In the Vanishers’ Palace
Aliette de Bodard
From the award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series comes a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast. In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land... A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village's debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world. A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference. When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement. But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yê she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets...
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0 0In the Vanishers' Palace is a sort of post-apocalyptic, sci-fantasy story taking place on an earth that has been largely corrupted by those that came before (the Vanishers mentioned in the title) and the rest of humanity is attempting to survive in isolated villages protected from the diseases rampant elsewhere. When the daughter of an important woman in Yên's village falls ill, the village elders offer Yên in a bargain to gain the help of one of the last remaining dragons on earth, Vu Côn. To satisfy the bargain, Yên must tutor Vu Côn's children and do her best not to make the dragons who can easily kill her upset with her. But Yên did not want to leave her village and mother behind, despite having been basically given away and she has to deal with homesickness and being at the mercy of powerful beings.
In the Vanishers' Palace is exactly the kind of Vietnamese-inspired SFF/romance that I've come to expect from Aliette de Bodard and I enjoyed it, though not quite as much as Tea Master and the Detective. De Bodard drops hints about the world-building as Yên learns more about the way of the world outside of her village and the truth about the dragons themselves but all of the details aren't revealed by the end so you have to be content with some ambiguity.
The romance itself is a little mixed, to be honest. Vu Côn is in a position of power over Yên and tries to grant Yên whatever autonomy she can while still protecting her from the dangers of the palace they reside in. But she also frequently makes choices for her, which becomes a core part of the conflict that arises between them. It's very Beauty and the Beast, but I had a hard time feeling like it was really healthy for Yên.
Overall, I'd count this as one of the Aliette de Bodard SFF stories that I enjoyed but I do wish it had been a novel rather than a novella because despite a pretty leisurely pace, it felt like it needed more room to grow. The setting and the world had me intrigued enough to count it as a 4 star read but I think it's really suited better for readers who are interested in unusual, non-Western-inspired world-building rather than characters or plot.
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