I've been really excited for this book for a couple of months now and I'm glad I got the chance to read it, because it's a fun read, with romance, pirates, politics and even some emotional moments too.

I do wish it had more action, the bigger focus was on the politics and romance, and the action was mostly at the start and at the end.

The characters were likable, I don't have any faves though. Xích Si seemed like she'd be my fav, but she acted immature throughout the book and didn't quite seem like a parent.

The romance was a little odd, considering one of them is a ship, but you know what? It worked. I'd like more spaceship romances with sentient ships now, please.

I also like that it's a standalone (for now?) and on the shorter side. It ended at 91% on my Kindle so it was a bit shorter than I thought it would be, but it's fine. Things were wrapped up nicely, but if we got more books or short stories about the characters I wouldn't complain.

Of course, I have to mention the world building which was one of the best parts of the book for me. I'd like to explore this world some more.

Finally, the one thing that bugged me is the ace/aro rep which was...I don't know how to say it. It wasn't bad per se, but one ace character was the villain, and another that seemed to be aro wasn't painted in a good light either. Do I think this was on purpose? I hope not. Because if it was...

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what other ace/aro people make of this, I'm pretty sure one of my ace friends loved this book so it could just be down to personal rep preference.

*Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review*

Xích Si’s life as she’s known it has come to an end. Captured by pirates, even if the impossible happened and they let her go, she’d be arrested as soon as she got home, tainted by association and ever suspect. Her future can only hold indentured servitude, or death. But then she gets another offer: a marriage of convenience to Rice Fish, the sentient ship that leads the Red Banner faction.

It’s not much of a choice, but Xich Si will need to do a lot of mental readjustments to live a life as a pirate consort. She hates the death and destruction that follows the outlaws. She hates the Empire and bureaucrats of her old life, too, petty and corrupt and cruel, all of them. To her surprise, though, what she doesn’t hate is Rice Fish, her new wife.

And so begins a tale of love and loss and overcoming trauma, for Xich Si and Rice Fish both. The latter is still grieving the Red Scholar, and the book’s title is cleverly multi-faceted: we have the vigil-type wake following a death, of course, but you can also ‘follow in someone’s wake’, as in the disturbance in the water’s surface behind a ship. Xich Si is definitely following in the turbulence left by the Red Scholar!

All of these very personal themes are layered over a relatively simple, but tense, story line. As well as the threat from the Empire, Rice Fish suspects her late wife’s death was orchestrated by the head of the Green Banner – and she wants Xich Si to find the evidence she needs to make the accusation public. If she fails, the Green Banner might destroy every principle the pirate community upholds, taking them all into utter carnage.

The Red Scholar’s Wake is set in the author’s Xuya universe, without being part of the main series. While I haven’t managed to read that yet, I’m even keener now to explore more of the world the author has built. Full of Chinese and Vietnamese inspiration, I’m in love with the visuals painted in words, and there’s a fascinating array of technology I need to read more about, not least the sentient ships themselves.

If I had any difficulty with this book, it might have been the ship characters, or at least Rice Fish. Perhaps if I’d read more of the series beforehand I would have understood better, but as it was I struggled a little with how emotional and, well, human, Rice Fish is. That’s wholly on me, that expectation for a ship to be more machine-like, more logical and cold, and I supposed I’m glad enough to have my expectations challenged.

I also slightly wonder at the speed of the (sapphic, as every bit of marketing feels obliged to mention) romance in the book – or, would a ‘slow burn’ approach have just felt cliched? It does seem a little too instant an attraction, but then, the characters start their relationship by getting married, so…! 😉

Overall, this was a great slice of sci-fi, and despite possibly sounding like a grumble above, it was wonderfully different and imaginative. I wanted more – the story is perhaps a little novella-proportioned – but hey, I have the rest of the Xuya books to help with that!

Many thanks to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for my copy of the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted, with all my heart, to enjoy this book. To possibly even love it. But sadly, it was not meant to be. Though Red Scholar's Wake (RSW) has all of the ingredients to make me swoon (LGBT pirates in space—I mean, that's an insta-win if ever I saw one!), the end result was... kind of a mess.

Let's begin with the positives:

- Lesbian. Pirates. In. Space. Aka a very unique, intriguing, exciting premise. Almost everything I love in a story is included in RSW.
- The Vietnamese rep.
- Rice Fish, the sentient spaceship. I can't say "wow" enough to really convey how *cool* I find a character like her. I've never read anything like it before but I like it, I think it's fresh and done well here. I know the sentient ship thing icked a lot of people but I'm honestly here for it.
- The setup for the politics. Factions of pirates ruled under banners; a rival crew under the command of Rice Fish's own son. *Nice*.
- The way Rice Fish is described. Her hair; her clothes; her flawless blending between avatar and ship. Yes yes YES. Perfectly done.

And now unfortunately, onto the negatives:

The relationship between our main character Xích Si and Rice Fish is an instalove and is - I'm sorry - dreadfully written. Xích Si is captured and torn from her daily life after her vessel is boarded by pirates who want her for her bot-making skills. She is terrified of the crew, and of Rice Fish, the ship she is held in. She agrees to a marriage to Rice Fish in order to guarantee her own safety, but in doing so she loses her old life, which includes her six-year-old daughter back home.
...and Xích Si's like. A lot less distressed by all this than she really should be, because Rice Fish is hot and she Feels Things when they kiss to seal the marriage. She Feels Things for the terrifying pirate who has just ended her life as she knew it on the basis of "yeah we need your skills but we won't tell you how we knew you possessed said skills lol". And, well, I'm a mother too, and if some hot pirate tried to take me from my child, I would absolutely NOT leap straight to pining for them and thinking about how our marriage can be nothing but one of convenience and how oh-so tragic and sad that is. I would end that pirate, looks be damned. Xích Si lost all credability and any respect I had for her with that attitude.

Another major, glaring problem with this book is the writing. The dialogue is especially clunky and awkward; it reads like a 2010 fan-translated Japanese dating sim script. The decision to translate Vietnamese honorifics/terms of address was also not a good idea given the context here; having Xích Si and Rice Fish call each other "big/li'l sis" when they're *married* does not work in English because the connotations are so different. They do not convey in English what they convey in Vietnamese, and the vast majority of the readers picking up this book will have no idea how east Asian languages work, so will take those terms of address in their literal English meaning. Similarly, Rice Fish's name would have probably been better left untranslated too, with a note somewhere as to what it means.

The world building is shallow, the politics not nearly developed enough, and the characters all running around behaving like silly teenagers, not adult mothers and phenomenal pirates working themselves to the bone to ensure their survival. The book is very short for a story set in what really should have been an intriguing universe, and it would have benefitted from more space to really get into the world building and lore.

I don't enjoy leaving negative reviews at all, but i feel let down by RSW. It has such a promising premise, yet it was handled so poorly.

RED SCHOLAR'S WAKE is a fun sci-fi romantic adventure about pirates and partnerships and parenthood and ethics.

This is a really fun space opera, feeling like a story that's taking place in one part of a much bigger world. There are fun elements at the core of the story and elements that are in the background (ashlings etc) that feel like they're references to other events in world. (I think the author might have published other book set in the universe? But I can't see anything official about that.) There are space pirates, a collation of five groups fractured by their ambitions and morals. We have sentient spaceships with avatars that can feel so real and walk on spaceships.

The spaceship-human dynamics were one I wasn't sure how it would go initially, but the book both presented the spaceship in such a way that they felt like a person (and not just an inanimate object controlled by a computer) and also addressed the power imbalance. Rice Fish makes sure Xich Si has privacy and power to balance out the fact she is onboard something Rice Fish controls, and Xich Si makes sure that Rice Fish has her own privacy. Also having a physical manifestation of the ship for Xich Si to interact with really helped make that feel real (and give tasting abilities and so on in the virtual plane to ensure you could read experiences into her before giving you the emotional backstory!)

I loved that, as well as there being the strong, central romantic relationship between Xich Si and Rice Fish, the book also focused heavily on parent-child relationships. Rice Fish is estranged from her adult son. Xich Si is physically separated from her 6-year-old daughter. They both love their children but the relationships are complicated. Rich Fish has to navigate political differences and emotional wounds, which Xich Si cannot see her child now she's a pirate. It was so nice to see that range in child-parent relationships.

In all, it was an enjoyable tale of betrayal, alliances, sticking to your moral guns, and romance. It's a neatly contained standalone that's the right length to have all the detail you want but feel like a short read to enjoy in one sitting.

I was completely blown away by this book! The world building and the intricate familial relationships was incredibly complex, and I was desperate to read more set in the universe...only to discover there's an entire SERIES! I'm one very happy sci-fi nerd.

The premise of this book was so intriguing to me, and it’s disappointing that the premise ends up being all there is of this book.

There are interesting ideas here, which makes it all the more frustrating that everything was so underdeveloped.

The world building is flimsy; the characters are two-dimensional; the politics is rudimentary. Worst of all, for a book that’s definitely been marketed with the romance in mind, the relationship between the leads is rushed, shallow, and unsatisfying.

The arc is 330 pages long, but the book itself ends on 291 (the remaining pages are acknowledgments and promotional material for another book.) This is, therefore, a very short book - particularly for a sci-fi novel developing an entirely new setting - and this is one of the main reasons why, to me, it fails. The big ideas the author had needed more space to develop. The climactic scenes needed more description. The relationship needed more care. More, more, more. The book is defined by what it lacks more than by what it delivers.

It gives me no pleasure to leave a negative review for a highly anticipated arc (with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this is exchange for an honest review.) However, I can truly say that this book was a disappointment. Lots of promise: poor execution.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This is a refreshingly unique take on a romance tale set in a sci-fi universe between a human and an AI spaceship. Reminiscent of Becky Chambers' Galactic Commons novels in its inclusivity and exploration of relationships outside of the restrictions placed on human society, de Bodard nevertheless tells this story in a way that most readers will find both engaging and enlightening. I'll be intrigued to see what this author writes next.

Xich Si's scavenger ship is taken by pirates in the wake of the Red Scholar's death, and you know how it goes: she can never go home again. But will she be pressed into service as a bondsperson? Or will she be tortured to death as her business partner had been? What she doesn't expect is to be offered a marriage contract by Rice Fish, the ship itself and also the Red Scholar's widow. It's a marriage of convenience, of business and protection, and you know how that usually goes as well.

And to put this right at the start, it's advertised as a sapphic romance, so if that's not what you can accept, then this story is not for you. No blindsiding in this one, it's obvious from the start that the two of them are going to, well... Anyway, there is at least one graphic scene, obviously right before the betrayal (or misunderstanding) though it's a strange stretch (for me) to think of a person and a mindship? An avatar? Relationships-wise at any rate, I do not think there is a single heterosexual relationship in this novel. If there was, it was just never really talked about at all.

The entire novel is layered in Vietnamese imagery, like a peek into a new world for me. One that seems faintly familiar in its Asianness and yet vastly different as well. There's that hierarchy of both age and status: the distance of the elder aunts and young child, the closeness of sisters. The descriptions - especially of their clothes and their overlays - are rich and detailed I sometimes wonder what's the significance of the phoenixes and the peaches and all the other stuff that appears on Tien's clothes that I've already forgotten.

The Red Scholar's Wake is a story full of open tropes and yet one full of hidden depths...skilfully engineered together to fulfil your every expectation--and beyond. It's Xich Si doing anything she can to keep her daughter alive and safe, and Rice Fish learning to love again from the ruins of her past. It's lawful space pirates against a corrupted legal society, the small people against the Big Powers, power plays and politics, a building and breaking of trust, family lost and family found. And all-too-perceptive children.

Come for the tropes, stay because it's a truly entertaining read.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from the Orion Publishing Group via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read this incredible book early! I am such a fan of Aliette de Bodard and truly no one builds such beautifully rendered worlds and creates such tender romances like she does. At times, however, especially in the beginning, it was a little difficult to understand the sci-fi system (e.g. the bots and overlays) and to get used to Rice Fish as a character who happens to be a sentient space ship (and who does have a body but also….doesn’t?). Nevertheless, I was quickly pulled into Xich Si and Rich Fish’s world(s) and I immensely enjoyed watching them fall in love and uncover conspiracies together.
It was great to see Xich Si’s character development in particular as she grew from a timid woman who had trouble standing up for herself, to a veritable queen.
For fans of Winter’s Orbit and A Memory Called Empire, this queer, Vietnamese-inspired sci-fi romance set against a backdrop of marriage of convenience and space pirates is sure to please.

This was amazing. It was such a fascinating world to read about and the characters were just, ugh, adorable. I loved them all.

I felt like the world building was clever, intriguing and different! The characters were lovable and complex and flawed, which made them even more lovable.

The pace was quite slow at the beginning, which I wasn't mad at, leaving plenty of time to build up all the background plot before the action and drama really started. This was excellent pacing as far as I'm concerned. The relationship seemed to come out of nowhere really early on, which didn't necessarily make sense at first, but I feel like as you learn more about the characters and their pasts it makes much more sense.

I am very much looking forward to rereading this already! The only reason it lost half a star was because I received this as an eARC and I found it confusing at times but I do believe that may have been because of the formatting on my kindle but until I reread it to be sure....

I love the cover and concept of this book. A sapphic love story set in space is exactly my kind of book. Sadly, I did not enjoy the writing, and the characters were too plain.

This book had me at "space pirates". Unfortunately, it lost me soon after. The author writes beautifully, but there were significant parts of the book where it felt like nothing was happening. I liked several of the characters in principle, but felt they were never really fully realised. I think this is probably quite a good book - it just isn't the book for me.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this book was absolutely intriguing - a sapphic space opera!

Xich Si finds herself kidnapped by a ship, Rice Fish, and they come to a bargain. Rice Fish's wife has just passed away and she needs another so offers marriage for protection and to help her find information.

This was a story full of pirates, suspense and romance (which was quite cute!)

It did feel like it dragged though, there was just too much in there that I felt didn't need be there. It was one of those books for me that I couldn't read in 1, 2 or even 3 sittings, it was small sprints all the way.

I am a bit gutted though because I wanted to love this story more than I did.

This book had me from the blurb, to be honest. I knew it was going to be my kind of story and I wasn't wrong, but I couldn't have known how beautiful it would be. All longing and hope and muddled-up righteousness, filled with love and trauma and the process of learning to trust love and trust that you deserve it, and being brave and how that can mean a million different things in a million different ways. I absolutely loved it.

I did find it took a little time to get going in terms of plot but the characters and their developing relationship was so beautiful and compellingly written that I honestly wouldn't have minded if nothing more happened at all.

I really enjoyed the exploration of what idealism means to different people and how difficult it is when you love someone who's idealism doesn't always match yours. It was powerful and gentle and loving and I adored it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Orion Publishing for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I started reading de Bodard’s Xuya universe a few years back with the free short stories published online, and then with Of Wars, Memories, and Starlight, her short story collection. I’ve also read most (all?) novellas in this universe, so I felt rather ready for this book and excited to get more of the gorgeous worldbuilding that is so typical of it. That said, it’s entirely a standalone romance/adventure novel and you need no context to read it.

I got taken in by the idea of lesbian space pirates when the book was first mentioned, and I was so looking forward to it! I tend to… not really read blurbs for authors I trust, so I was surprised and intrigued to find out that one half of the main couple was a mindship. Sentient spaceships are one of my favourite tropes and de Bodard’s take on it always fascinates me (I think I can say without spoilers that they’re human-spaceship hybrids, borne from a human mother) and I loved the idea of exploring what it means for one of them to have deep feelings for someone, and how that is navigated.

The romance hit all the right notes for me from the start, with all the tropes that made me go “aaaaah” and not want to put down the book (well, phone) even though it was 3am. It’s a romance born of necessity and it really added tension to the whole situation. And what does it mean to consent when the other person has so much power over you? I liked that it didn’t shy from those difficult topics. And the trauma of past relationships, and the damage it can do to the children involved.

Speaking of children, all the kids in this book! They were adorable! And aside from providing some needed levity, I love that they’re truly individuals with their own needs and feelings and not just an afterthought.

De Bodard also continues on her trend to not really have male characters. I mean, there’s one or two, but most important players, and almost all background characters, are women. And in a genre that’s still dominated by men, it’s always refreshing.

Aside from the romance, we get a mystery/political intrigue plot that was interesting enough to keep me guessing and yet did not overshadow the romance. Another thing with the Xuya universe is that there is some kind of magic to the technology – I don’t understand it, but there’s no technobabble trying to make me understand it. It’s these characters’ reality and it just IS, and I appreciate that. On the one hand, I keep wanting more explanations and context, and on the other I’m happy to leave it as is and just go with it; it’s part of what makes the universe so vivid to me, that not everything is explained away.

I was really happy to get a novel-size story in that universe, and a full-on romance novel at that, and I would heartily recommend it whether you’re familiar with this universe or completely new to it.

This book was something truly special; if you like a good sci-fi that has the potential to become quite the spectacular space opera, then this is the best choice for you.

Rice Fish is a live ship, a human connected into a spaceship, and she is the widow of the Red Scholar, the head of the Red band of Pirates. She pulls in Xi, a scavenger and bot builder, to help her find out who had killed her wife. And as such, many terrible and wonderful things start to happen.

The world is based on an oriental culture, with women and men marrying as they like. It has some wonderful lgbtq themes, written as the everyday. It is not the focus of the book, made the norm, which is wonderful to read. The world/space that the book is based in is steeped in some great background, making it believable in its harshness. After all, all life is hard, and why would it be any different in the future in space.

This is a rich, wonderful sci-fi that has the potential to become an epic space opera, one I can not wait to read.

3/5

I really wanted to love this, it sounded incredible, but unfortunately it missed the mark for me.
Thank you Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Let's start with the positives: the world was amazing. It's so vibrant and alive, it's fascinating and such a unique sci-fi universe. I would have absolutely loved it if we were able to explore it more.
It's also sapphic galore! So when I heard the words 'sapphic space opera' I couldn't help but want to read it, but it was quite disappointing. What's so annoying about not liking this book is that I can see all of its potential.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't connect with the characters at all. By the end of the book, I could not have cared less what happened to them (and that is never a good sign). Again, we start off with such a great premise but it's just let down by quite a plain story and boring characters. (I'm sorry for being harsh, but I didn't enjoy this book very much.)
The romance, too, (which was a huge selling point for me) felt disjointed and very instant. It was a little bit all over the place and not in a fun way. I definitely thought, especially in the circumstances of this story, that the romance would be slow-paced and intricately handled, but we're shoved into it head-first out of nowhere. I felt this way about a lot of the parts of this story; they felt random and too fast.

We never seem to make much progress in the book and I think it could've been helped if the book was a little longer and we were allowed more time to sit with each scene and properly explore it. It constantly felt like we were taking one step forward and two steps back. I honestly don't think much really changed from beginning to end and it was all just a little stale.

I'm also not sure the politics of the world and the way in which it was relayed to us throughout the story was very effective. It wasn't fully fleshed out enough and we weren't seeing a lot of it firsthand, but only being told about it afterwards. (It's hard to phrase this in a way without spoilers, but it was an incredibly unsatisfying way of reading about the world politics.)

I'm upset I didn't like this as I truly did want to, but I guess some things just aren't meant to be. However it is quite a short book and we all have wildly different tastes and opinions, so if it sounds like the kind of thing you'd love, don't let me put you off too much. This just sadly wasn't the book for me.

This book was fantastic -- Aliette de Bodard at her absolute finest, and by that I mean LESBIANS IN SPACE! :D

this is a special treat for those of you who have an interest in the life of the most notorious chinese pirate women of all ages (if not of the world!), but even without this historic contest it's a perfectly lovely tale of found loves and fiercely protected familiies, a sweeping space opera and a beautiful study in specfiction -- all at once. Definitely not a book to miss this autumn!

Thanks to #Netgalley for an arc of #TheRedScholarsWake

Amazon summary - Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates' enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.

Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si's help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si's technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it.

But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together...

My Review
I was really surprised with this book and didn't think i would like it this much, a solid 4 starts from me. The worldbuilding is really interesting and i love the idea of space pirates. The relationship between the main characters is really endearing and my favourite character is Rice Fish. it's a bit of a slow burner but i found the slow pace worked with this book, i was much more interested in the love story and character development than the politics and battles. This book feels like a cross between a Sci Fy book and a adult fantasy, i would really recommend this - Great Read :-)

Oh, the sapphic yearning. If I could choose a highlight for myself, it would be the relationship between Rice Fish and Xich Si. It was interesting and unique, although admittedly I had a bit of a hard time following the whole ship consciousness thing. I still have some questions about it. In terms of story-telling, it's rather slow paced and also confusing in some parts. I felt like there was a lot of telling than showing, which made going through some areas a chore and I found myself losing focus. Also a final note?? I definitely understand the "Big Sister", "Older Aunt" thing even with nonrelatives as a form of respect and endearment because it's common in my culture too, but it felt kind of weird translated into English. It's not a big deal, but it felt jarring for a bit, but I got used to it. Brilliant and descriptive prose, but some parts just weren't cutting it for me.