As I have come to expect from Fonda Lee, the writing in this novella was excellent, but the story itself just wasn't really for me. It will definitely appeal to anyone with a love of raptors and I thought that the concept of hunting horrible beasts with giant birds was done well, but ultimately for me, it was a bit forgettable.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I did not think anything this author wrote could top Jade City- but I adored this book in such a different way than Jade City that they cannot even be compared. An absolutely mesmerizing world, writing style, and characters that do no let you go. From page one I was hooked, I could not put it down, and I stopped everything in order to finish reading it. That being said, it is not without its slow moments, but I like that in a fantasy. I need to be able to digest what is happening, learn with the characters, and those moments allowed me to do that.

5/5 stars.

I was able to sit down and read Untethered Sky in one sitting, this is a rare occurrence for me as there always seems to be something or someone demanding attention. Fonda Lee was able to craft something incredible with this novella. The characters are rich, their relationships complex so much so that I was in tears at the end of this short novella. Esther's relationship with Zhara at the core takes what a human-animal relationship can be to a whole new level.

I'll be posting a full long-form review on FanFiAddict closer to publication date ~April 1st or 2nd, 2023.

I love that Untethered Sky delivered on its main selling point - the relationship between the MC and her fledgling roc. This relationship was poignant, well-developed and truly compelling. I loved the emphasis on training and drills, and this really showed the bond between the pair growing. Lee's writing is also another highpoint of this book - the characters are interesting, the world is fully-realised, and the pacing was extraordinary.

As the year was nearing the end I hopped onto NetGalley for the first time in months just to see if anything caught my eye. I ended up noticing this fantasy work was available from Fonda Lee. See as I really enjoyed her Green Bone Saga series, I thought I'd check this out. I was disappointed other than how short it was. There was mention that she's been working on a fantasy series so I'll be looking forward to that in the future as well.

As short as this read was it definitely had the feeling of just a novel on the shorter side of length. I really enjoyed the story and setting of this book. Really the only things that caught me a bit by surprise were the amount of information we are given regarding Manticore and Roc. But I guess this is really just feeding the background of the story. Also, what seemed a strange description of Manticore to me. Until this read I'd never pictured them as having ape like faces. This got me so curious by the end that I had to google search for manticore images. Granted most of them are the more traditional look that I was expecting but there actually were a small number of results with ape like faces. I don't know why this got to me so much but I just had to do some research and follow through with that! Now onto my usual review.

The character building was very strong in this novella. I thought we go to learn quite a bit about our protagonist but also several of the supporting characters as well. We see many characters go through struggles and triumphs in this short read. And not necessarily in that order as well. This isn't a completely happy ending for several characters but I hope Fonda picks this world up and expands it some more in the future if this wasn't the previously mentioned fantasy series she's been working on.

The pacing had some good ebb and flow to this in such a short read. There may have been a couple of spots that things seemed to slow down a bit for me but they were short lived for sure. For the most part this was a fairly action packed read all throughout.

The world building is always difficult to score in a novella as there just isn't a lot of pages available to flesh things out. But just like the character development in this one I thought Fonda Lee did a solid job with this. The world seemed fairly closed off to us at the beginning where it just kind of felt like an older fantasy time with towns and villages until we begin to learn about the sprawling cities and countryside. Then this world began to see a lot larger with so many possibilities. We also began to get a better feeling of the different cultures and ways of life comparing the people of the small farming towns compared to the densely populated city.

All in all I'm happy to have had a chance to read this novella. It was enjoyable and I really look forward to what else the author can do in the future with the fantasy genre! I'll be keeping my eye out for that series to hit the shelves so I can give it a go!

A fascinating little novella which I enjoyed a lot as it reminded me of a grown up version of Temeraire. "Untethered Sky" is about the bond with beasts and people of power, yet it's not a 5 star read for me as it felt unfinished, parts of it not fleshed out enough. There was a strong sense of foreshadowing going on from the start, yet the climax and ending were not really surprising. I nevertheless enjoyed it. 4 stars

Having read “Jade City” recently, I was eager to explore another work of Lee’s. “Untethered Sky” did not disappoint. Short and often brutal, it does a fantastic job of capturing the cruel reality of a country where manticore hunt and brutally kill humans. Ester and her motivation are clear, and the way the roc are written shows both love and respect for wild animals. The way the story is told is engaging, with brief flashbacks and occasional words from the future-Ester who is telling the story. Her interpersonal relationships are interesting, and Lee accomplished a lot in this short novella. This is four stars rather than five because the writing was occasionally redundant in a way that had me skimming passages: “she took off like a stone from a slingshot,” “the obsession of a ruhker.” Otherwise, an engaging new piece of writing from Fonda Lee.

"I loved her with the gravity of a stone sinking into a pool"

Untethered Sky is the story of Ester, a young apprentice rukher and her journey to taming and eventually hunting with her very own roc, Zahra. When Ester was thirteen years old, she witnessed her family massacred by the deadliest of foes: a manticore. These manticores hunt and kill around the Kingdom of Dartha and their preferred prey are humans. Ester then makes it her mission to to seek revenge on the creatures that took her family from her.

What initially drew me to this book was the gorgeous cover. It's truly a work of art. I read Jade City by Fonda Lee and really enjoyed my time with it, so when I saw this title by Lee, and the animal aspect within it, I knew I had to read it.

I loved watching Zahra and Ester bond, but especially appreciated the support Ester had from her friends/fellow rukhers. There's a particular event that happened that left me in tears, which is a testament to how much Lee managed to make me care about these characters in a novella.

However, that's also where I think a little of the downfall of this book is. I wish it were longer, and the novella format held it back from achieving a higher ranking for me personally. I wanted to tag along on more monster hunting adventures and follow Ester on some grand quest.

The ending did leave me sad, but it was a realistic approach to the fact that wild animals at the end of the day are not meant to be domesticated and when given the choice will sometimes choose their natural instincts.

I love Fonda Lee's writing and the book flowed extremely well from start to finish. I can only hope we see more books written in this universe.

Thank you Netgalley and Tor for a copy of this ARC and the opportunity to give my honest review.

UNTETHERED SKY is a story of one-sided devotion between a rukher and the roc who can never love her back, training to hunt manticores. The relationship Ester builds with Zahra, her roc, drives much of the narrative. It's all from Ester's perspective, as Zahra is a large bird who is unable to put words to whatever her thoughts might be on the matter. There's a contemplative air to the story, as Ester is telling this story from some unknown point in the future, looking back on her life in stages. I love stories of training, where someone is navigating the small moments of mastering a skill and figuring out how to get even better. Ester is close companions with one of the other rukhers, bonding over the process of training and care of the rocs which are the center of their lives. She becomes aware of the place rukhing has in the lives of other people, their nature as important tools for a very specific job. The worldbuilding is focused on the details of rukhing and the care of rocs, the similarities to falconry and very important differences with a creature far larger than her handler.

I enjoyed this and I love the ending. The details of the manticore hunt are gripping and I didn't want the story to be over but I'm very happy with how it fits the overall narrative.

Review based on an ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley

When she was a child, a manticore killed Ester's brother and mother. Now she has joined the King’s Royal Mews, where she will pair with Zahra, one of the giant rocs of legend flown to hunt manticores. As she trains Zahra and they begin hunting, Ester must struggle with what it means to bond with a creature who cannot return your love.

Growing up, I read and reread My Side of the Mountain over and over because I loved the relationship between Sam and Frightful, a peregrine falcon. Untethered Sky taps into that same well, exploring the beauty of bonding with and training a raptor. Lee never lets the reader forget that while Ester loves and respects Zahra, the roc is a wild animal and things could go sideways at any moment. This novella is a engaging read from the moment the trainer and raptor meet, to Zahra's first kill, to the life-threatening climax. If you love raptors, birds, or human/animal bonds in general, you should read this when it comes out.

Untethered Sky's expected publication date is April 11, 2023. You can find a local bookstore to pre-order the print version at IndieBound, or an ebook at Kobo (or presumably most other ebook distributors). Or suggest a purchase at your local library!

when Ester is 18 years old she officially becomes a rukher apprentice. ruhkers work for Antrius the Bold and the Kingdom of Dartha in its entirety; they live in the Royal Mews alongside their feathery charges and are eventually bound to one specific roc. with this roc, they hunt together; predators preying on the kingdom's livestock, prey to supplement their monarch's pantry, and most especially, manticores.

manticores are large and clever monsters that enter a sort of blood frenzy upon hearing human screaming, which is unfortunate for the locals since 90% of the folks that get attacked start screaming. in this fugue state the manticore will not stop to feed but will slaughter any humans it can get to. rocs are the only things capable of killing a manticore without excruciating cost.

Ester becomes a rukher both to escape the trauma of her past and to get closer to the near mythological birds she idolizes. she is eventually given her own, a young female she names Zahra. upon first seeing the bird Ester thinks: "I loved her with the gravity of a stone sinking into a pool."

Zahra, however, is part and parcel a wild animal, an apex predator all on her own. traditionally rukhers train a single bird and work with that roc for as long as possible, building years long partnerships. some rocs die, some age out, but some simply cannot withstand being 'tame' for that long and must be released into the wild before they turn on the humans themselves. Ester both understands this and doesn't; the whole novella is her struggling with loving Zahra as fiercely as she does and seeing no affection in return.

I wanted to like this book a great deal more than I actually did. I'm very much a bird person so I expected this would be an easy sell for me, but I struggled just as much as Ester with her outlook on Zahra (though I was on the other end of the spectrum). I'll never understand folks that desperately clutch things they love to their chest and squeeze them to death; hasn't anyone heard that Aguilera song, "they say if you love something, let it go / if it comes back it's yours / that's how you know"?

nonetheless, it was an interesting story and Ester is a compelling protagonist. it takes her a long time to understand that Zahra is never going to be a pet or a friend or even a companion, but I loved this quote a lot: "She was my roc. She would always be my roc, even though she had never been mine to possess."

“We are partners in our captivity, each perfectly monstrous in our own way.”

Untethered Sky is my first read by Fonda Lee and I can guarantee it will not be the last. This is a novella about a girl and her gigantic killer bird. It’s a coming of age story with trials and tribulations along the way.

First of all, I have to say that this novella had some really brutal scenes. Ester lives in a land plagued by man-eating manticores and Lee did not shy away from describing how these creatures savage the land and the people living there.

The world is described in enough detail to make you invested but the world-building doesn’t overpower the narrative. I found the story engaging and loved the ominous foreshadowing that kept me intrigued and made me want to find out what would happen next.

If you want a novella full of great characters, beautiful moments, and lots of death and pain, I’d absolutely recommend you add this one to your TBR.

Untethered Sky comes out April 11, 2023. Thanks Netgalley and Tor Books for giving me the chance to review an early copy.

Giant birds, Rocs, protect the land from monsters prowling about. Together with the human that trains them they are society's hope when the manticores are on the prowl. Can the relationship between human and animal overcome the lure of the sky?

This is the first book I've read by Fonda Lee and I was blown away by it. Her writing and the way she has had me hooked from the first page.

PHENOMENAL! So much presented here in such a short amount of time.

Ester was a compelling main character. Her helplessness and fragility in the face of monsters and her determination to exert some form of control over her life, even at the expense of caging herself and the roc she loves, was relatable and heartbreaking. Zahra, for all her deadliness, was extremely endearing, and I absolutely loved all the scenes of her hunting manticores. Darius was just perfect. I loved how dedicated he was to his craft and his roc, Minu, and how he prioritized her wellbeing over his own ego.

Untethered Sky is the first work I've read by Fonda Lee, and her writing is incredible. She has a way of conveying urgency and motion that is unlike anything else I've read -- it feels like you're on the edge of your seat watching something epic happening in slow motion, and I LOVED IT.

If this is what Fonda Lee can do in a novella, I can see why her Green Bone Saga has gotten rave reviews. Cannot wait to read more by this author!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing the arc for review.

The manticore is a gruesome beast… the body of a lion, the tail of a scorpion, the head of a man, and sometimes they have wings or horns, anything to make it uglier I guess, ha! In Fonda Lee’s novella Untethered Sky they sit at the top of the food chain. And the only thing that has a chance to take them out are the trained rocs that fly above the plains to spy both deer/ meat and manticore/ predator.

After her family is tragically killed by one of the beasts, Ester’s revenge is focused on training as a roc-handler apprentice. She’s placed with a fledgling named Zahra within the King’s Royal Mews. This short piece actually covers several years of training and relationship building between roc and ruhker. Ester accepts advice from several mentors and travels all over the map as she learns the minute tells of this union of woman and beast.

Lee’s premise is developed well in just a few chapters. It’s a lived-in world that makes it easy for the reader to walk around in the roc cage ankle-deep in guano and see through the eyes of a gliding bird of prey. Page length does limit the characterization of a couple of the secondary characters and there’s something missing when it comes to the politics of the empire… but I think the main goal of the story is Ester’s development as a ruhker and Lee has achieved good results.

4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor Books, and the author for an advanced copy for review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of the best novellas I’ve ever read. In only 160 pages, Fonda Lee made me care about mythical birds and the bond they have with their riders. This was satisfying and heartbreaking from beginning to end - the foreshadowing is carefully laid out and you piece them together after the fact.

If you have or haven’t read any of Fonda Lee’s books before, I would definitely recommend this to you, and it won’t even take you long to get through at all!

While this novella by Fonda Lee moved along a little slowly it was still a very satisfying read.
Ester's mother and younger brother were killed by a manticore when she was a child, driving a wedge of sorrow between her and her father. Shen she is older she chooses to attempt to become a ruhker, the handler for a roc. It's dangerous to try, let alone to succeed., but Esther is determined and she is able to bond with a roc and make a life for herself.
This short, bittersweet story left me wanting to see more of this world Lee has created that is filled with mythical beasts, royalty and savage lands where the population is trying to survive.
My only complaint is that is was short, and I tend to prefer longer novels/stories as it does allow more immersion into the worlds and character's lives. Otherwise- a lovely story.

[4.5/5 stars] Untethered Sky is one of the best books I’ve read this year – I loved it!!

Granted, I’ve a particular fondness for these types of stories. The ones where we get the nitty gritty details of trainers taking care of their dangerous animals. I usually get my kicks from dragon books (see other books you might like section), and loved seeing Lee’s version of that framework with Rocs (giant birds).

The book had a lot of slow moments where we really got to appreciate the bond between the main character and her bird. Everything from its initial acclimation to hunting drills – it was superb. I love it when authors take their time to highlight the selling points of a story. That may seem like a “duh” comment, but I can’t tell you how many books I’ve picked up on a good premise that never quite delivered on its promises. Untethered Sky definitely didn’t feel like an opportunity wasted.

The MC was my favorite part of the book. She had such a poignant connection to the overall conflict of the story that I couldn’t help but be drawn in. She really believed in her cause, and that personal connection and motive behind becoming a roc trainer added a lot of meaningful depth to the story. I also loved her awkward navigations when dealing with other humans – she was incredibly endearing.

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.

Recommendations: pick this up for a fun story filled with interesting characters, awe-inspiring creatures, and excellent pacing. I loved it.

Niki Hawkes - The Obsessive Bookseller

I found myself a bit disappointed by this book and I feel that the novella format may have held it back. While the premise is very interesting, a society that trains massive birds to be able to combat their one natural predator as told through the eyes of one such trainer, the book was too short to effectively show how this plays out over the protagonist's lifetime. I haven't read anything else from Fonda Lee, but I also found the writing to be a bit flat and dull at times. This was probably due to the choice to tell the story as a first person retrospective, which introduced a lot of distance between the reader and the action. As a result, even the most harrowing scenes of the book, like our protagonist seeing her brother's death by monster, feel colourless and distant. I would be interested in reading more from Fonda Lee since the ideas that went into this book really are excellent. Unfortunately, this particular title was a miss for me