3.5 stars

This was a lyrically told short sci-fi tale with an interesting and intriguing plot. The characters were enjoyably manipulative and the typical sci-fi scheming and backstabbing whilst also caring about each other! The writing was really good (as you’d expect from Aliette de Bodard) and the story flowed well! Overall I would really recommend if you are looking for an entertaining scifi short story!

I ended up DNFing this book. It just was not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC copy of this book, in exchange for this honest review.

The Red Scholar's Wake was an enjoyable book with lots of interesting concepts as well as good characters and a world that I wanted to know a lot more about. It was quite shallow however, it didn't go into enough depth for me to feel really immersed in the world and their struggles. Things both moved too quickly and too slowly, the book was just too short and I feel with more pages and time to really set up the world and plot it could have been a fantastic novel.

The writing style itself was really good, I found it easy to read and lovely at times. The pacing of the book however was a bit off, the start was quite slow and not a lot happened but the characters relationship seemed to grow quite unnaturally and quickly. The second half was a lot better with a lot more interesting character development and this is also where the plot picked up and got more political.

The worldbuilding was really interesting, I enjoyed the idea of the pirates with their own stronghold and the different banners. There was some interesting politics that we saw a bit of particularly between one of the empires and the pirates. There was also some intruging internal politics within the pirates. They all wanted different things and had different ideas on how things should go and it was realistic. We didn't really get to see much of the world but it was enough to make the plot go forward and in a pretty good way. I would have loved to have seen more of the differnet banners and their subsequent leaders. The plot was also fairly basic and predictable but it was still a fun and quick read. I did find it interesting to see a love story between a ship and a human and how that worked in this world.

A unique, bold, queer, space opera that features everything from pirates to the living avatar of a ship, from grief to romance, and will either send readers off running to check out everything else that de Bodard has written (especially within her Xuya universe), or have them instantly DNF-ing. The pacing may not be for everyone, and the queerness is gleeful and joyous but can be rather explicit. However, de Bodard's imagination is vivid and exciting, and her ability to create and paint a world is exquisite

I think this author is an acquired taste.. and I've acquired her style, and despite some overly familiar tropes about female close friendships (and the eye toward those friendships as marketable .. publishers' influence here too I suspect), it is a welcome addition to this universal theme. Characterisations are sometimes too easy, thin but storyline moves along quickly .. enjoyable and adept.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC!

I so wish Aliette de Bodard's sci-fi was for me because I always love her premises, but the execution never quite works for me.

Like most SFF fans I couldn't wait to give this novel a try when the cover was revealed on Twitter. Sapphic space pirates? Yes please, give it to me immediately.

When scavenger Xich Si is taken captive by the Red Banner pirate fleet, she's offered a rather odd proposal. The Red Scholar, infamous pirate and leader of the Red Banner, has been murdered and her wife, the sentient ship Rice Fish, wants to find the culprit and needs Xich Si's help to do so. They quickly marry and try to ignore the growing feelings between them in their search for justice.

I feel a little cruel giving this novel 2 stars when I didn't dislike reading it, in fact it's a very easy read and I like so much of what it was trying to do, the problem is my edition is around 291 pages long when this story could have quite comfortably been a 500+ page epic that I would have loved far more. Everything in this story, particularly the romance between Xich Si and Rice Fish, moves far too quickly. This particular novel needed a slow burn, but instead the pair of them were lamenting how the other couldn't possibly want them when they'd known each for a day. Keep in mind that Xich Si has been captured by pirates and permanently separated from her six-year-old daughter at this point.

There was so much here I wanted to see more of. I wanted to explore the wider world and delve more into the politics of space piracy, but so much is breezed past and it's a real shame. I completely get why so many readers loved this one, but for me the whole thing reads like the outline for a much stronger novel.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley, for providing a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Red Scholar’s Wake is the first full novel in the Xuya universe created by Aliette de Bodard. I’ve read nearly every story set in it and I loved all of them, so I was excited about a longer story. The story is pitched as lesbian space pirates, and that’s exactly what you’re getting. Expect lots of tropes, but also references to Vietnamese culture and history. I love the universe Aliette created by weaving the Vietnamese culture into a space society with mind ships.

The relationship between Xich Si and Rice Fish is well-written, slowly changing from a marriage of convenience to something more. Insert grumpy relatives and a child from a previous relationship and the family drama is complete. Still, the focus is mostly and the relationship between them, against the backdrop of a changing political environment, betrayal, and doing the right thing.

There are some recurring elements, like a mother’s love and protection of her child, and rebellion against the status quo. And while previous books have a major mystery element, the quest for answers takes on a slightly different approach here. It’s more straightforward than The Tea Master and the Detective, for example. I don’t mind because it was clear from the beginning that this would be a different type of book.

I give The Red Scholar’s Wake 4,5 stars. It’s a thrilling story about love, family, and loyalty, but also rebellion, going against expectations, and change. As always, it’s well-written in Aliette’s incredible voice. All of the Xuya books can be read as standalones and The Red Scholar’s Wake is an excellent starting point. I highly recommend this to people who love South Asian-inspired stories, space opera, or queer romance.

Aliette de Bodard is, no doubt, one of my favourite authors at the time. Not just in scifi, but as a writer her style and prose it's oustanding and she proves she has a special thing for portraying stories. I have read all her books and shorts stories several times, but sadly I wasn't able to enjoy that much this book. To begin with, it's a bit too long, the pace drags a lot. As opposite to short stories or novellas such as Seven of Infinites, that are way more synthetized, this book goes over and over and gets a bit boring. Moreover, for me, it was a repetitive story I have read before in previous works. Sadly, I cannot recommend this book. But I would suggest you read any other title by Bodard. She is outstanding.

Thanks to the publisher for granting me access. Unfortunately I wanted to like this a lot more than I ended up doing. The premise is great - sapphic pirates, and one is a ship? It's everything I want from a Jenks/Lovey v Joker/EDI mash-up, but I felt the relationship came about very quickly for something that felt like it could be an enemies-to-lovers storyline. I'd be interested in other stories set in this world, but felt the exploration of characters and the world itself could have been delved into a bit more.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced arc of this book. I was very excited for this especially for the sci-fi aspects.

This book is following Xich Si (a mother and scavenger) and Rice Fish (a sentient ship). This is what made me so excited for this. Reading from the point of view of a sentient ship was what interested me the most. In the end, it was interesting, but not incredible. Unfortunately, I didn't fully love any of the characters. I liked specific aspects of each character (the motherhood aspect was great), but not the character as a whole. In general, that was not a big problem for me.

The bit that was disappointing for me was the world building. I honestly just wanted to know more about the world. We have different empires and a group of pirates, but I wanted more about the sentient ships, more about the empires, more about their culture, more about their society. More sci-fi aspects in general. This is what is making me give the book 3 starts instead of 4 stars.

Lastly, the romance was ok. Again, I could see some of the things happening, but it was good. I would say that the characters fell in love to fast for my personal liking, but it didn't bother me much.

All in all, I recommend this book. I think the writing is beautiful and if you want to read a different type of romance this is a beautiful one. Also, for anyone wanting to see some beautiful motherhood aspects this is a great book for that.

DNF'd at 22%..

I really wanted to like this! And am very sad it just was a struggle to get through what I did. A lush Vietnamese inspired world with space pirates, political intrigue, and a sapphic romance! Weird stuff because one of the main characters is a sentient pirate space ship! But for many reasons, it was like pulling teeth to pick this up and read the little bits at a time I managed. My main issues were:
- The insta-lust/love was really awkward, incredibly forced, and very instantaneous. Within pages, Xich Si is hostage/captive and afraid, grieving her lost life, and then she's in full lust and having intense positive emotions towards Rice Fish, her captor? Who was responsible for the brutal death of Xich Si's friend leading up to her capture? The transition and justification of going from hostage to wife-of-convenience was abrupt and forced. This really killed the book for me. I didn't know the characters, didn't care for them, and just found them both very flat and dull. It came across as tropes in place of characters mostly.
- This doesn't read as a standalone. I'm usually fine with not getting exposition for world building, however, this reads like it's part of an existing series with a world that has been developed with relationships and dynamics going on that the reader should already know or be aware of. It seems like it should be rich and complex, it came across flimsy and flat.
- I understand the Lil Sis/Big Sis terms of endearment and know that it is a way romantic partners might refer to one another within some East and Southeast Asian countries. However, this really doesn't work in English. I would personally have much preferred the Vietnamese terms were used directly instead of being anglicized..

Like all Aliette de Bodard books, I enjoyed The Red Scholar's Wake. The writing, regardless of whether it's about fallen angels, dragons, ship minds, or scholars, feels deeply human.

It's a conveyance of emotion and experience that's relatable despite the vastly different worlds to the one we inhabit.

I loved the culture, the politics, the tech, the space stuff that made no sense to me, but that I didn't question because it felt real.

I also, of course, like the romance. I had some minor grievances about how fast it flashed at the start. The pricklings of awareness and the lingering gazes, but it ended up being well developed and really, I never doubted it would be otherwise.

This is a book I requested on NetGalley and got approved for in September, but due to unforeseen personal circumstances I had to return it after only reading 30 or so pages. However I still wanted to finish the book!

I luckily received this book in my Illumicrate December 2022 book and have now succeeded in finishing the book, and I was so glad to be able to finish it. What started off as a very slow burn ended up having an enjoyable payoff, although I will admit that I find the pairing to be very strange, I still ended up attached to the characters!

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Orion Publishing for giving me the advance copy, and I’d also like to thank Illumicrate for helping me finally finish reading it.

Will also post a review on Amazon

Like many others I was desperate to read this book after seeing Katee Roberts glowing recommendation about 'lesbian space pirates', yet when I actually read it I only made it 8% through before I had to DNF this book.

Yes there's lesbians and they're space pirates, but there's also little to no explanation of the world/politics/backstory which left me confused and to be brutally honest - bored. I think the Red Scholars Wake had great promise, combining vietnamese culture with a whole exciting world of pirates and sentient space ships, however it failed to hold my attention by giving me no context. In the small portion I read I also felt that the relationship between Xich Si and Rice Fish developed very quickly, an instalove perhaps, that contradicted the fact that she was (only a few pages before) a hostage.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A thrilling space opera with a deeply compelling romance at its heart. I’ve enjoyed the author’s works before and this was no exception!

Thank you so much Netgalley and Publisher for this advanced copy.

The Red Scholar's Wake was a great and diverse space opera. It was quiet unique and had many interesting backgrounds. A superb reading!!

This story had me at lady space pirates and took me on a wonderful adventure. I love the worldbuilding and enjoyed the immersion into a world introducing me to elements I might not have been familiar with before reading this story.
That Aliette de Bodard managed such depth and complexity in such a fast paced, tightly woven story was well done and I hope for more stories to unfold in this series, not only to enjoy for the stories but also to learn more about the world.

It has taken me a while to read this but as ever with this authors writing it is a beautifully nuanced novel. Set in de Bodard's Xuya universe (Vietnamese based structure) we have a story of space pirates, love, family, politics and empire.
Xich Si is a scavenger living on a daily knife edge of survival. When she is captured by the pirates of the Red Banner she expects the worst, however her tech skills have been noted by their leader Rice Fish a living ship whose spouse the Red Scholar has recently been killed. Rice Fish needs someone to ferret out the truth of the killing as she thinks it was planned, to do this the best person ins Xich Si, and to keep her safe Rice Fish proposes marriage.
The story is complex with Rice Fish doing a political dance for the survival of her banner and Xich Si reconciling her new position with the ruthless practices performed by the pirates through which her freedom has been gained.
As a teen I loved Anne McCaffery's brain ships series and Aliette de Bodard has evolved this concept beautifully with her sentient ships. The ships envisaged by de Bodard are able to manifest as avatars, can feel and be felt, and thus love in all its senses is achievable.
Xich Si search for the traitor in the Red banner leaves her vulnerable, particularly her young daughter who she has to rescue. The rescue has consequences, leave Xich Si owing a favour to a player who could cause problems for her new spouse Rice Fish. As the finale of the story approaches and the stakes grow ever higher it is touch and go whether Rice Fish and Xich Si nebulous relationship will survive....
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for access to the ARC, all views are my own and a little late due to illness.

This book was a very unique space opera with lots of romance, fun characters (oh they were all a bit of a disaster) and an exiting plot. I really liked the world building, though feel the book was a bit blunt in its development of its character relationships.

The whole sentient ship thing is a vibe. Space pirates should be a whole genre.

For my first ever Aliette de Bodard book, I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I enjoyed this sapphic sci-fi read.

The plot was entertaining, fast paced and full of mystery, suspense, achingly irresistible romance, and wonderfully developed world-building. The pacing of the action lent itself well to the development of the romance between the characters which I thought was wonderful.

Considering one of the main characters was a spaceship, after the initial surprise, the ships character was beautifully human and very well created.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.