Michael Barnes
Gyen Jebi is a Hwagugin (a conquered province dismissingly referred to fourteen an adjacent Korea) struggling artist (aren't they all) their desperate enough that the story opens with them sitting the exams to be an artist within the bureaucracy of the occupying power Razanei (think Japan) Note Jebi identifies as neither male nor female, using “they,” “them,” “their,” and “themself” as pronouns.
Jebi's sister Bongsunga who has acted as parent to Jebi since the deaths of their parents is a fervent revolutionary of the Razanei who occupied the country of Hwaguk, who took her wife from her in the ensuing war, who make it nearly impossible for a native Hwagukan to make a living… it takes a toll on a person.
He is not selected though clearly a better artist than the others they’re blackmailed into working for the Ministry of Armor, a secretive government agency under a Machiavellian fellow named Hafanden Razanei’s research division for the military. That employ artists to create new automata, those faceless forces of policing set up wherever the Razanei conquer. And their latest innovative project, a dragonlike automaton called Arazi, failed to work as intended.
So intrigue, mysteries, plots, scheming and giant mechanical sentient clever and full of childlike enthusiasm Dragon called Arazi is not even half the story. I enjoyed the anti-colonial threat, the importance of air and treasure to a culture especially an occupied one. One caveat the resolution could leave some unsatisfied and felt to me like there needs to be a sequel but still a story I do not regret reading.
Gyen Jebi is a Hwagugin (a conquered province dismissingly referred to fourteen an adjacent Korea) struggling artist (aren't they all) their desperate enough that the story opens with them sitting the exams to be an artist within the bureaucracy of the occupying power Razanei (think Japan) Note Jebi identifies as neither male nor female, using “they,” “them,” “their,” and “themself” as pronouns.
Jebi's sister Bongsunga who has acted as parent to Jebi since the deaths of their parents is a fervent revolutionary of the Razanei who occupied the country of Hwaguk, who took her wife from her in the ensuing war, who make it nearly impossible for a native Hwagukan to make a living… it takes a toll on a person.
He is not selected though clearly a better artist than the others they’re blackmailed into working for the Ministry of Armor, a secretive government agency under a Machiavellian fellow named Hafanden Razanei’s research division for the military. That employ artists to create new automata, those faceless forces of policing set up wherever the Razanei conquer. And their latest innovative project, a dragonlike automaton called Arazi, failed to work as intended.
So intrigue, mysteries, plots, scheming and giant mechanical sentient clever and full of childlike enthusiasm Dragon called Arazi is not even half the story. I enjoyed the anti-colonial threat, the importance of air and treasure to a culture especially an occupied one. One caveat the resolution could leave some unsatisfied and felt to me like there needs to be a sequel but still a story I do not regret reading.