Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
Published: February 9th 2021 by Tor.com
Review:
Myth: 4/5
Being in Thanh’s head helped us cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. Her first political negotiation brings in complications from her past and keeps her anxious enough to keep returning to a memory of fire. The interactions with Eldris were super interesting to me, I found myself re-reading them because on the surface, Eldris said a lot of right things, but the emotions evoked from Thanh did not give us flutters of love. It was really interesting to figure out what didn’t work along with Thanh as the beauty of the language had me pretty captivated.
Magic: 3/5
This wasn’t really the type of story to even allude to the world’s magical rules or system. There just were elemental magic users. This is usually my problem with short stories in fantasy. There isn’t really time to dive into what the magic really is or why one has it, etc. it just is but that did fit well with this story.
Overall: 3.5/5
I am always impressed when an author can create such world depth in a novella. Fireheart Tiger gives the reader a rich pre-colonial Vietnamese-esque world with political history and mother-daughter growing up challenges all amplified by country alliance negotiations and fire magic.
