Red Scholar's Wake Q1: Setting and culture

NeilNjae

The setting is based on Vietnam, which is very different from the European-based settings of much SFF. How did you get on with it? Were you able to follow the action and the nuances of social relationships? How did you find the use of "family" terms to refer to people (like "Lil Sis" and "Aunt"), and how that reflected explicit status relations? Has this book prompted you to learn more about the real Vietnamese culture?

This book is not set in a nice universe. The pirates rob and murder while they capture ships, and their recreational rape and torture of prisoners is accepted as a normal way to relax. Slavery is everywhere. The pirates make a point that they're the good guys because they don't enslave children. What did people think of the brutality as an element of the book? Does it say anything about human nature and society?

Apocryphal

Personally, I found the setting to be too lightly described to be remarkable. That said, I did find the use of pronouns to be interesting and I’d like to have seen that explored more. It reminded me of how ancient near eastern kings referred to one another as ‘father’ to denote subservient status, or ‘brother’ if they wanted to promote the idea of being equals (a notion that was regularly pushed back with replies like ‘Who are you to call me ‘Brother’, you worm!’)

I don’t think I had too much problem following things, though as often with names in other languages, it can be difficult to tell if a character is male or female, which in turn sometimes leads one to ask ‘who is this character again?’ while reading.

Is there such a thing as ‘nice’ or ‘naughty’ universes? Surely, a universe contains all things. Much of the ‘naughtiness’ in this one was relegated to background setting. I’ve read much stronger depictions of violence in the news, who I wasn’t particularly moved one way or the other.

clash_bowley

The Orenda was a lot more brutal, and based on history. I thought the society was interesting, whether or not it was nice. It was a different slant to things. European pirates historically were far more free than the vast majority of people in Europe. it was one of the attractions. I am sure east Asian pirates were similar.

RichardAbbott

It took me quite a while to realise it was Vietnam (oddly, the use of Viet didn't alert me ) and until that point I was assuming Chinese, which has similar structuring of language and appropriate respect built in very deeply into the culture. But it didn't seem to me as though the apparent (via language) terminology of respect really extended to any actual behaviours - people seemed to just act as they pleased just the same as they would anywhere else. So I didn't really feel while reading as though the culture and expectations were especially different - only the names and titles.

I've been trying to think whether this is the most suitable discussion for these comments, but the others don't seem right so here goes. I slowly worked out that the ship minds were essentially the same as those in The Ship Who Sang and its sequels (I still haven't read Ancillary Justice) which is fine in itself as a concept. But my memory of those Anne McCaffrey stories was that they dealt directly with the terror of the situation as well as the power of it - the imagery of the ship/person being forced into sensory derivation still stays with me. But here, though there was talk of how the heartroom was this special secret place, then to me at least the possibility of terror never became real - it was written about but I never felt the transferred emotion of it.

So, OK, we have a human individual cojoined with a ship. But then we seemingly need a human companion - but why? If the ship was a machine intelligence I could see that, but the ship is itself human. So OK it would need companionship, but why one single individual rather than a group? And I got stuck on the word wife - I don't have a problem with same sex partners using words like wife and husband without necessarily fixing the gender to be the same as expected - but in this culture, what does "wife" mean? It doesn't always mean sexual partner, it doesn't always seem to carry the same connotations when different people use it. But presumably Aliette de Bodard meant something by it, and she chooses never to explain or show us what it does mean to these people and this culture.

In short, I felt (as I think @Apocryphal mentions elsewhere) that the book was seriously short-changed in terms of actual world-building, leaving me with a sense that it could have been much more

NeilNjae

@RichardAbbott said:

I've been trying to think whether this is the most suitable discussion for these comments, but the others don't seem right so here goes. I slowly worked out that the ship minds were essentially the same as those in The Ship Who Sang and its sequels (I still haven't read Ancillary Justice) which is fine in itself as a concept. But my memory of those Anne McCaffrey stories was that they dealt directly with the terror of the situation as well as the power of it - the imagery of the ship/person being forced into sensory derivation still stays with me. But here, though there was talk of how the heartroom was this special secret place, then to me at least the possibility of terror never became real - it was written about but I never felt the transferred emotion of it.

I believe you're incorrect here, but I only know that because I asked de Bodard directly! The mindships in the Xuya universe (this book) aren't trapped disabled humans, they're a separate class of being that are only ever going to be in a ship.

In terms of nastiness, I agree that there are worse things out there. But I'm not sure there are many novels where the "good guys" torture and rape just as a way of relaxing.

In short, I felt (as I think @Apocryphal mentions elsewhere) that the book was seriously short-changed in terms of actual world-building, leaving me with a sense that it could have been much more

I agree with that, and I think "short-changing" is the key weakness of the book. There are some good ideas here, but not enough to fill up a novel.

RichardAbbott

@NeilNjae said:
I believe you're incorrect here, but I only know that because I asked de Bodard directly! The mindships in the Xuya universe (this book) aren't trapped disabled humans, they're a separate class of being that are only ever going to be in a ship.

I guess that's another area where details were scanty