When I received a copy of this book to read and review I was overjoyed, because I was just so so curious! And the more time passed and the more I became curious, because I kept reading interesting things about this book so my expectations were just so high when I started this one! And sadly, I didn’t love it as much as I was expecting.

But I am glad to have read it, and even if I didn’t love it, I still think is a book that deserves to be read. I hope that many many people would read it, because we need more books like this one. I had some problems with this book, but they were all about my personal tastes, and yes, they are important too. So maybe I won’t read any other book by this author, that’s possible, but… but even if personal tastes are important, and it is important to enjoy a book that we are reading because well, why read it if you aren’t enjoying yourself? But… but this book is important. And its importance goes way beyond personal tastes.

This was not my kind of book for quite a lot of reasons: it is too much dream-like for me (I really don’t like dreamlike atmosphere or setting, and so even just a tiny bit of it it is too much for me) and I need more about the world-building to really appreciate it. And I need more from the characters too. It is not a long book, so this was somewhat expected but I have read a lot of books that were short but nearer my tastes for characterization and development of the world and the characters.

But this is a book that deserves to be read. We definitely need more book like this one, and here it is why:

1) We have older characters. To be clear here, we have books in which the characters aren’t young, and we have them in every different genre. But this is a tad different from the others. They are older than our usual characters and they knew that they are old (duh!) but they believe that they deserve happiness nonetheless. They have hope for the future. And this is a precious thing. Our characters here hope for a better future, they hope to become better people, in a sense. And they show us that, truly, it is never to late to change, to follow your dream and to become what you want to be. And this, this is the message we need!
2)It is about diversity and acceptance. And it is not only about the external acceptance. It is not only about others accepting us. But it is about us accepting us. And this is fundamental, too.
I think that those are pretty good reasons to read a book, honestly. And it wasn’t like I didn’t like it like it, it was just that, as my enjoyment of it went, it wasn’t so good. But it has a ton of good points to it, that’s for sure!

This book is one of a kind. The writing is fascinating, atmospheric, drenched in culture and personality. It feels completely immersive. The writing is utterly beautiful, and the characters are very memorable.

At the moment I am writing this review we are in the middle of yet another needless controversy surrounding J.K. Rowling, and her inability (or actually unwillingness) to understand Trans people and the hardships that they have to endure. Well screw her. This book reminds me of the need to lift up other voices that will serve the Trans community well, and discard the dross of she who must not be named.

We(I) need to pay more attention to artists like R..B. Lemberg who writes about a dazzling group of people with a spectrum of gender identities and sexuality with compassion and appreciation. They, (meaning the author, I am not sure of the correct pronouns) are insightful and understand marginalized people. Particularly in this book, the lives of Trans people. As said in the book, “It is only in stories that change is easily found”, reflects on the fact that change is a process, that is often painful but can bring joy.

I enjoyed this short book (only 192 pages) and feel that I need to read it again in order to really grasp the things the author was trying to convey. I hope you will like it to.

Disclaimer: I received this book free from Netgalley

Thanks to Net Galley and Tachyon Publications for an eARC of this novella in exchange for an honest review.

A story of change. Of beauty and death, of wanderlust and gods. .
Where two people past the primes of their lives search for their truths and their dreams among the bones of the dead and songs of the dawn.



We follow the nameless man and Uiziya as they travel from bone strewn deserts to cities of stone, one in search of a name and the other a calling.
These characters became very dear to me throughout this novella, each complex and multidimensional, with histories as intricate as the cloths and carpets they weave.
Morally grey decisions and realizations of why they made these choices made them each all the more intriguing.

The writing is poetic and sublime, flowing between description and action and dialogue as smoothly as sand.
Pacing wise my attention was held consistently throughout.
The world Lemberg creates is vast and full of detail and I was left with clear images of the peoples and traditions and lands within it.
But we only catch a small glimpse of this world in this short story and I would love to read more about it.

The trans and queer representation in this novella was exquisitely depicted and the journey through self discovery and beyond was written with such love and delicate care I could sense the emotions behind every word.


Overall this is a rare jewel of a novella, a single taste of a vast and fantastical world of magic and mystery, full of rich and diverse cultures that will leave you yearning for more.
4/5

3.5 stars
heartwarming fantasy, following the journey of two transgender elders Uiziya who's looking for aunt, and the nameless man, who is struggling to find his place among his people, after he's gone through the gender transformation.

the beginning was a little bit confusing, as this was my first time reading the series.
The characters felt a little plain, the book seemed to be more like a fable. The story might seem short but it's heavily loaded.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my review copy

Sadly, this book was not for me. I was very excited about reading a story that had trans main characters and just get to see them experiencing the world the author created. However, the writing style didn't bode well with me and while at times I could really admire the magical feeling that it left you, most of the time it just didn't immerse me into the story the way I would have liked.

My other issue with the story is that I felt very confused for a majority of the book which is not the best as this is a very short book. It felt like I was reading a sequel instead of a separate novella. The system that was created with the weavers was interesting but it ultimately didn't wow me enough to overcome the rest of the issues I felt with the book.

So, I do recommend the book but it's not something that I would read again.

The Four Profound Weaves is a story about two older trans people and their journey through the desert to find a woman banished from the tribe they were traveling with. It touches upon some very needed topics and it does so masterfully but it also for some reason didn’t click with me.

Reading The Four Profound Weaves feels like reading a fairytale. You’re submerged in a mystical world with a rich atmosphere and magic but you never actually learn much about it. It makes you feel the story more than understand it. Not that I didn’t. There is plenty of contexts provided to understand how Weaves work. Plenty to understand why the characters are in the situations they are in. But there’s not so much for anything else. That to be said, I still enjoyed the heavy, desert atmosphere and the beautiful writing style.

Another thing the books does well is talking about trans experiences. An own voices reviewer will have more to say about it and it will be on point but I did like how the book presented perspectives of both people who transitioned early in their life as well as people who transitioned late into adulthood. People who had to live in a conservative environment with strict gender roles, as well as people between whom transitioning, wasn’t seen as a big deal. It was very interesting to read and since both of the characters are in their sixties the reader gets to see how their whole lives were affected by their situation. It wasn’t something I usually see discussed in books.

Sadly I couldn’t connect to the characters. They felt more like means to tell the story than actual people who you could like. They were good devices to show what the writer wanted the audience to understand but other than that I found them rather unmemorable. I feel that was mostly why the story fell flat to me. It was short and didn’t give time to flash out the characters fully. I still found their story very meaningful and beautifully written, though.

All in all, I feel like this book wasn’t something up my alley. It’s often a fault I find in adult fantasy when the plot and atmosphere are more prominent than character development and relationships between them. I’d still recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a queer fantasy story with a rich atmosphere and meaningful discussion.

I really liked this book and the different views held by the different communities on living true to yourself in the body that is right for you. Sometimes I was so excited to keep reading that I would forget to read the name at the beginning of the chapter and I wouldn't know who was speaking and I would have to go back and look again. This book was engaging, the story was interesting and this was a really enjoyable read. I loved the ending.

I originally picked this up on Corey Alexander’s recommendation – it’s a commentary on how much I trusted their recommendations that I ordered a physical copy even before I requested an ARC! The author lists LeGuin as one of their influences, and this fairy tale has a lot of the qualities you’d expect from her work. It brought back a lot of the same feelings I felt when I first encountered her work as a teen. This is the first work I’ve read in the Birdverse (though this is the first novella, there are stories and poems) and it won’t be the last.

“The Four Profound Weaves. A carpet of wind, a carpet of sand, a carpet of song, and a carpet of bones. Change, wanderlust, hope, and death.”


The story follows two elderly trans characters: Uiziya, a weaver from one of the Surun’ tribes and a nameless Khana man, nen-sasaïr. After forty years of holding on to the cloth of winds – the magic used to remake bodies – that Uiziya’s aunt Benesret made him, Nen-sasaïr has only recently made the change and is struggling with what to call himself now. He hopes Benesret will name him, but she’s been banished and no one will tell him why. Uiziya knows, and has her own reasons for seeking out her aunt – she wants to be taught the Four Profound Weaves, a magic unique to the Surun’ tribes. What seems like a simple quest to find her turns into an exploration of their pasts and what, truly, it means to change.

“Changing is not done among his people.”
Benesret snorted, an odd hollow sound. “That’s what he says. Changing is always and forever done. Everywhere, it is done; in open, in secret. He has gone through the change and so, I assure you, have others.”


The worldbuilding is excellent. The magic was fascinating. Besides the Surun’ weaving, there’s also a more general magic that involves deepnames. How many deepnames and the number of syllables in each deepname determines how powerful a person is, and the deepnames can be used in different configurations to power magic. The Khana people – nen-sasaïr’s people – are divided strictly along gender binaries. Men live on one side of the wall in the Khana quarters in Iyar, studying and building magical automata. The women live on the other side, and they’re the ones who form women-only family units and set off into the desert and beyond to trade. The Surun’ tribes are more accepting of non-cis people – inbetweeners (non-binary) and trans. What differs here from our world is that their magic allows trans people to remake their bodies to match their minds.

“Those who loved you held you in shape, even if this shape was all wrong.”


As a cis woman, I naively thought that a world with the magic to near-instantaneously remake bodies would make trans lives easier, but I misjudged how transphobia can be engrained in a society. Uiziya wove her own cloth of change when she was a child, while nen-sasaïr was given one on a trading trip when he was already an adult. For Uiziya, among a people who accept differences from the “norm,” the fact that she’s trans isn’t even worth commenting on, and nen-sasaïr even initially assumes she’s cis. Nen-sasaïr has a harder time with both life in general and as a trans person. After the death of one of their lovers, his other lover downplayed his feels in an effort to control him. For forty years she kept his cloth of winds locked away, and kept him locked away in the body he was born in. He stayed because he loved her and was scared, and it was only after her death that he felt free to make the change. There’s more traditional horror in this book – there’s a very good reason Benesret was exiled – but the part that stuck with me was being trapped by those who are supposed to love you unconditionally when you figure out that it’s only pieces of you they love, not your whole self.

And, of course, there’s the whole classic fairy tale quest aspect that leads Uiziya and nen-sasaïr from the depths of the Burri desert to the Rainbow-Tiered Court of the ruler of Iyar. The prose is lovely and lyrical and always leads back to the themes of change and transformation. It’s a bit slowly paced but expected considering it’s about two elderly characters with all their expected physical ailments and travel difficulties.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this book and I’m looking forward to the author’s next entry into the Birdverse universe!

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A beautifully written fantasy about two queer folk on a quest to find their voices and rediscover hope. I'll absolutely be reading everything else in the Birdverse after this!

I loved this poetic, lyrical prose about weaving magic (I had never before read about that, so I loved this unique kind of magic!), and queer characters searching for that feeling of belonging that every human being is after.

We get introduced to this world of magic through the voices of two trans main characters, both of which are already old and have spent their lives – and their transformations – very differently. One was accepted for who she was at a young age and experienced love and acceptence by her family, while the other is still faced with a lack of understanding and acceptance. I found it very interesting that the former, Uiziya, was introduced with her name immediately, while the latter remained nameless and was referred to as “nen-sasair” – son of sandbirds.

I loved how deep this story is. There are so many metaphors at work, and I’m sure with each reread, you’d find something new that was meaningful but hidden right beneath your eyes. One recurring theme in the book is change and transformation. While both main characters have underwent both, we also see it represented in the weaves that Uiziya’s people create from sand and wind.

This unique fantasy deals with a lot of themes and is deep and meaningful in a way I’ve not often seen before. Their journey leads the characters on a path to finding themselves, who they really are, and who they’ve been all along. The path is one of hope and love, of self-acceptance and belonging – something that very often starts within oneself. I highly recommend this inventive, queer Middle-Eastern fairytale that offers a unique take on magic and has an excellent world-building.

4 of 5 stars from me – not all my questions are answered yet (but that might be because I’m unfamiliar with the Birdverse, and even though I absolutely loved the poetic language, I did find it a bit hard to get into at the beginning).

Highly recommended!

Thank you, Netgalley and Tachyon Publications, for this ARC!

“The Four Profound Weaves” is an epic fantasy where we follow a trans protagonist, Uiziya e Lali, and a nameless man. The POVs were hard to keep track of, both of the voices sounded very similar, and it was confusing to go from one speaker saying one thing. The next chapter, a new speaker, says something completely different. Both voices were not distinct enough to tell them apart except by seeing who was speaking on the chapter header.

I loved the magic and the carpet of death. Reading this novella and seeing how it played out was epic. However, after all the build-up to the ending of the novella, it just ends abruptly. The writing is absolutely beautiful. It was very reminiscent of Ursala Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness that it handled identity.

What a beautiful story of hope and life, and finding one's self. I was taken aback by how poetic this was and how majestic the writing. The author managed to weave together a magnificent story that will touch your heart.

The Four Profound Weaves by RB Lemberg is a novella set in the author’s Birdverse world. I have previously read at least one story, "Geometries of Belonging", which I quite enjoyed. The different stories stand alone and aside from exploring some similar themes, part of the magic system was what struck me as the main link with respect to world building.

The Surun' do not speak of the master weaver, Benesret, who creates the cloth of bone for assassins in the Great Burri Desert. But Uiziya now seeks her aunt Benesret in order to learn the final weave, although the price for knowledge may be far too dear to pay.

Among the Khana, women travel in caravans to trade, while men remain in the inner quarter as scholars. A nameless man struggles to embody Khana masculinity, after many years of performing the life of a woman, trader, wife, and grandmother.

As the past catches up to the nameless man, he must choose between the life he dreamed of and Uiziya, and Uiziya must discover how to challenge a tyrant, and weave from deaths that matter.

This is a poetically written story about two people searching for themselves in different ways. I'm not sure I can explain the plot any better than the blurb does (which makes for a nice change), so I suggest reading that if you haven't yet. The story alternates between the points of view of the two protagonists, Uiziya and nen-sasaïr, and carries the reader with them across desert and city.

Uiziya's story focuses a bit more on the magic she seeks and the meaning of her aunt's magic in the greater scheme of the world. From a more simplistic understanding, we watch Uiziya's knowledge deepen through the events of the story as she is guided by misapprehensions and revelations. Nen-sasaïr, on the other hand, is guided by a more personal quest. The two team up at first only because their goals partially overlap, though their relationship grows over the course of the story.

From "Geometries of Belonging" the world building thing that stuck in my head most was the concept of magic based on deepnames, unique to the practitioner, the concept of which makes a reappearance in The Four Profound Weaves. However, as the title suggests, the main magic here, which Uiziya is — loosely speaking — chasing, involves weaving and magic carpets. Carpets which can fly, yes, but also carpets which can sing or transform people into their true bodies. The latter being related to the strong trans narrative arc for nen-sasaïr.

Overall I quite enjoyed The Four Profound Weaves. It was a gorgeously written exploration of identity with a heady dose of magic to go with it. I am keen to read more stories set in the Birdverse and other stories by Lemberg as well. I would go seek them out immediately if I wasn't so behind on other review books. I highly recommend The Four Profound Weaves to readers looking for fantasy with any of: desert settings, weaving, or trans narratives.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: Tachyon Publications, September 2020
Series: Birdverse, but I think all the stories so far stand alone
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

What a thought provoking read. I am honestly not sure if I can articulate my thoughts about what I just read. The book was atmospheric and reminiscent of a fairy tale. I absolutely adored the transgendered representation. To change your gender when your felt ready and needed to be was excellent. Filled with an imaginative world and interesting characters, The Four Profound Weaves is a multidimensional thought-provoking novella.

In this beautifully written desert fantasy, two trans elders go on a quest. There's weaving magic, three-dimensional older characters, and bones! I read a review copy from Netgalley.

Uiziya is from the Surun' tribe. She's been waiting for decades for her aunt Benesret to retun and teach her the final weave, how to weave from death. The nameless man, nen-sasaïr, is from the Khana tribe, where women are traveling traders and men remain in the inner quarters as scholars. He is now living in the desert among the Surun' tribe, because the Khana culture is strict about gender, whereas the Surun' have men, women, and what they call inbetweeners, and transitioning is done with carpets woven from wind. Together these two leave to find the master weaver, Benesret, and end up on a dangerous quest to challenge a tyrant.

I loved the magic in this story. You might know that desert fantasy isn't one of my buzzwords, but weaving magic is. The four profound weaves of the title are wind, sand, song, and death. Uiziya travels on a floating carpet woven of sand. Assassins use cloth woven from death to conceal themselves. The different sections of the novella were also named after the different weaves, which I loved – and those title pages were really beautiful with small spot illustrations.

Even if the magic is not explained in much detail to the reader, it feels coherent and I found it very fascinating. People have deepnames, and how many names they have and how many syllables are in the names correspond to magical power. Different combinations of syllables are called different things, for example having two deepnames, one-syllable and three-syllable, is called The Weaver's Promise. I was so into it.

Apart from the weaving magic and having older people as the main characters, what made me request this book was the pull quote from Patricia A. McKillip on the cover that says “Imagery that glows on the page.” (This pull-quote was changed for the final cover.) I love McKillip's writing style, so I trusted her words. And I was not disappointed, I loved Lemberg's lyrical writing style! It was very atmospheric to read, and I loved picking the book up and spending time with it. The world felt full and complete, and I liked the main characters a lot. Apart from the main two, I found Benesret especially to be a really cool figure. Like, "welcome, here's my tent surrounded by bones".

This novella tackles themes of tradition, change and stagnation. For example, in the city of Iyar, there is a ruler who hoards magical artefacts and tries to stop change of any kind. The story also focuses on finding out what you want and finding your own place in the world. Nen-sasaîr wants to find his name, and if he wants to go by the Khana tradition and join the men in the inner quarter, or do something completely different.

The author, R.B. Lemberg, is a queer, bigender immigrant from Eastern Europe and Israel, and they have written short stories in this world before. The world is called Birdverse, after the goddess Bird. I have never read any Birdverse short stories, but didn't feel like I was missing anything. This novella is a whole story on its own. So you don't need to read them in order to read this - but you'll probably want to read them after you finish! I certainly want to.

I gave the novella 4 stars. It's actually one of my favourites of the year so far!

Content warnings: dead-naming and misgendering.

I've received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in return for my honest review.

This book was...interesting. The writing and storytelling style was a bit obtuse at times and some of the character choices were hard to understand, but that being said, I genuinely enjoyed this book. I especially appreciated its exploration of the effect that transitioning and transness itself can have on your relationships and people and society's expectations of you. How transition can lead to you suddenly being expected to fill gender roles that oftentimes don't fit and have nothing to do with your gender identity and what that identity means to you. I do wish that the story was longer and more in-depth, but I genuinely enjoyed it as it is, quirks and all.

Wow! what a powerful , intriguing & very emotional story set around what in many cultures even today are often regarded as scary & taboo subjects.
This is the first Book I have read by a writer within the LGBTQIA community even though I have several Family members who are part of that community ,& also over my life time I have had many friends who belonged to that community & who added so much more depth to my simple life over the years.
We all know at some point quite early in our lives that eventually one day our life will end & death will claim us to only knows where , to many of us even though we may in the back of our minds think we accept that, it can & is a scary thing to think or even talk about !
R.B. Lemberg has taken this & woven a very emotional, mystical & profound story about this subject set in settlements around a huge majestic Desert.
The Four Profound Weaves remind us about the stages we go through in life but also illustrate that this can be much harder for some than others ,it also reminds us that `Hope cannot be given away! Hope is a Constant' in all our lives how ever we live them. Within the story the Carpets made `Hope, Song, Sand & Death' had me totally enthralled , as did the journey's the main characters Uiziya who is 63 years old & has spent 40 years in her Tent waiting for her closest relative her aunt Benseret to return & continue her weaving instruction , her companion on the journey is Nen-Sasair & they need to find how to make the Carpet of Death which will be woven from the Bones of the dead which the wicked ruler of Iyar has incarcerated so that Bird cannot take their souls to Heaven or the place in which they will finally rest. This is a Book I hope to Buy & add to my Bookcase & one I will most highly recommend many of my friends & fellow Book lovers to buy & to read.

The Four Profound Weaves is a transformative fable from the Birdverse about identity, individual transition, society, and good vs. evil, Due out 4th Sept 2020 from Tachyon, it's 192 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is a weirdly beautiful fantasy novel about identity, culture, transformation, hope, and the challenges of finding/making acceptance (not least from ourselves). It's told in alternating PoV. The voices of the narrators are distinct enough that it never became problematic to see which of them was speaking (but the chapters are also labeled to keep them distinct from one another).

The author is sublimely talented. Being directly cast into the novel and feeling completely lost because the narrative itself is unexplained and without context was confusing and uncomfortable. It took me a while to become comfortable in the story. The writing was so beautifully lyrical and sublime that I felt compelled to stick with it and was rewarded by becoming more and more enthralled as the story progressed until the transformative and uplifting ending.

The author weaves pain and anger and futility and longing interspersed with hope and a not ungentle sardonic humor into a fable which tells truth. This will certainly be touted as a queer nonbinary transformational story (and it is that), but it's so much more. The author writes eloquently for all of us who are outsiders, who don't fit easily into the molds imposed by society culture and our own expectations. It's a melancholy parable but also full of hope. The author's style reminds me of Ursula K. Le Guin and Sheri Tepper in some ways. Fans of those author's won't want to miss this one.

Five stars. This is masterfully written. I don't know when the cutoff dates are for the Hugo, but I sincerely hope this one makes the list. It deserves to win.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I've been having such a good year for novellas, I haven't read a single bad one and this was no different! Queer novellas are pretty much the only thing giving me life right now.

The Four Profound Weaves is a novella set within R.B Lemberg's Birdverse series. It follows a nameless man who has recently transitioned as he searches for a name; and his friend, a weaver, who is searching for her Aunt so she can be taught how to weave from death, the last of the four profound Weaves.

As a newcomer to this series, I won't lie, I did find the first half quite confusing. There is so much history, mythology and worldbuilding that needed to be crammed into such a small novella and I think I probably would've benefited by reading some of the Birdverse series prior to jumping straight into this, just so I had a better understanding of this world. But by the second half, I felt much more comfortable in the world and really enjoyed this!

My absolute favourite thing about this novella is the magic system. Interesting magic systems are of one the best parts of reading fantasy because they're all so unique, and the fact this one was all about weaving was so cool?? I need more crafts and magic in my life! Weaving magic can be created through four elements: wind, for change; sand, for wanderlust; song, for hope; bones, for death. The way these magics influenced the story and world were so interesting. I found the carpets of change, made from wind, particularly amazing: that these carpets are used by individuals who wish to change their bodies to match their identities is just so cool?!

Which leads me to my second favourite thing about this novella, the exploration of gender, expression and identity. God I really just fucking love books that have magic systems that allow for trans and nonbinary individuals. We have evolved past the need for binary magic systems!! I loved how the nameless man explored his new identity but in a way that took into account the fact he'd lived life as a woman for 60 years? The way he embraced the fact he was a man but also that he'd been raised to trade and explore the world, which would usually be a woman's role. It was so great to see that acknowledged? That yes he was a man, but you don't just lose everything that made you who you are for the last 40 years after transitioning?

This was a really great novella. Given the subject matter, there is a great deal of transphobia, dead-naming and misgendering so do be aware of that going in. But I'm definitely very interested in reading more of Lemberg's work set in the Birdverse!

“I turned sixty-three this year; I would sit like this, until I sat among bones... My life has stopped, like a wind trapped in a fist.”

It seems fitting that a story about change would start at point of stasis.

If you like your prose on the poetic side, you’ll love this artful and heart-ful look into love, identity and change. (If you prefer more straightforward language in your novels, you may wish to look elsewhere.) It is truly a beautiful little book. It contains far more emotion than a reader might reasonably expect; a book three times its size would struggle to hold half as much.

Summary:

In as much as this story <i>can</i> be summarized, it is about a weaver, Uiziya, who must seek out her long since exiled aunt to finish learning a difficult magical craft. A nameless man who loves his culture, even when it has no place for him, struggles with what it means to find and live a dream; he is a changer, a man who recently changed his body to match his heart after living for decades as a woman. He and Uiziya have known each other for many many years, but now their two stories begin to intertwine more deeply as they set out to find the great weaver Benesret.

Plus a tyrant needs some serious overthrowing. And there are snakes, lots of snakes.

Characters:

Uiziya - An older woman who must seek her aunt Benesret, the master weaver, in order to learn the final, secret technique for the mystical system of weaving. Bonus points for the fact that, at the age of 63, she definitely marks a type of character you almost never see in literature. She is a skilled older adult woman; not a quirky teen or downtrodden late 20-something—she is just a person who continued to exist past youth and managed, somehow, to avoid that weird multi-media black hole that consumes all women who are not young and conventionally attractive and doesn’t let them appear on the screen, stage, or page again until they fit comfortably in the mold of elderly, grandmotherly wise woman. Man is it nice to find a well developed character who isn’t perpetually 16, 21, or 30.

The nameless man, nen-sasair, son of the sandbirds - A man struggling with the burdens presented by society’s expectations of gender, particularly masculinity. (Another unexpectedly rare character; few trans or gender-nonconforming characters grace the pages of published book and fewer still feature Trans adults who transitioned late in life. And yet this story offers more than one!) The nameless man lived forty years as a woman, knowing all along that that was an ill-fitting identity, that deep down he never had been a woman. He struggles with what his choices mean for his family, for his grandchildren who are supportive but do not truly understand him. He struggles with guilt and an ingrained fear of judgement from others.

I was immediately on board for the concept of this book based on its summary, but a review describing it as an “anti-authoritarian, queer-mystical fairytale” completely had me sold on it. I had to read it. I am glad I did. This short novella is powerful. It is <i>profound</i>.

(I am very grateful that NetGalley and Tachyon Publications approved my request for a review copy.)