alias_sqbr

I know the author of The Iron Children which made me put off reading it in case I didn't like it and felt awkward(*). But luckily I loved it!

It's a fantasy novella about a group of young, magic-cyborg soldiers, part of a religious military order and under the command of a well intentioned but inexperienced not-yet-cyborged commander-nun who is in vastly over her head and having complicated feelings about the fact that she can mind-control any of the soldiers under her command whenever she sees fit. The soldiers have complicated feelings about it too... especially the one who's secretly a spy for the other side.

This is a very character driven story, and the characters are great. The narrative sympathises with everyone, even when they don't sympathise with each other. And there's some great 'what even is the self, am I even a person' etc cyborg feels. The commander is an assimilated member of a quasi-Jewish diasporic ethno-religious group which works really well with the themes and layered cultural conflicts.

The characters all use she or they pronouns, but as I recall only the spy actually expresses any personal sense of gender. Everyone's else's pronouns are defined by their social role: 'they' for cyborg soldiers and 'she' for commanders and the nuns they are recruited from. I saw the author talk in an interview about these roles having a complicated relationship with gender roles in the broader society but this isn't really explored in the story itself. This sort of thing always leaves me wanting a deep dive into whether there's any trans-by-their-society's-standards characters around but I realise not every story can be that.

I never found it overpoweringly scary/gory/sad etc but there is some violence and death. There's no sex or romance.

My one complaint is that the story is too short! I wanted more and I hope she writes some! By the end, the central conflicts have been resolved, and I can sort of imagine what will happen next. BUT I WOULD RATHER READ IT IN A SEQUEL, HINT HINT.

You can buy the e-book DRM-free from Solaris or DRMed most other places, the paperback is available in the US but I'm not sure where else.

(*)I'm still very aware she's going to see this review and go "They're not cyborgs exactly..." etc >.>