English language
Published Nov. 13, 2023 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.
This is a good story well told, but I could really feel the difference between the setting here and the extremely real Janloon of the Green Bone books.
A fascinating story set in a world where huge rocs, bigger than humans, fly and hunt terrifying prey: manticores that prey on humans. Human have made a dangerous pact with the rocs, and now hunt the manticores together.
The story focuses on Ester, a ruhker (roc partner) who at the beginning of the story is paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra. After winning Zahra's trust, and not getting eaten in the process, they train together to hunt smaller prey before they are considered ready, with the help of senior ruhkers, to take on the manticores.
The heart of the story is Ester's relationship with Zahra: for while Ester adores Zahra and trusts her, Zahra may not reciprocate, for she was bought in from the wild and could leave (or kill) Ester at any time. Ester's training and relationship with Zahra are about the only thing keeping them together as …
A fascinating story set in a world where huge rocs, bigger than humans, fly and hunt terrifying prey: manticores that prey on humans. Human have made a dangerous pact with the rocs, and now hunt the manticores together.
The story focuses on Ester, a ruhker (roc partner) who at the beginning of the story is paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra. After winning Zahra's trust, and not getting eaten in the process, they train together to hunt smaller prey before they are considered ready, with the help of senior ruhkers, to take on the manticores.
The heart of the story is Ester's relationship with Zahra: for while Ester adores Zahra and trusts her, Zahra may not reciprocate, for she was bought in from the wild and could leave (or kill) Ester at any time. Ester's training and relationship with Zahra are about the only thing keeping them together as they journey through the kingdom, being called to hunt manticores that have killed other humans.
That relationship would be put to the test at the end when tragedy strikes, and Ester must now put her trust in Zahra; for in most manticore hunts, the ruhker is the bait to draw out the manticores for the kill. Ester and Zahra's relationship with each other, and with other ruhkers would never be the same.
This was a fun novella. It's an "animal companion" story of sorts, where it focuses largely on Ester's relationship with her new roc Zahra. It's about dealing with grief, unrequited love and obsession with animals, and the awkwardness of what it means to "train" and "keep" a giant murderbird who could fly away at any time with your heart (metaphorically or literally).
There was just enough world-building and a hint of politics to keep me intrigued about the rest of the world, and the ending quite neatly brought a number of different story threads together to a satisfying finish.
I also enjoyed this conversation between Fonda Lee and Alex Harrow, including a bunch of details about this novella: www.tor.com/2023/04/27/author-interviews-conversation-with-fonda-lee-and-alix-e-harrow/
