NAVIGATIONAL ENTANGLEMENTS

A group of novice navigators is assigned to recover a dangerous monster in deep space.

Việt Nhi is a junior member of the Rooster clan, one of the four opposed navigator clans that shepherd ships through the Hollows—a largely unexplained shortcut in space for faster travel. Nhi was already having a hard time with people and politics before a tangler—one of the enormous deadly tendriled monsters that reside in the Hollows—is set loose. That’s when she meets Hạc Cúc, of the Snake clan, as well as an apprentice from each of the two other clans: The four of them have been given the job of capturing the tangler. On assignment, the misfit navigators butt heads, play political chess with etiquette—deploying honorifics as slander—and challenge the aloof imperial envoy while trying to figure out who released the tangler. Nhi is a work in progress, but she acts as the glue for this group and this story, a flawed person who’s willing to put her life at risk to do what’s right, refusing to stand by. Xianxia-style Chinese fantasy meets a novel of manners and romance in the vein of Pride and Prejudice as the book follows Nhi and Hạc Cúc, who will have to get past their misconceptions about each other and embrace their feelings. This tight book, best enjoyed in a single day, is only a bite-sized story within an imagined universe that could easily exist beyond the central mystery. The story could have benefited from more space to breathe.

A quirky Sapphic space opera that deserved more pages.