya Universe) Reviews
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Review first posted on
Fantasy Literature:
Aliette de Bodard’s UNIVERSE OF XUYA series of novellas and short stories has been nominated for Best Series in the 2019 Hugo awards, for very good reason. The detailed worldbuilding and thoughtful writing pull the reader into a world with an alternative history, where Chinese ships were the first to discover the Americas, drastically changing our history and leading to a space age future where Chinese and Vietnamese galactic empires hold great power and intelligent mindships interact with humans outside of the ship through projected avatars. De Bodard’s website has
an extremely useful page that includes a brief description of the Xuya (“Dawn Shore”) universe and a handy chronology listing all of her XUYA tales.
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, one of the novellas in this series, takes place in the Dai Viet Empire. Thirty years before this story begins, the Citadel, a space station headed up by the Bright Princess Ngoc Minh, Empress’s oldest and favorite daughter and her heir, was a place of technological wonders: tiny but immensely powerful weapons, teleporting inhabitants, and more. The Empress, furious at her daughter’s ongoing defiance (including not sharing these weapons), had sent her ships to destroy the Citadel, but when they arrived the Citadel and all of its inhabitants had mysteriously vanished.
Now the Empire is threatened by an invading fleet of ships from the Nam Federation, which appears to have discovered a way to hijack the brains of the Empire’s mindships, their biggest advantage in war. The Empress is in more need of the Citadel’s weapons than ever before, and the Empire’s scientists may have found a way to use the mysterious aspects of deep space to revisit the past.
The focus of The Citadel of Weeping Pearls is as much on interpersonal relationships as it is the mystery of the Citadel’s disappearance and the search for a method to find it again. De Bodard examines the sometimes difficult bonds and relationships between mothers and daughters and sisters: the Empress regrets her falling out with her eldest daughter Ngoc Minh; the Empress’s youngest daughter, Ngoc Ha, tries to come to terms with her tense relationship with her own daughter, the mindship The Turtle’s Golden Claw, and her lingering jealousy of her older sister Ncog Minh. The Turtle’s Golden Claw is helping with the search for the Citadel and the newly vanished Grand Master Bach Cuc, the mindship’s paternal grandmother, who was one of those searching for the Citadel’s trail. Meanwhile, engineer Diem Huong, whose mother vanished with the Citadel when Diem Huong was six years old, is part of a team working on an experimental time machine, and she desperately hopes to use it to find her mother again.
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls is a slower-paced and somewhat opaque novella, with a large and sometimes confusing array of characters (all of the Vietnamese names were, I’m afraid, a slight challenge for me to keep straight). But it’s also a beautifully written, bittersweet mystery in a wonderfully imaginative space setting. Readers who are patient and attentive will be amply rewarded by reading this novella. -
An enchanting but slightly frustrating novella set in the same universe as de Bodard's "The Tea Master and the Detective" (
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), which I read last summer, "The Citadel of Weeping Pearls" is a tale of courtly intrigue, time travel, deep space travel and bonds between mothers and daughters.
I absolutely adore the world building that de Bodard weaves in her stories set in the Xuya Universe: the silkpunk sci-fi aesthetic is elegant and exotic, with its space travel based on a blend of high technology and mysterious occult sciences, their ships powered by AIs that are borne by women, just like human babies.
Her story of intrigue and politics is interesting, but the short format makes the pacing a bit more rushed than I would have liked, and leaves little room for the development of characters that have a great deal of potential. We only get a glimpse of the Empress and her daughters, the complicated personality of the elder and the consequences her actions had on the youngest; the story of the general and the engineer who get caught up in this mystery also left me feeling like this book could have used another fifty pages or so, to be fully satisfying.
3 and half; I really can't get enough of this fictional universe and only wish this could have been more developed. -
My favorite piece by de Bodard that I've encountered so far.
Court intrigue meets space opera meets family drama. The setting reminded me of Vernor Vinge's 'Fire Upon the Deep,' with it's sentient ships and bizarre zones of space where physics works differently. It also reminded me of Somtow Sucharitkul's Inquestor series, with a glittering panoply of an Asian-inspired society with aristocrats, soldiers and scientists.
Thirty years ago, threatened by her mother the Empress, the Bright Princess disappeared along with her space Citadel. Now, upon the brink of war, the Empress seeks her missing daughter - and the cutting-edge weaponry secrets she undoubtedly had, in order to achieve her feat. The Empire's head research scientist is working on the mystery, trying to trace the Citadel. But when the scientist disappears without a trace, the situation become even more critical. The Empress' top general (and former lover), and her remaining daughter are ordered to investigate. But some situations have no easy solution. -
A deeply weird and marvellous tale of time travel, deep space, broken families, mindships, and court intrigue in a Vietnamese-influenced space empire. Strange, absorbing, lyrically written and moving as well as mind-expanding. Loved it, got the companion book at once. Also, what a cover.
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The Citadel of Weeping Pearls is the second novella set in the Xuya universe I’ve read. It follows many different characters as they try to piece together a mystery: is the disappearance of deep space scientist Bach Cuc tied to the space citadel that vanished thirty years before, together with all its inhabitants and princess Ngoc Minh?
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls is a very unique story for its genre. It's a story about family, especially about the way relationships between mothers, daughters and sisters can develop. It’s a quiet space opera, beautifully written, and underrated – I feel like most novellas don’t get the recognition they deserve, especially the ones that aren’t already tied to popular series or from tor.com (but some books of the tor.com novella line are underrated too).
We follow four perspectives:
✴ Suu Nuoc, one of the Empress’ former lovers. He was a general and is now an officer in the Purple Forbidden City on the First Planet. He is investigating Bach Cuc’s disappearance with the help of the spaceship The Turtle’s Golden Claw. I didn’t have any strong feelings about him but I loved the mindship, and that was the main reason I liked his perspective.
✴ Diem Huong lost her mother in the Citadel’s disappearance when she was six. She is now an engineer, working with disorganised genius Lam (women in science!) to find the citadel again. Her story is about understanding her mother’s choices.
✴ Mi Hiep is the Empress of the Dai Viet Empire. Through her perspective we see court intrigue, the beginning of a war, and the many difficult choices a ruler has to make. She had a very complicated relationship with her eldest daughter, and it ended in disaster and mystery.
✴ Thousand-Heart Princess Ngoc Ha is the mother of The Turtle’s Golden Claw and Ngoc Minh’s younger sister. She is a complex, flawed character who has always felt overshadowed by the other people in her family, and has mixed feelings on both Ngoc Minh’s possible return and her mindship daughter.
I had already noticed this in The Tea Master and the Detective, but I love the worldbuilding in this series. Not only it’s about a Vietnamese space empire, the technology is unique – this is a place where people can give birth to Minds (the AIs of spaceships), where people can travel through deep spaces (in which time and maybe some other things have no meaning) or even disappear in them, where an Empress can ask her ancestors for advice through mem-implants, and sometimes said ancestors give unrequited advice too.
I’ve never seen anything similar to this, and it’s a fascinating world.
Another thing I liked about the worldbuilding was how being queer was normalized. Yes, Ngoc Minh had a reputation of being a rebel princess both because she had mysterious powers and because she disobeyed the Empress and married her wife even though she was a commoner (and her status, not her gender, was the problem).
Onto the things I did not like: this is the third book I’ve read by this author, and while I always like her characters, love the wordbuilding, the descriptions and even the set up of the plot, I never like the way she ends the story. I’m not sure whether it’s a matter of flawed writing or writing that just isn't my taste. One time the ending felt understated, one time it felt pointless, and this time it made this novella feel like a story that was cut in half, except the second half does not exist.
I also thought the "mystery" of the citadel was obvious, but the resolution still felt too abrupt – while this ending did have emotional impact in two of the PoVs, it had little in the Empress’ (which has other things to think about, a war we will never see) and in Suu Nuoc’s, who didn’t know Ngoc Minh and didn’t care about anyone in the citadel. On the other hand, this ending must have had an impact on the mindship The Turtle’s Golden Claw, who was really invested in what happened, but we never see how she feels because we do not have her PoV. -
Citadel is a compact but full-hearted story of grief, family, politics and impending war.
I forget how much I love Aliette de Bodard's prose until I read some more of Aliette de Bodard's prose. There's a certain tone to the Xuya novellas in particular - somewhere between reflective and melancholy - that just has me thrumming from the get-go. Add in a richly imagined space empire based on Viet traditions rather than Western ones, and I'm helplessly engaged every time. I feel I learn more about this universe with every story; one day I'd like to read them all in sequence and close together so that I catch all the references. These are stories I read with my heart as much as my eyes; as usual, I finished this one with my heart brimming and my eyes overflowing.
Full review
#24in48 book 2 -
Have you ever tried to squeeze yourself into a pair of jeans one size too small? You look spectacular, but it's too uncomfortable to wear with any kind of ease... This book reminds me of me and my too tight jeans. The novella format is too small for this story. It's still a spectacular story, but you can feel the squeeze and it's not comfortable. I say all that to say, I would have enjoyed this a whole lot more if it were a full length novel.
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Rating: 3.5 stars
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls is a science fiction novella set a future, speculative time where the space age has Confucian galactic empires of Vietnamese and Chinese inspiration: scholars administrate planets, and sentient spaceships are part of familial lineages. Between the mysterious disappearance of an imperial scientist and the construction of a time machine by an engineer, this is ultimately a story about family. I love the writing style and the world building, but would have liked more depth to the characters and situation. Otherwise, an entertaining afternoon's reading experience. -
At first, I had difficulty with this novella, because of a flurry of characters, settings, and unexplained situations coming at me all at once. It was worth the initial frustration to see things come together. I appreciate it when an author trusts readers enough to let them figure things out for themselves!
"The Citadel of Weeping Pearls" is similar to
On a Red Station, Drifting in centering on difficult relationships between women; this time on filial/familial tensions, grudges and reconciliation, alienation and loss. There was also some sharply depicted court intrigue, weird science fiction--the AIs in particular--and even a touch of mysticism. I'm usually not a fan of time travel in stories, but it fit so nicely with the characters' emotional arcs it was easy to forgive this time.
This was far and away the best of the three novellas I read recently. I'd love to see a collection of all of Ms. de Bodard's Xuya stories someday. The two I've read so far are excellent. -
This was good but not as satisfying as the first novella in the series.
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The Citadel... is a novella full of interesting concepts, but a little light on character development.
I loved how many mind-expanding ideas were crammed into its space-faring empire setting. A character travels in time but finds herself trapped in a ghost-like state. The preserved personalities of dead emperors whisper to their descendants. A woman with a spaceship for a daughter struggles to manage her mixed feelings about her offspring. And war is looming.
In brief, there's a ton going on here. There are also four POV characters, which is a lot for a short book. I didn't feel like I really got to know any of them, but I did genuinely love the world building, so I'll be giving the other stories set in this universe a try. -
I really enjoy the universe de Bodard created, just wish this was a full novel and not just a novella, I wouldn’t have minded a whole book about these characters.
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3.0 Stars
Once again, I enjoyed the cultural details and other worldbuilding, but I found the actual plot a bit thin. Cool concepts, but imperfect execution. -
I’ve only read a couple of stories set in the Xuya universe, but I know that there’s always one more to pick up when I’m in the mood and it’ll be a good time. And this one just so happened to be the right one for more when I was feeling too disinterested with reading.
I’m not sure how to categorize this story. This is a space opera, with time travel elements, with two empires on the brink of war - and we do get to see all the tension in the mind of the Empress as well as her advisors just when they are on the cusp of making decisions that will decide their future - but ultimately this is a story about grief and loneliness and mothers and daughters.
In the story of the Empress and her eldest daughter Bright Princess, the story of her younger daughter Thousand Heart with her mind ship daughter The Turtle’s Golden Claw, the story of the engineer Diem Huong and her long lost mother - we see how the realities of belonging to the empire have affected their relationships; how a mother grieves the loss of her child but cannot completely regret her decision because she did what she thought was best for the empire; how a daughter resents her mother for forcing her will upon her, and thereby feeling the same resentment towards her own unwanted daughter; how a sister is mired in her loneliness and grief due to the strife between her mother and elder sister; how a helpless daughter has waited for decades just to find a way back to her mother in the past - all their tales converge to give us a story full of reflections and introspection, with a touch of sadness. And the author manages to capture all this feeling very delicately, through her exquisite writing.
Aliette de Bodard is definitely one of my favorite authors, especially for creating worlds that feel so vibrant and for characters who are fully fleshed and deep, regardless of their page time. I have also really come to enjoy the brilliance of her craft in creating stories in the short format so effectively, and I can’t wait to delve more into this universe. -
“That's impossible.” “Everything is possible, if you listen to the right people.”
Set in the alternate timeline universe of Xuya (diverging from this universe in the fifteenth century), Citadel is richly woven science fiction independent of earth references except for culture.
“But this wasn't battle. This didn't involve ships or soldiers; or at least, not more than one ship. He could handle this. He just wished he could believe his own lies.”
Characters have compelling inner lives: hopes, fears, loves, hates. Science and mathematics join the Confucian classics in the hierarchical bureaucracy of the empire.
“Sometimes, she wondered what it would be like, to be truly alone. Sacrilege, of course; and the ancestors were useful, but still... Of course, in truth, she was lonely all the time.”
A solid four-star rating until the last page. I hate it when author’s do that. As bad as fading out in the middle of a scene, with “to be continued” emblazoned on the screen. Such is the risk of entering a large and expanding corpus of an author’s imagination late. (Someday I may get over my snit and raise this to four stars, but not today.)
“Space gets weird within deep spaces, that's why you get to places earlier than you should be allowed to. And where space gets weird, time gets weird too.”
I have read and liked other Xuya stories, but they had decent endings.
“You don't have children, do you?” [redacted] shook her head. “Sometimes, all you have are bad choices.” -
I really need to read more of the Xuya stories and novellas all at once, because I like the world but it always takes me some adjustment time. The Citadel of Weeping Pearls stands alone, though, and once you get your head around the fact that it's based on Vietnamese culture and customs (but in a space empire), it flows along smoothly. Bright Princess Ngoc Minh has been missing for years, along with her Citadel, after her mother the Empress sent armies against her. Grand Master Bach Cuc has been searching for her, and seemed to be close to a breakthrough, but now she's missing -- and Diem Huong, a commoner who lost her mother on the Citadel, is also about to conduct an experiment that may send her to the Citadel.
I found that the only thing that bothered me was the number of POVs, and that was mostly while I was settling into the story. It was obvious why we needed the various POVs by the end; without them, the Empress seems just horrible (instead of a woman who makes horrible decisions believing they are for everyone's good, which is a different sort of horrible), Ngoc Ha seems too wishy-washy... but together they all work out and show a sad story, examining the bonds between families, and the terrible things an Empress might do for the good of everyone (or not).
It works really well as a novella; I think it's perfect at this length. -
This is the third story set in the Xuya universe I’ve read; the wonderful, futuristic Vietnamese scifi world, where truly unique technology intertwines seamlessly with old tradition.
Sadly, it left me wanting. I shruggled with getting under the skin of all the characters we’re presented with and to understand their motivations, which I felt was never really elaborated on. I kept mixing up the three simultaneous mother/daughter relationships described, and lost track of how many siblings there were - and two whom they were related.
de Bodard still writes beautifully and I love the idea of mindships and particularly enjoyed the focus on one in her story The Tea Master and the Detective (yes, that’s a recommendation). I also must say I liked the ending of this one very much, but it was too little too late to really move me beyond 3 stars. -
The Citadel of the Weeping Pearls is brimming with fascinating worldbuilding ideas and important representation, but, alas, I don't feel this novella was a very smooth entry into this universe.
De Bodard has built an intricate alternate history with this series, and her writing is as engaging and lovely as ever, but the many POV shifts prevented me from feeling very close to the characters or able to follow along with the story very well at times. That, combined with the heavy worldbuilding and fast pace, caused me to have a little trouble understanding how some of the technology worked and even some of the characters' motives. I just don't think the novella format suited this story or what the author was going for here at all.
3 stars -
This was a beautiful story about family and the shit it does to you, about memory and but de Bodard is fully in the category of authors who are just too sparse for me; I kept reading single sentences and going, “But this should be paragraphs!” I wanted more — more depth, more story, more details. But what was there was fascinating and lovely.
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''But sometimes, the hollows left by absence were worse than those left by death.''
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'The Turtle's Golden Claw was mostly sweet; but sometimes she could act with the same casual arrogance as the Empress.'
Oh my god, this novella! There is so much here from an impending war to time travel to strange experiments to deep spaces where everything gets distorted to an Empress ordering to kill her disobedient heir and a thirty-year-old mystery.
The Empress is a complex character battling conflicting emotions for decades but honestly, I love a good rebel who defies her parent, declares fidelity by marrying her common wife and then vanishes off the face of the universe with her wife and supporters after an argument with her mother. Not everyone has given up the search for the Citadel and the Empress has gone as far as to commad her youngest daughter to conceive The Turtle's Golden Claw, a mindship for the purpose of going into deep spaces and that's what the story is mainly about.
The Turtle's Golden Claw is then a royal mindship and honestly, she's the cutest ever. Since she's a mindship, she can only be in small places via her avatar which is basically a smol projection of her spaceship and I LOVE. It's clear that all she wants is to be adored and gaaah, 10/10 would hug
Also, almost all the female characters mentioned in the book have wives and that's !!!
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls is beautifully-written, the mystery is so well-executed, the different POVs work in favor of the story and I loved reading about all the science aspects. In all, this series is a gem and I want to read every story set in this world -
This is my second book in the Xuya universe, an alternate future where Asians, rather than Caucasians, have gained hegemony and populated the stars. An imperial dynasty controls the Federation, with the memories of past imperial ancestors immortalized as mind implants to help guide the current crop of royals. Reverence of ancestors takes on a most peculiar form here - you are never alone with a mind-implant. There are also Mindships, sentient space ships whose mind is birthed in a human and then embedded into a ship.
The world-building that de Bodard accomplishes in these novels is fascinating and unique. And it's for this reason, and also for the slow-burn of a story, about relationships between mothers, sisters, and daughters, that I really like this book. This book demands the full attention of the reader - there are no quick thrills and chills, no obvious bad guys, to drive the plot. Instead there is a mystery, the disappearance of The Citadel of the Weeping Pearls, and all of its inhabitants, about thirty years ago. Where did it go? Is the eldest daughter still alive? Will she return with her secret weapons to help her Federation about a new threat? It's an amazing read, and well worth the time and effort. -
I adored this novella so much! I love the Xuya universe with all its political intrigue and SFF world building, and this story in particular was crafted perfectly for me. The mystery of what happened to the Citadel mixed with explorations of familial relationships and grief was excellent, and the multiple POVs gave such a fullness to the story. Definitely my favorite thing I've read by Aliette de Bodard so far!
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Thoughtful and unexpected.
I found myself wishing AdB had her Gollancz editor at times though. -
Really liked learning more about the world and mindships. A great story to just dive in and be carried away.
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Aliette de Bodard's "Citadel of Weeping Pearls"
Well, it's very atmospheric. And the atmosphere isn't that familiar: it's an imperial, high-SF, interplanetary Viet Nam.
And there are some interesting characters, especially The Turtle's Golden Claw, an intelligent spaceship who is somehow the biological daughter of Thousand Heart Princess Ngoc Ha.
But… it didn't work very well as a novella for me.
There was a lot of repetitition, of people whining about this or that past or upcoming event. Yeah, they are welcome to worry about it, but they don't need to do the worrying on-scene.
The story starts in the middle, and ends before the conclusion. The major plot arcs, like the impending interstellar war, are largely unresolved. The story comes to an unsatisfying finish with one character forgiving some other ones without any visible psychological development or effort on the forgiver's part, and, somehow, that matters. One or more important characters are not going to return to court at the end. We've gotten somewhat invested in the ones who *will* return — but will they be punished for what ought to count as a major failure?
We don't get to see much of the setting, even, which is a shame because it's exotic and unusual.
So — disappointing. -
Very enjoyable space opera novella. I love the universe de Bodard has created here, though I think some of my occasional confusion about terms was due to this being one of the later stories written in the world. (AKA I need to read more of the earlier stories before continuing to read the newer ones.) Still, the characters and plot were nicely developed, and while there are some plot points which weren't concluded it seems those are series plot. The book's plot was resolved very nicely at the end of the novella.
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This is a beautiful and melancholy novella about the past, memory, regrets, and family. I continue to love the worldbuilding of the Xuya series!
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This is another entry in the Xuya Universe which is based on Vietnam culture with speculative fiction. So far this series tends to a genre mashup. There is time travel, mystery and family intrigue all wrapped up. And though I liked the political/family drama, this one felt more disjointed and unfocused. We follow multiple characters here :
- Diem Huong who seeks to reunite with her mother lost on The Citadel for the last 30 years,
- Suu Nuoc a general and former lover of the Empress tasked with finding the truth behind the disappearance of the scientist Bach Cuc and he is assisted by mindship The Turtle's Claw and her mother Thousand Heart Princess Nguoc Ha
-Empress Mi Hiep who charged Bac Chuh with finding her estranged and missing daughter Nguoc Minh last on the The Citadel which just vanished.
This was an appropriate read prior to Mother's Day that reminded the reader that not all mother-daughter relationship are perfect or companionable. It does not descend to the cliches but interrogated this most basic and fundamental relationship all women have.
On the surface this should have been a great read. But, this format was too limiting for this story. If it had been a novel the other themes of time travel and the other relationships, impending war could have been better developed. I will still read the rest of the stories but this one lacked the cohesiveness to take it higher.
