Untethered Sky tells a lot of story in 160 pages while also feeling unrushed. Ester tells us her story with occasional bits of foreshadowing to let us know that we are hearing about something that happened in the past. How distant the past, I couldn’t tell. While I was fully invested in Ester’s story, Lee maintains an emotional distance between the story and the reader.
The story opens with the moment Ester meets Zahra. Zahra is a fledgling roc, an enormous bird of prey stolen from her family to become a manticore hunter. A central element in the story is that humans who pair with rocs, ruhkers, love a creature that can never love them. Rocs remain wild creatures.
When you love a person, you are expected to give them their freedom, but when you love a monster, you keep it caged. A monster can’t love you back, so there’s none of the guilt of a reciprocal relationship. You’re already subjugated. You’re already holding yourself captive in a cruel way, so you justify whatever unusual bonds you level in return.
Fonda Lee is telling a different story than Ester while giving Ester voice. Ester and the other ruhkers respect nature in a way the king and military do not, I think Lee highlights the ways in which they do not respect it enough. Stories of humans and very large creatures that fight as a pair often present the pair as mutually bonded, either through choice or impression upon hatching. In those stories, the creature is a partner in their use in a way that Zahra is not. Zahra is trained, but that training goes against her nature.
For a relatively short novella, there’s a lot to chew on. I’ll be thinking about this for a while.
CW: deadly animal attacks, death of a child in an animal attack remembered, miscarriages referenced, death of parent off page, major injuries on page.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Tordotcom and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.