In a corrupted and poisoned world, the worst diseases can only be cured with the aid of a powerful dragon. But a dragon’s help always comes with a price. Aliette de Bodard beautifully blends the post-apocalyptic genre with Vietnamese-inspired fantasy (and some spicy sapphic romance) in her 2018 novella In the Vanishers’ Palace.
With basic survival always a struggle in this harsh world, everyone in the village must earn their keep. Failed scholar Yên has lived in fear of the day that the elders would deem her too much of a burden to be worth keeping around. That day finally comes when Yên’s mother strikes a bargain with a dragon to save a sick girl’s life. When the dragon claims a life for a life, the village elders offer Yên up as a sacrifice and she braces herself for a gruesome death. However, the dragon Vu Côn has a different plan for Yên. Whisking her away to a labyrinthine palace whose unearthly geometry strains perception, Vu Côn places Yên in charge of tutoring her two unruly children. Though frightened of her intimidating new master, Yên can’t help but also feel drawn to the dragon. And the twins grow on her almost immediately—after all, even the children of monsters are only children. But can Yên truly find happiness in this unfamiliar world of monsters and magic? And would that happiness come crashing down if she were to learn just how monstrous her new companions truly were?
In the Vanisher’s Palace centers one of my favorite themes in supernatural fiction: learning to love a monster. In fact, the book has been pitched as a Beauty and the Beast retelling, which I only realized after finishing the book. Indeed, it can only be considered a retelling in the loosest sense, mainly in that it features a young woman imprisoned by a monstrous being and she eventually comes to love her captor. Plus, there is an excellent library in the palace! But what’s particularly striking about the romance in this book is that Yên loves—and desires—Vu Côn in her monster form. Vu Côn can shape-shift into a form that passes for human. But when Yên fantasizes about Vu Côn, it’s the dragon’s tough scales she longs to feel coiled around her. Yên doesn’t love Vu Côn despite her monstrous nature, but because of it.
Another interesting concept that this novella explores is the monster’s monster. What is a monster afraid of? A bigger, scarier monster, of course. For Vu Côn, that would be the Vanishers—a race of powerful shape-shifters that poisoned the world, enslaved the dragons, wreaked their havoc, and then abandoned their mess to the survivors. The Vanishers seem to be alien, or perhaps extra-dimensional, beings (there’s something quite Lovecraftian about them). But are they inherently evil? Both Yên and Vu Côn will have to reckon with this question when it becomes clear that the Vanishers have left more than just destruction and diseases behind.
If you’re looking for a good sapphic romance this Pride Month, and you love monsters, mythology, and mind-bending fantastical worlds, be sure to pick up In the Vanishers’ Palace! You can find it on shelves now at your favorite local retailer. If you’ve read it, let me know your thoughts in the comments!