Illumicrate
Science Fiction
The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard Book Only (Illumicrate 'Better Together' exclusive)
$23.00
About the product
Shortlisted for the 2023 BSFA Award for Best Novel, shortlisted for the 2023 Arthur C. Clarke Award. . .
Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates' enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.
Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si's help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si's technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it.
But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together...
Our Illumicrate Exclusive edition is a Royal hardback with a signed bookplate by Aliette de Bodard, and features:
- Exclusive cover variant
- Artwork endpapers, different front and back, by Alyssa Winans
- Foil embossing on the hardback
- Ombre sprayed edges
- Bound-in author letter
- Adult science fiction standalone
- F/F romance, lesbian main character, diverse queer identities, Vietnamese-inspired and queer normative world
- You'll love this if you like... lesbian space pirates, sentient spaceships and Vietnamese-inspired galactic empire
Photos by @bookwormgram
"De Bodard's novel, with its rich overlay of Vietnamese culture, is a sumptuous, romantic experience." ― The Financial Times
"A "read-in-one-sitting" novel with a beautifully-realized setting amid a complex examination of power and consequences, all intertwined with an intense and gripping romance. -- Kate Elliott, author of Unconquerable Sun." ― Kate Elliott, author of Unconquerable Sun
Tropes for The Red Scholar's Wake include: space Opera, marriage of convenience
About the Author
Content warnings for The Red Scholar's Wake
Content warnings provided by the author:
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Content Warning
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