On a Red Station, Drifting

The Xuya universe is certainly an intriguing place. A fascinating take on scifi with a very different cultural point of reference - Vietnamese. This gives a very different emphasis than the more typical western oriented cultural basis. This novella is one of the longer entries in this universe so I figured it was a good place to start.

Here, we follow Linh. She is fleeing after bringing down the wrath of the emperor by writing a highly critical communique. She has run to a station run by some distant family members. She is bitter and abrasive, frequently frustrating and petty. But her family on this space station are little better, riven by their own rivalries and grievances. The cultural references to the importance of family and shame give an interesting twist to the relationships here.

I struggled with the characters here unfortunately. They are all just very unlikeable. The Machiavellian politics largely brought down by the characters own pettiness was well done, but I needed to like the characters more.

Ultimately this left me intrigued, but not quite satisfied. This is well written, well plotted and taken from a fascinating cultural reference point, but I just found myself struggling to engage with the characters on a personal level