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cat_from_outer_spaceFor our November #sffbookclub book, we return to our novella roots.
Remember, if this month's book isn't in your library and you can't afford a copy, give Naga on octodon.social a DM. We have a small club fund for helping members out.
Here's the official synopsis for The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard:
"Welcome to the Scattered Pearls Belt, a collection of ring habitats and orbitals ruled by exiled human scholars and powerful families, and held together by living mindships who carry people and freight between the stars. In this fluid society, human and mindship avatars mingle in corridors and in function rooms, and physical and virtual realities overlap, the appearance of environments easily modified and adapted to interlocutors or current mood.
A transport ship discharged from military service after a traumatic injury, The Shadow's Child now ekes out a precarious living as a brewer of mind-altering drugs for the comfort of space-travellers. Meanwhile, abrasive and eccentric scholar Long Chau wants to find a corpse for a scientific study. When Long Chau walks into her office, The Shadow's Child expects an unpleasant but easy assignment. When the corpse turns out to have been murdered, Long Chau feels compelled to investigate, dragging The Shadow's Child with her.
As they dig deep into the victim's past, The Shadow's Child realises that the investigation points to Long Chau's own murky past—and, ultimately, to the dark and unbearable void that lies between the stars…"
While this novella can stand alone, it's also part of Aliette de Bodard's extended Xuya universe series, which also includes the novellas On a Red Station, Drifting and The Citadel of Weeping Pearls.
Remember, if this month's book isn't in your library and you can't afford a copy, give Naga on octodon.social a DM. We have a small club fund for helping members out.
Here's the official synopsis for The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard:
"Welcome to the Scattered Pearls Belt, a collection of ring habitats and orbitals ruled by exiled human scholars and powerful families, and held together by living mindships who carry people and freight between the stars. In this fluid society, human and mindship avatars mingle in corridors and in function rooms, and physical and virtual realities overlap, the appearance of environments easily modified and adapted to interlocutors or current mood.
A transport ship discharged from military service after a traumatic injury, The Shadow's Child now ekes out a precarious living as a brewer of mind-altering drugs for the comfort of space-travellers. Meanwhile, abrasive and eccentric scholar Long Chau wants to find a corpse for a scientific study. When Long Chau walks into her office, The Shadow's Child expects an unpleasant but easy assignment. When the corpse turns out to have been murdered, Long Chau feels compelled to investigate, dragging The Shadow's Child with her.
As they dig deep into the victim's past, The Shadow's Child realises that the investigation points to Long Chau's own murky past—and, ultimately, to the dark and unbearable void that lies between the stars…"
While this novella can stand alone, it's also part of Aliette de Bodard's extended Xuya universe series, which also includes the novellas On a Red Station, Drifting and The Citadel of Weeping Pearls.
