I struggled a bit with “A Palace Near the Wind”, mostly due to the lack of information in the beginning of the novella. I was confused for a good portion of the story, and felt as though there were many things that were not explained fully. For example, the machines such as the Travelers and the larger version of Travelers - I was unable to properly visualize these as I could not grasp their descriptions. The events of the story also felt a bit rushed, and could likely have benefitted from having more time spent on them. I was excited by the premise and appreciated that the story was essentially a look at the nature versus industrialization conflict. I liked the theme of the importance of family, and the emphasis on Lufeng’s sense of responsibility and duty based on her status as the eldest daughter of her lineage. Lufeng seeks to preserve the wildness of her home, Feng, and desires to resist the encroachment of the Palace and its people on the sanctity of her people’s land. Forced to marry the King, she signs a contract she cannot read and is bound by its terms. I am not sure if I would read the second installment, but I would like to think I would give it a chance.

<blockquote>I hated that I continued to be led, to be brought from place to place, living moon by moon according to the agenda of others. </blockquote>
You know what, I also hated that too and that was most of the book.

I do not enjoy books where the main character and myself are clearly in complete ignorance. Everyone around us knows what is happening but we are left in the dark. It really denies a sense of agency to the character and by way myself as the reader. I spent the first 2/3 of the book with little idea of what was happening, playing a game with no pieces. Even when there was supposedly big reveal moments, information was not given freely and everything remained vague. You only gain information as to what is happening in the last like 3 chapters, all jumbled together, setting up the next book, when in reality it feels like I was just given the set up to a story and told it was complete. It left me feeling like I didn't enjoy the entire thing.

The other unexpected problem that I think aided in my confusion is I found the descriptions incredibly difficult to visualise, thus all these foreign devices and places were really nebulous in my brain. Part of this I know is because Lufeng is a foreigner and it is her first time seeing these things, but I don't think I have encountered this before where I just needed a sentence or two more to help me understand. Example being "the Travelers", these devices they move in I don't understand if they are like on slits walking or how big they are, it truly baffles me.

Overall, I do not wish to continue this series. There are some interesting bits here and there but I am left frustrated.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

This book wasn't like I pictured it from the summary and the cover, but I'm not complaining at all.

This duology named "Natural Engines" starts very strong and maybe a little too fast. I would have liked it better if the book was more detailed and the story diluted into more pages. But overall, I found this book's concept and idea very interesting original. I also think that, even if we're clearly talking about a fantasy story, this plot can be considered very close to some major historical and ethical problems. I can confidently say this since the main theme that the reader notices while reading is the great and important dilemma of the human technology and progress versus Mother nature and wonders.

I found very interesting every character of this story:
- Lufeng has always been an obedient daughter and never doubted what others teached her, but she starts to evolve and take the lead in her own life, yearning for freedom and justice;
- Zinc is charming and eccentric in his own way, and I immediately considered him someone to keep an eye on;
- same goes for Copper, but for different reasons because I had the impression that her cold attitude hid something else;
- I found the Grandmother right away, didn't know why, just a gut feeling;
- my favourite is, at least for now, Geyser: I find him interesting and with a lot of potential and I hope to see him blossom even more in the next book.

I'm not a fan of the first-person narration, but I have to say that I didn't hate the way this book was narrated. I think the first-person fits well the story.

I also want to say that I'm totally fascinated with this book's worldbuilding concept. Words are very powerful and I loved how the author named every contraption, character and place. And I love how they're thought out and described.

Ai Jiang presents a fascinating dilemma, the one which many of us have encountered in our lives and continue to do so. In this fantasy fictional world, the conflict of ideas remain familiar to our experiences. This world is rich with humans and human-like folks, where the balance of nature is tipping due to industrialization. It is at this precipice where the story picks up, and is narrated through the eyes of eldest daughter of Wind Walkers and her betrothal to the King.
A novella that I really wanted to love but struggled to connect with the characters, or even the plot. The world building takes the center stage and everything else, including the narrator "FengFeng" becomes monotone.

Having a full length novel would help in answering many questions the novella leaves open. Maybe they are incoming in next installment but as a standalone novella, it leaves us with a good chunk of questions.

Definitely reading the next part!

<i>Thank you to Netgalley and Titan Books for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review. </i>

A Palace Near the Wind - By AI Jiang.

I was really looking forward to reading this novella, however, I feel there was a lot of unanswered questions raised throughout & while this may be the first of a duology, there were far to many things left unanswered and the cliffhanger ending was extremely abrupt.

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the story, because I totally got engrossed in the world AI Jiang has created. I just felt that the answers simply didn’t come. The world building is imaginative, the characters & their motivations are well defined (for the main character Lufeng at least.). But ultimately with the sequel not due to drop for another year far too much is left to the imagination unfortunately.

Will I get the book when it drops? Yes for sure as this warrants a second read. Would I recommend this or others? Very much so, But most likely with the caveat to wait for the second book before doing so, as this story while very interesting & enjoyable is perhaps not quite fulfilling enough to warrant the long wait the reader will have for the answers it needs.

Overall for now this is probably a 3 star book, but I’m hopeful the answers will come in time and when they do it should sit much closer to 4 stars.

Thank you to#NetGalley &#titanbooks for allowing me the privilege and honour of this ebook copy of ‘A Palace Near the Wind’ by A I Jiang to read & review.

The comments & opinions above are solely my own & are reflective of my experience reading this book.

4.75 rounded up to 5

A Palace Near the Wind is a captivating tale that leaves you begging for more. Jiang leans into the elegant beauty of nature’s elements to create the distinct groups of people seen in this book. The world-building is conceptually straightforward, yet the prose is figurative and almost lyrical, which just enhances the imagery. It’s so easy to immerse yourself into Lufeng’s story.

It’s a relatively short read that manages to speak on SO MUCH. On the surface, it’s a whimsical fantasy/science fiction, but it’s very speculative and dystopian at its core. It’s clear from the start that there is a conflict between the Feng (wind) and the humans, which sparks questions of nature vs industrialization, contentment vs advancement, and expansion vs destruction. As we follow Lufeng, the eldest Feng princess set to marry the human king, it’s evident that the humans in this world are ready to destroy all others in the name of progress. After all, her sacrificial marriage is just one of many negotiated between her family and the humans - a bride in exchange for pausing the humans’ expansion project for another few years. Lufeng enters the palace determined to stop the cycle by taking down the king, only to learn that there is more to this “marriage” and her family origins than what she was told all her life.

As the eldest daughter with a disposition similar to Lufeng’s, her character development was cathartic. The moment she was born, she was meant to become Feng’s leader in her grandmother’s place. Lufeng is dutiful and responsible, always maintaining decorum and obediently following the procedure, often to the dismay of her younger sisters. Rebelling is not in her nature, but to truly protect her family, she must do more—she must reassess who to trust and do whatever it takes to save her family.

The story was paced so well, and every single reveal made my jaw drop. Even when my hunch was on the nose, my mind was still boggled. That’s how phenomenal the plot was. The ONE thing I needed more on was the king’s character. Was he meant to be cryptic, or was it that Lufeng just couldn’t read/trust him? By the end, it’s not clear if we will learn more about him in the next book, which left me a bit unsatisfied with what we now know about his character.

Overall, I’m so eager to read the next book! I honestly can’t even believe I have to wait a full year to continue the story. I will be keeping a look out for when the second book becomes available.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for this ARC!

A unique tale exploring the realm of the dichotomy of "tradition" and "modernity"

"That could be the reason most of those living in Feng had been prevented from learning it, limited only to spoken Script. It was to keep us under control, from speaking out, from rebelling – at least until we signed an agreement, a contract, in ignorance, forcing us to become docile and useful."

Wow! What a unique setting and story! I can't remember ever entering a world like the one in "A Palace Near the Wind". In fact, I had a bit of trouble imagining the characters(needle threads, for example), but that could be because English is not my first language. That doesn't mean that I wasn't completely immersed in this world with every chapter, though.
The story and the plot also developed completely differently than I expected! At times I sat in front of my eReader with my mouth open and wondered how that could be - because the book manages to make a thousand questions pop up that you really want to have answered.
In addition to these aspects, I particularly liked all the strong, female characters who clearly play key roles in the story as well as playing with the question of whether it's always good to rely on "tradition" or to set aside one's own being for the sake of "modernity". We witness on multiple occasions an assimilation of the people of Feng to "fit" into the biases of the Land Walkers. It makes you feel uneasy – especially given real-world colonialism and the fact that it isn't just a fantasy setting. Aren't our differences and the fact that we can learn from each other what's really important and desirable? Because this is what I saw in Lufeng's experiences at the palace. She found some aspects of "their" life she could find a liking in, question her own biases, but never (literally) shedding her own skin to fit in. Even if it meant power and control. In a way this book is poetic, teaching us that just because this isn't "our" way of living, doesn't mean it's necessarily bad.

Overall it's an amazing book; poetic, strange and unique. I must admit that whenever I read it before going to bed, I had the strangest dreams – it made me think a lot about it, because I loved the underlying message. I can't wait for the next book, honestly!

I really wanted to love this one but the story felt rushed and slow at the same time. I really liked the world building but in such a short novella it left little room to feel connection to any of the characters. Saying that I do want to read the next one and I’m hopeful it will fill the gaps left by the first one. I’m really intrigued by Engine; I have many images in my head of it already!

The environmental themes felt very on the nose, a literary take on Nature vs Industry. It gave me Princess Mononoke vibes.

Overall I did like it but I felt like there was so much missing and a cliffhanger in such a small book is frustrating.

Thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.

I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

TLDR: This started strong with an interesting environment and race, but due to page constraints and too much plot to put in, there's not enough time to really understand the characters, their personalities and thoughts, and it lacks heavily in foreshadowing, well-built characters besides our main character, and believable consequences.

FULL:
I would like to start with: I first requested this ARC because it was showing up as a standalone, however upon finishing my read of it, I now discover it's being labelled as a first in a series. This is very annoying for I specifically go out of my way to request standalones as I already have more than enough series on-going. I would not have requested this if I had known it was a series starter to begin with.

Now going into the review, unfortunately my enjoyment of this book went down the further I got into the story.

I really enjoyed the first 40-50% of this - getting to know this world, learning how the wind people looked and lived - this was so unique and unlike something I had read before in fantasy -, how Feng coped with going to this new scary place, experiencing all these new and confusing customs that made her feel sick, I also really enjoy a part later where she learnt to read and entering the library. But once we get to the "married" part and onwards, the plot gets very weak and rushes through everything leaving me to feel very empty about the rest of the world and the other characters in it. This story should've been either one plot less, or a full novel. The second half of this story really rushes, hardly scratches the surface of what's going on, character motivations, and character descriptions and their personalities. There is almost no foreshadowing, and there doesn't seem to be any preplanning nor well-thought out ideas from our protagonist Feng - she just seems to move instantly without really thinking through what to do, what's next, and how to do it.

My other gripe with this story is how convenient it all is. Feng basically gets around completely unscathed. Heavy spoilers incoming: She found Geming without getting caught; She found her mother without getting caught; She knows about a brother but no one else does; Zinc gave her photos but is apparently on the bad side; She found Chuiliu without getting caught; She escapes the castle with barely a second of restraint until he dad walks out and stops the guards; After all that she goes back to the castle and is allowed to see her mother unsupervised and makes yet another run for it completely unscathed and without a problem. It was all heavily convenient with no challenge, no struggle, no thinking, and with no consequences. While we later find out the villain of the story does know what Feng was doing and going around the castle, there's still no consequence? So, how am I supposed to be scared or worried about our main character or interested in the plot when I know nothing bad is actually going to happen? Because nothing bad actually happens? Nothing consequential (good or bad) happens.

Which leads me to my next gripe: The characters are very paper-thin (pun included). Naturally we connect to Feng the most because we're in her mind and it's her POV. But everyone else? Could not tell you much beyond their names, roundabout age, and their race. We don't really get much of a feel for ANY other character except Feng. I could not tell you their personalities, I could not tell you what they individually looked like, I could not tell you what their individual voices or speech patterns are, I would not be able to tell you the difference between them outside of very, very basic details.

There was a really confusing point related to the sisters; Heavy Spoilers again: when Feng finally meets her older sisters in Clay, they straight away blame her for their marriages. They say along the lines "you were the one who could've stopped it all, could've stopped us getting married", clearly I must've missed something because I was under the impressed Feng was a child when they got married off and this entire story, not once had we been told she was the strongest sister magically, not once were we told she had the greatest power out of all of them, so I really don't understand what they meant by this here.

This didn't work out as well for me as I was hoping. Having loved my first two experiences of Ai's work, this fell a little flat.

What begins as a fascinating allegorical tale, with some truly intriguing world building, gets lost in a too rushed plot and characters that I didn't feel I could root for or lacking considerable depth and complexity.

I fear this story suffers from being too short. A promising premise that failed to sustain itself.

Despite my own personal experience, I did find that I wanted to learn more about the world, which had a nature vs industry, science fantasy vibe, with dystopian overtones that I really appreciated.

One thing's for sure, Ai is a great writer, with a distinctive voice and one of the most exciting new genre writers out there.

Unfortunately, this novella didn't work so well for me, but I can see it being very popular with those who enjoy dystopian science fantasy that leans a little more towards YA.

A Palace Near the Wind is a glimpse into a unique and intriguing dystopian world, that feels relevant to our own.

This was a beautifully written, wonderfully imaginative story. I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author and the publisher.

There is so much richness to this book and it is absolutely jam packed with world building, fantastical elements, political intrigue. I did want this to be longer. It felt like there was so much packed in and I wanted more time to learn more about it, immerse myself in the world, understand the different elements, characters and factions more. This is such a short book (a novella) and it really deserved to be longer to allow us to spend more time learning about this world.

We follow a character who is being sacrificed as a bride to the human king following the same sacrifice her mother had to make. She intends to kill him. She is described as bark skinned and having sap and is horrified by eating meat. She makes this sacrifice to save her people and stop the human expansion. We see commentary around the horrors humans inflict upon the world. Compounded by later discoveries by the main character.

There was so much in this book that was absolutely amazing! The imagination and visual splendour was wonderful and I wanted to immerse more in it! I was intrigued by the statements the book appeared to be making and I would have loved more content to explore.

Beautifully written, with an interesting and mysterious premise. Despite this being a novella I unfortunately was unable to finish in time. I had a hard time connecting with the characters and the descriptions of how the tree beings exist was a little confusing to me. At times they had very human functions, and at others they were vastly different. Unfortunately I started reading this right when work got very busy for me, so that definitely impacted my ability to stick with it. I would like to return to the story when time allows and give it the focus it deserves.

3.5 rounded up for Goodreads

Title/Author: A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang

Page Count: 192 pages

Publisher: Titan Books

Format: Hardcover novella

Other Books I Enjoyed by This Author: Linghun

Affiliate Link: https://bookshop.org/a/7576/978180336...

Release Date: April 15th, 2025

General Genre: Sci-fi, Eco-Fantasy, High fantasy

Sub-Genre/Themes: Industrialim, nature, arranged marriage, colonization, culture, identity, climate change and the preservation of natural resources, family, royalty

Writing Style: thought-provoking, imaginative, unique

What You Need to Know: "a richly inventive, brutal and beautiful science-fantasy novella. A story of family, loss, oppression, and rebellion."

My Reading Experience: I typically don't venture out into the SFF territory too often, but I'm a big Ai Jiang fan, and she has written some speculative horror fiction too, so I had to check this one out. The main character, Liu Lufeng, is a princess with bark skin and braded branches for limbs. She also has "hair made of needle threads".
It was hard for me to picture this unless I allowed it to play out like an animated movie, so once I let go of live-action visuals and went with a more Studio Ghibli vibe, I settled in.

"We are the people of Feng and Feng itself—a part of the trees, a part of the wind. Just as we borrow the wind, the wind also borrows us."

Still, I think there could have been more intentional scenework where the author could describe the Feng, "Wind Walkers," more cinematically.
A lot of attention is given to world-building and setting which does slow down the pacing and the sense of urgency. The story revolves around a pivotal time for the main protagonist, who has arrived at her new home, a palace, to marry the King, who is responsible for treating her people and the land as resources to use up and spit out in the name of industry and progress. The marriage is just a business arrangement.

"I’d thought the Land Wanderers wanted to convert us all. But no, what they wanted to do was steal all that made us who we were, use us, then toss us away."

There is a huge cast of characters for such a small book and I feel like they don't get enough page-time to make them special or people I could emotionally invest in. Perhaps this will be taken care of in later installments since this is only book one in the scope of a larger project.
I am out of practice and out of my element jumping into high fantasy--so I feel a little rusty. I was confused a lot of the time but I always enjoy Jiang's imagination and storytelling voice.

Final Recommendation: For fans who enjoy colorful, whimsical high fantasy about destiny/fate and a strong female protagonist willing to rebel against choices that have been made on her behalf.
"Yet the need to rebel, to break the agreement, simmered within me."

Comps: Green Teeth by Molly O'Neill

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this story.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

This was such an interesting novella. I kept trying to wrap my head around the images of beings made from nature. I loved the concept of it as it felt so alien but also not at the same time? If that makes sense. The plot twists were also abundant for such a short story. Learning bout her parents and her siblings and the experiments they were undergoing all made for a very compelling read. I'm wondering if there will be more from this author about these characters. It seemed like something that continue but I'm unsure.

A Palace Near the Wind is a decent enough read, but I had a lot of struggles with it, personally. As such I think my rating is more of a 2.5 or 2.75, but I've rounded up for this one as there were pieces of it I enjoyed.

Once I worked out the dreamy prose style, it was easier to feel somewhat immersed. The overall atmosphere was pretty ethereal, like a living dream, which in some parts was nice but for the entire novella I felt it lost a lot of depth. The story began very much like a Fern Gully or Pocahontas and around midway it gets a little more Black Mirror, a lot more sci-fi than you're led to believe at first. Which while interesting and I think was done okay, definitely felt a little odd, tonally.

This is where I had the most trouble: as the dreamy quality of the prose wasn't immediately clear to me, everything felt a little lacking in depth. I couldn't get hold of a scale, stakes, much of anything. I think the author was going for the vibe of this is just how Lufeng sees the world, right? But it came across like a fairy tale written for young adults. Very little depth, a little bombastic with it's style in areas with characters and settings that felt cartoonish, and very hard to grapple onto. You really have to give yourself into the dreamy quality for this one. It's very strange.

The characters felt too flat for me, though colourful. A little like 2d animation or a comic book.

The pacing of the story was okay, though it lacked in areas. We're told months pass and very little happens and then everything happens, and then very little again. It felt odd. There were so many points where I just wanted more depth (apologies to keep repeating myself but this really is the sticking point for me, sadly). I wanted to see Lufeng working through her plans, connecting with others, but it just never quite goes there and that made it so difficult to connect to the story and what was going on. Sadly. Because there's a really solid story and world in here, beautiful, even, I just couldn't get invested like I wanted to.

Things just feel too unclear. I could grasp that her plans were flawed because she had no prior experience with needing to act calculated and murderous, or education or information about how things are and what's really going on, but that was a deduction I made, it's not made that clear in the writing. The characters do act the way I'd expect them to act, (except for the mysterious teleporting jade necklace at the end), but yeah it's just... disappointing.

Overall I didn't love this one the way I hoped I would. The concept is incredible, there's a world in here I could really latch onto, and it is beautiful and ethereal, certainly sad, but sadly it reads too young for my personal tastes and it lacks in the depth I like in my books. There certainly is depth here, I'm not saying it's entirely lacking, I wouldn't have been able to finish if there was none, but it just didn't do what I need a book to do. The 'promise' wasn't there to connect to the 'progress', and the 'payoff' never felt like it made it.

I do think if you're down for a Fern Gully meets 1984 (how up-to-date are my references!) young adult dreamy science-fantasy with a lot of elemental magic trying to survive in a world that wants to crush and use them for its own means, you might love this one, but it wasn't quite for me.

Due to some of the hype I’d heard about this #book, and the fact it’s a fairly short #novel I was keen to squeeze it in.

“Brutal and Beautiful”, “Devastating” and “Heartbreaking” were some of the words I’d heard. Maybe I’m a 🤖 but I didn’t get any of that.

Really interesting lore and world building, and it’s not a bad #book - just didn’t deliver the emotional hammer blow I was wanting and expecting.

A Palace Near the Wind by Ann Jiang
Publication Date: 15th April 2025

Thank you to Titan books, for this stunning ARC!

A Palace Near the Wind is a wonderful oriental adventure, reminiscent of Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke and with elemental elements that may seem reminiscent to Avatar: The Last Airbender. It follows Liu Lufeng on her quest to marry and kill the Emperor, by travelling from her airborne homeland, to the mechanical and grounded environment of the Palace.

To begin with, I loved the world-building, and how the natural lands that Liu came from were so different to the mechanized and hostile environment of the Palace. This made Liu’s perspective of everything, from food and transport to shoes, really fascinating to read about. I particularly liked the big mechanical creatures that the people of the Palace traveled around in, too.

The plot was a little back and forth, giving answers without really giving them, while the main character walked aimlessly around like a video game character – in search of plot points. This slowed the pacing, and allowed the story to lose tension at key moments: especially just after Liu arrives at the Palace, and towards the climactic end point. However, the highlights were most definitely in the politics of the story and the numerous plot twists, which were masterfully done and provided this novella with necessary intrigue.

As for characters, Tin and Zinc ended up being my favorites, as characters caught and molded by the court. At times, the revelations as to who the characters were and what they knew were points of interest, but often these things were kept vague and left me questioning their relevance to the wider plot. This also took a toll on many of the characters, especially Liu. Liu was a weak protagonist, who gets lost amid so many other strong personalities and intriguing individuals in the narrative. Moreover, her motivations and thought processes weakened towards the end, leaving me to passively watch the plot through her eyes, rather than experience the story through her character.

This led to a rushed ending, where a lot happened at once, with some plot points making sense and others seemingly coming from nowhere. This, I believe, is because of how the novella tried to do a lot within a short amount of pages. The plot itself, let alone the character arcs, could have easily fit into a 500 book – giving everything more room to develop and breathe. Overall, whilst this is a fascinating novella and the start to what could be a compelling series, it falls short in its own attempts to achieve too much within a limited space.

I really enjoyed this one. Though it's short, it's filled with interesting and well developed characters, and has some great world building.
I really liked our main character and found the entire story overall, to be very engaging and fast paced.

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for giving me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This novella had some really ideas with a fun world surrounding it. I don't always think it pulled off what it was going for, but I am excited to see where the story goes from here. If you are interested in a shorter read with some interesting magic, I would give this book a read.

An interesting concept, executed in quite a heavy handed way. I don’t think the short novella form lends itself to this story because it’s such ambitious world building and I felt like it needed much more time dedicated to how this world functions.

It reads very Nature Good Technology Bad in a way that kind of hits the reader over the head with it, I wish it was a bit more subtle in the delivery of the central themes. That being said I enjoyed the commentary on colonialism and the evils of consumerism/wealthy totalitarian oligarchy, and I’m excited for book two which will hopefully expand on everything much more!

Thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for the ARC