Untethered Sky

Product Information

People have admired rocs for centuries. Artists paint them, sculpt them, tell stories about them. I wanted to be one. I wanted to be the monster that kills other monsters.” When you love a person, you are expected to give them their freedom, but when you love a monster, you keep it caged.” Untethered Sky was more character driven that I expected. There isn't a ~main conflict~ per say, but the story takes an intimate look at Ester's relationship with Zahra. Since this was a novella, I don't want to say too much and let y'all read and find out for yourselves. It's a much different take on animal companion trope we all know and love in fantasy. I highly recommend and I think y'all are gonna like this one when it comes out in April!

This isn't a story about literal transformation, though, only the metaphorical transformation that occurs when the central dream of your life is won - and then something goes wrong. Beautifully told by Fonda Lee (my brain keeps trying to correct her name to Jane Fonda, aging is a curse), Untethered Sky tells the story of a rukher on a mission and the roc that brings all her closest-held dreams into being. But the superb strengths of The Green Bone Saga's storytelling are retained here, even if they were delivered in a different and smaller format. The dynamic between Ester and Zahra was engaging to read, and the terrific action scenes you can expect from Lee's writing are evident in the text. The last chapter was a breathtaking hunt sequence filled with emotions and tension. Plus, it was refreshing to see the implementation of popular creatures in Middle-Eastern mythologies like Roc and Manticore. Whether by Fonda The book also gives manticores their due as well. For all propaganda claiming they’re devil-spawn, we get the idea beneath it all they’re also just animals. While chillingly intelligent, they still often behave like terrifying wild animals rather than some far-flung fantasy creature, which is impressive when you consider that they have the face of an ape, a leonine body encased in quills, and a scorpion-like tail. I have seen this compared to dragonriders of Pern, and not so, IMO; the roc training here is pretty clearly falconry like. No riding, no telepathy, just plain old falconry but with extra big and mean birds and prey.Zahra was her name. When the crate opened, all I saw at first were her eyes, the largest of any living creature, enormous golden orbs fixing me with a raptor’s murderous glare. She was a year-old fledgling taken from the nest, already lethal and immense. I was a woman of eighteen, small, wounded, overanxious. Sweat coated my hands and lathered my body beneath heavy leather work gloves and a tarnished scale vest. Ruhkers have been killed on the first day. If it happened to me, another apprentice would take my place. this was a lil novella i read right after coming out of a mini reading slump and it definitely delivered what i expected, but this could have easily been a 4 stars if it was a full length book. fonda lee we were robbed 😤

Thank you Tor Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. The x-factor in books for me tipping them over from just good to freaking amazing seems to be a combination of pacing and momentum. This story had the perfect balance of both, leaving me reeling at the end of the book in the best way possible. I haven’t finished Green Bone yet, but if this novella and the wild popularity of that series are any indication, I’m in for quite the ride. Wild rocs were a rare sight in the south where I grew up. My father was a minor landowner with a small but fertile and well-managed parcel of pastureland upon which we raised goats and grew olive trees. We weren’t wealthy, but we were well off enough to have house servants in addition to field serfs. After I was born, it seemed my mother wasn’t able to have more children. She miscarried several times, each loss causing her tremendous pain and heartache. In some of my earliest memories, she’s lying on cushions, sweaty, pale, and exhausted, her breath sour from throwing up. “You were too big and came out too late,” she moaned. “You ruined something inside me.” Untethered Skyspends a lot of timeexploring Ester’s relationship with her roc, Zahra. Lee consulted with falconry experts to get deeper insights into what it’s like to raise a bird of prey as a companion, and that authenticity really comes across in the book. The passages where Ester flushes out prey for her roc feel immediate and detailed, as do the descriptions of animal behavior and even the materials used for things like jesses and lures.

New in Series

Fonda Lee is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the epic Green Bone Saga, beginning with Jade City and continuing in Jade War and Jade Legacy. She is also the author of the acclaimed science fiction novels Zeroboxer, Exo and Cross Fire. zahra was not yet in my life, but she would be. she answered the question in my soul and made me worthwhile. and you were not yet in my life either, but then you came into it. you’re part of the answer and even without your roc, you’re worth more to me than you could ever know. ”