I was so excited for another book by Fonda Lee as the Green Bone Saga will go down in history as one of my favorite series of all time. Sadly I felt very apathetic toward this story. I found it very hard to care about the main characters quest to stop the manticore. The training aspects and the ending definitely was the strongest part of the story, but I still struggled to feel much toward it as I was not connected to the main character. I find revenge stories where the character is tracking an animal or creature that kills due to its nature less compelling than say seeking vengeance on someone who actively made the choice to harm your family. Overall the writing was strong and the descriptions of the hunting scenes were incredible, sadly the rest of the story left no real impression on me other than feeling disconnected.

fonda lee never fails to amaze me with her ability to create a world that’s so unlike anything i’ve read. from start to finish this entire novella was full of amazing writing, characters so well written and lines that i can’t wait to mark up when i get my hands on a physical copy. i’m such a huge fan of the green bone saga and this novella was such a different experience, i already know i’ll be rereading it!

I may have overhyped this book in my mind because The Green Bone Saga trilogy is one of my top three favorite fantasy series of all time. Because this is a novella, the world building and character development doesn’t get a chance to evolve the way I would have liked it to. Fonda Lee did do a beautiful job of depicting the relationship between a roc and their ruhcker. The ending was definitely very emotional but overall I was left a little underwhelmed with the story.

Untethered Sky is a mostly enjoyable fantasy novella by Fonda Lee, but one whose brevity I felt prevented it from reaching its full emotive potential. This is, however, something I often feel upon reading novellas (though not always as per my 5-star review of Lies of the Ajungo), so readers of this review should keep that in mind. Some of us, it appears, are just generally not built for the form, though exceptions can always break through.

The novella is set in a rough-hewn, pre-industrial world where much of the non-urban population lives in fear of large predators such as wolves and lions. The most dangerous by far, and thus the most feared, is the manticore: tall, fast, man-eating carnivores whose worst trait is the manner in which they go into a killing frenzy when they hear screaming. Given that screaming, as one might assume, is a common response to witnessing a manticore rip the entrails from a loved one or traveling companion, such frenzies are not infrequent.

To guard against them, the empire has created a cadre of “ruhkers”, warriors who train and quasi-bond with the only predator big and tough enough to kill a manticore: the roc. Taken from the nests at a very young age, the giant birds are trained one-on-one with a ruhker, much akin to the sport of falconry. Save that rather alighting on their partner’s arm the rocs need a custom-built platform towed behind their human’s chariot. Once trained to hunt, the ruhker drives them out to where the predators are, frees their roc, then basically drives around acting like bait. When the predator attacks, one trusts/hopes their roc will have enough time so that the predator rather than their human becomes the prey (this isn’t always the case; being a ruhker is a dangerous job)

Untethered Sky is told via the first-person POV of Ester, whom we first meet at as an 18-year-old ruhker apprentice when she is introduced to Zahra, the fledging who will become her hunting partner. The book then mostly moves forward in time, with major leaps of months or years between sections divided into training and experience: Fledgling, Hunter, Captor, Savior. The culminating big action scene is the Great Hunt, a massive joint action by the empire’s soldiers and ruhkers to wipe out as many manticores in one fell swoop as possible. The “cast of thousands” action is followed by a much more focused and person segment of action.

The exceptions to the mostly linear progression of the story are a flashback that shows us why Ester is so obsessed with killing manticores — she survived a horrific attack at her home — and some ominous flash forwards via lines like: “That’s how I wanted to remember the three of us. Not marred and bowed by tragedy, but young and joyous. What I would give, to return to those days . . .

That trio is made up of Ester and her fellow ruhkers and best friends Darius and Nasmin. Darius is uncomfortable around people and quiet, while Nasmin is outgoing and strong voiced. Watching their relationships form and then morph over time is one of the pleasures of the novella. Lee has an ease and naturalness in her depiction of friendship and early romance, the ups and downs of both, the moments of anticipation and aspiration, of joy and jealousy. The same holds true with the relationship between the ruhkers and their rocs, which is deep and powerful. I called it a quasi-bond because this isn’t the sort of typical fantasy animal-human mind-meld kind of bond such as one sees for instance in the PERN dragon books or the WHEEL OF TIME, to name just two of many such instances. Lee, through Ester, is always quick to remind us that these are, at their heart, wild creatures and though a relationship does form, it is one that never does cross over the barrier between species. Ester and her colleagues have a respect for the wildness of their partners, and for the natural world as a whole. Even as Ester kills wolves to protect people, she recognizes they are only doing what predators do and mourns the necessity of killing them.

The writing is always precise and sharp and the pace is nigh on perfect for the narrative’s intent and form, such as the manner in which Lee dispenses with long periods of what Ester tells us would simply be “repetitive” and dull training. The narrative is tight and effective, the prose smooth and strong, so it’s an easy book to recommend.

As for why it falls a bit short of its full potential for me, there are a few reasons. One minor quibble is that the foreshadowing felt a bit too much for me, though since these were only a single sentence dropped in only periodically, it wasn’t as noted a huge issue. A larger problem was that while on an authorial level the story was well written, on a narrative/voice level Ester’s recounting of the tale felt a bit too flat and methodical. That, combined with the form’s brevity, led to the emotional payoffs being less than I felt they could have been, particularly past the early stages when relationships either burgeoned or deteriorated. And one side plot involving the manticore that killed most of Ester’s family felt unnecessary and somewhat out of place. These issues didn’t prevent me from enjoying the book, but they did mean I felt not fully satisfied by the end. On the other hand, if you’re a general fan of the novella form, chances are you’ll be far less bothered by them.

This book is fantastic. Fonda Lee is such an expert at writing exciting stories, and I flew through this one. I was utterly engrossed, and I loved the world that was built. The wildness of the rocs are shown so well, and there was a constant theme of prey and predators between humans, rocs, manticores, and other wildlife (much like you'd find on a wildlife documentary!) There is a bit of blood and guts, which is to be expected in hunter-prey motifs, so I didn't mind it too much. The ending felt so poetic and made me wish for a full trilogy in this world. A huge thank you to Tor and Netgalley for a copy of this eArc in exchange for an honest review!

I think one of my favorite things about novellas is how its a very heavy focus on one particular part of the world the author created. Untethered Sky features such a rich culture around its Ruhkers, a group od roc-trainers in the king's employ that aren't war focused, and a rich world just outside of it that I didn't mind that I didn't get to see. It allowed me to briefly ponder and fill in the gaps, able to put a little bit of my own imagination into this world.

And I utterly adored this world. I utterly adored Ester and her awareness of what she was doing and the complex feelings she had for it and those around her. I'm not the biggest fan of love-triangle plots, I'm sure most people are aware of it, and female-female jealousy moments (especially when they're friends) in this aren't my favorite but it wasn't the worst I've ever read. The end of it was handled well and I was happily surprised with it.

The relationships didn't need a lot of development because of the nature of them, the nature of the animal handlers. If it hadn't been that way and the characters hadn't been themselves, I think it would've felt underdeveloped or lacking but it was just right. I felt the love, the draw, the push and pull.

There is a lot of visceral death, both animal and human in this, so reader beware. Some of it made me uncomfortable but it wasn't so much I needed to stop reading entirely.

Persian mythology inspired fantasy novella with a resilient MC, clear beats and easily digestible worldbuilding?! Untethered Sky fulfilled all my novella wants and wrapped it in a bow. Lee commands the story by offering beautiful characterization driven by the world and personal desires of connection. I highly recommend Untethered Sky for an alluring journey of loss, ambition and love.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Untethered Sky releases April 11, 2023

Split into 4 parts, this novella deftly recounts a condensed period of time in Ester’s life where she had the pleasure of bonding with and training her roc, Zahra — starting as a ruhking apprentice with a fledgling, to then being skilled manticore hunters, until their time together came to a bittersweet end.

In part one, we experience the beginning stages of Ester training Zahra, and their first hunt.
In part two, Prince Khovash stays at the Royal Mews for a brief period to observe the rocs, which leads to Nasmin (Ester’s friend and fellow ruhker) having the opportunity of accompanying the Prince with her roc as ambassadors on a royal tour.
In part three, “The Great Hunt” is proposed to get one step further to wiping out manticores from Dartha.
In part four, this is where most of the action is found as the ruhkers are no longer reactors, but are now attacking head on.

We see that ruhkers are a tight-knit community. I loved the dynamic between Ester and Darius, even though they didn’t need much in terms of their companionship, they were still a constant for each other and their ending was very bittersweet!

This was definitely an enjoyable read! The best way I can sell this novella that was largely centered about large mythical falcon-like birds and their human handlers, is that it felt like a memoir from a fictional character, which was actually quite beautiful and served the format of this story extremely well because it fit this neat little box with no overspill. Would I love to learn more about Ester and the other characters? 100% — but this was a nice concise chapter of Ester’s life.

“Darius lifted me carefully in his arms and set me on his horse, then got on behind me and held me steady against his chest, the gentle pressure like that of a ruhker’s hands on a fledgling during their dark days, promising over and over—<i>you are with me now</i>.”

This was sheer storytelling perfection, it is stunning, beautiful, vivid, pensive…I was completely captivated from the first sentence to the very last.

The balance of world building, backstory, emotion, character growth, tension…is absolutely masterful. From the heart wrenching beginning with her family, to the development of her relationships with Zahra and Darius, to the tragically beautiful conclusion…I felt every moment of Ester’s journey so keenly. Not a word or moment is wasted and despite its brevity, it is a whole, full story that manages to never once feel rushed. The poignancy of the ending left me both satisfied (sobbing! but satisfied) and also wishing it went on forever. Easily one of my absolute favorite reads so far this year and I’m already looking forward to reading it again in the future.

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee is simply astonishing. Sorrow begets infatuation begets stout-heartedness in this tale of monsters hunting monsters and a young female ruhker trying to find and accept her calling. Fans of Brian Staveley's CotUT will find a lot to love here.

Fonda Lee, author of the notably chonky Green Bone Saga, has written a comparatively bite-sized novella about a giant mythical bird, and this begs two questions: does the Fonda Lee magic work in novella form? And how awesome is a book about a monster bird of prey hunting other monsters? I won’t keep you in suspense, because the respective answers are yes, and pretty damn awesome.

This novella takes place in the fictional kingdom of Dartha, inspired by Ancient Persia (Lee herself has said in an interview that it’s specifically inspired by Ancient Persia during the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great; history nerds, don’t say I never do anything for you). In this kingdom, birds from Ancient Persian myth are real: specifically giant eagle-like birds of prey called rocs and something called a manticore (more of whom later). These rocs are trained by rukhers, who devote their lives to looking after the birds so the kingdom can be protected from standard predators but most of all from the aforesaid manticores (honestly, I will come to them).

Enter our main protagonist Ester, a young Darthan woman. Ester has just been given her roc, and she must learn to train it, earn its trust and hunt with it if she is to achieve her ambition of being a proper rukher – and killing a manticore (for which she has personal reasons to hate, reasons I won’t reveal here because it spoils an early scene, even though some of the press around this has revealed it… when will people learn? Rant over). This is essentially a coming-of-age story, then, where the coming of age involves a potentially lethal confrontation with an eagle who’s taken too many growth hormones.

The first thing to say here is that one of the key selling points of this novella, and one which gives it a refreshing patina of originality, is that this is not your normal fantasy animal bonding story. Unlike every dragon book ever, there is no emotional or telepathic or soulful understanding with this giant monster. In fact, to be honest, just like a real bird of prey, Zahra – Ester’s roc – doesn’t really give a toss about her. Ever. There will be no moments of understanding when they look deep into each other’s eyes. No hand, sorry, claw holding. At best, all Ester can hope for is that Zahra will come to tolerate her as a source of food. Many cat owners will understand this deeply.

This might sound a very bad narrative choice – where is the emotion? Where is the growth? But trust me, it’s a genius move. First, because it creates a hell of a lot of tension. Those early training scenes I could feel my teeth set on edge, as Ester navigates the tricky task of learning to be around a bird that could kill her in a nanosecond with one lazy swipe of its claw. This tension never dissipates, as the reader is eternally wondering whether Zahra will finally get bored and fly off and ruin Ester’s years of effort.

Second, it allows Lee to offer up an intriguing character study: Ester is obsessed; obsessed with the bird, obsessed with becoming the best rukher she can; and this comes at the cost of a normal life and arguably normal human relationships. Time and time again Lee returns to this juicy narrative theme of what it’s like to love something that doesn’t love you back, and whether keeping that thing captive is morally acceptable even if you are obsessed with it. Sometimes we see this strange relationship in poetic, romantic terms, Ester practically swooning over Zahra. But in perhaps the best lines of the novella – which I won’t repeat verbatim here so as not to spoilt their impact (they’re that good) – we see her admit to a more realistic assessment of what she is doing with her life and her soul – the idea that she is captive, not just the bird; and maybe in doing so she is just as monstrous.

If that all sounds nice and deep and you were just here for the monster action, however, then fear not, because as anyone who has read the Green Bone Saga knows, Fonda Lee does wild kinetic, electric action scenes just as well as she does deep character study. Rather than super-powered martial arts scenes, however, we get monster birds swooping out of the sky to attack monsters on the ground, and that is just as awesome as it sounds. Lee’s tight, delicate control of movement and drama is on display here; these scenes are breathless and awe-inspiring.

Which brings me to the other monster, the one Ester and Zahra are mainly hunting. The manticore. Another monster from Persian myth, it is a terrifying beast that stalks villages and causes chaos wherever it goes. I won’t describe it here because it’s worth coming across it fresh, but from the moment it is introduced in a creepy early scene of slaughter you realise you are in the presence of true pant-wetting, bed changing terror. It seems to emanate evil, so much so that you want to believe the citizens of Dartha when they claim it is the work of demons itself. Maybe I’m a sucker for scary monsters, but this gave me chills whenever it crept up, even when I was fairly confident it was about to get destroyed by a massive bird. The manticore is not the star of the show, because that honour still goes to Zahra the roc, but it is one of the most memorably terrifying monsters you are likely to come across this year, and its presence elevates every action scene in the book.

What of the other human characters? Ester has a potential human connection, which offers another way to examine the damage her toxic bird relationship has on her life, and she has a friend, whose choices will have a massive impact on her world. But this is not really a book about other humans, just as it’s not an opportunity for worldbuilding (the kingdom of Dartha is as vivid as you’d expect from the woman who gave us Janloon, the city you’d swear was real, but it’s not drawn in any great detail and nor should it be in this slender tome). This is a book about a woman’s relationship with her giant bird, and the ways in which this is good and this is bad. And it’s a book about monsters attacking other monsters. In both ways, this will stay with you, and offers more evidence, if evidence was needed, that Fonda Lee is a storyteller we must follow wherever she goes.

Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga has gained the status of a modern classic over its publication between 2017 and 2021. I haven't read it yet, and so can tell you, hand over heart, Untethered Sky is a triumphant introduction to Lee's work. Chock-full of compelling characters, this novella exudes a love and respect for the myths and legends of the Middle East. Two creatures and their relationship take center stage across Untethered Sky: the roc and manticore.

The roc of myth is a bird of prey, not unlike a giant eagle, capable of picking up an elephant with its talons and carrying it off to its nest in the high mountains. Lee does not portray her rocs capable of quite such a feat, but that is not to say they are not spectacular creatures through sheer size. Soon after protagonist Ester first encounters the roc she is to domesticate, Zahra, she notes:

"With one massive taloned foot, she could crush my head like a ripe apricot and tear out my entrails before anyone could make a move."

Zahra's physicality is a thing of beauty, and to watch her grow through Ester's eyes is to share in her love and tenderness for this magnificent creature, monstrous and petulant and cruel as it can, on occasion, be.

What makes rocs so valuable as to be domesticated in the all-consuming way they are is that they are the sole natural predators to the malicious manticores who feast on humans. These solitary monsters are a blight on humanity, prowling the wildernesses, attacking villages and outposts and the outskirts of towns in flurries of rage caused by human screams. And, sure enough, screams accompany a manticore everywhere they show up. Savage beasts like these are a blight on the earth, and horrifying:

"The manticore turned its gaze on me. One long, infinite stare. Its eyes resembled human eyes, but whatever feeling or intelligence was behind them was alien and hungry. One iris was golden brown, the other was as blue as the sky."

Lee paints such vivid pictures of these creatures, the same way as when she sets up the hardships a ruhker goes through to create the bond between themselves and their roc. The first third of the novella is committed to painstakingly imbuing the practice of ruhking with life and tradition. Seeing Ester go through the hardships she does, seeing the personal sacrifices necessary, but also the camaraderie between the men and women who choose this path for themselves. Take Darius, for example:

Ruhking is a proud profession that attracts some individuals motivated by personal ego and the number of kills they can attach to their names. Darius wasn't one of those people; he might not be happy about losing his quarry, but he was also relieved not to risk Minu's life.

Darius is one of two major supporting ruhkers who both serve as mentors and friends, the other being Nasmin; the stories of the three and their rocs are intimately interwoven, with twists and turns I'd never dare spoil for you.

To be a ruhker is to give your life to a beast, knowing all the meanwhile that this beast is driven not by the complex interweaving of emotion and rationality a human is but by instincts that can only be grasped at a surface level. The relationship between Ester and Zahra is a thing of beauty: to Ester, Zahra is at once a tool of vengeance against the manticores, a captive, an extension of her will, another self. To Zahra, Ester is captor, nurturer, caregiver, beastmaster. And more, much more than this--mine is not an exhaustive list by any margin. Nor are the roles of captive and captor clearly defined. Rather, the boundaries between the two are porous, captive and captor lost in the act of captivity:

"On the good days, you feel as if you and your roc are one. Zahra and I were complete; we were the sun and the wind, the sky and the earth, life and death, above the world and untouchable."

Zahra comes alive in so many ways, Lee giving her personality in spades:

"Rocs are a reminder that nothing is beyond God's power of creation. She is possibility incarnate; when she soars into the air, she takes part of me with her, far away from the constraints of the earth. She was also as tedious and demanding of my patience as only a large beast can be … she was like a recalcitrant child--one the size of a large man armed with deadly weapons."

Not a profession for the weak of heart, I'll tell you that much. As far as freshmen efforts in novella-writing go, this measures up among the most charming of them. Conflict, excellent characters, plentiful action, and a unique bond between human and beast. All of that enclosed within a gorgeous cover. What more can you possibly want?

This was stunningly beautiful. I want to say upfront that there is animal harm and death throughout this story. However, if you can get through that, then I highly recommend this.

Untethered Sky is an amazing story of tragedy, obsession, and the very human quality of ownership and love for a creature. Ester is a Rukher, which means she is part of a group that trains Roc's (huge, magnificent birds of prey) to hunt Manticores.

The story begins with the tragedy that befell Ester's family when a Manticore attacked. Ester and her father survived, but she was still very much estranged from love and family. When she becomes a Rukher and cares for her Roc, Zahra, she finds a whole new reason to live and to love.

As much as she loves Zahra, though, Ester's Roc is still somewhat captive. She has much freedom and a good life, but she doesn't have natural freedom. So, no matter how devoted and enthralled Ester is to her Roc, she is in constant fear of losing her.

This was gorgeous storytelling. Not unexpected from Fonda Lee, of course. A very meaningful and beautiful story.

Out April 11, 2023!

Thank you, Netgalley and Tor, for this opportunity.

Untethered Sky is a brief, beautiful novella that packs in themes of family, love, loss and belonging, all under the wing (ha) of a compelling plot about training giant birds to fight monsters.

Ester is a trainee rukher in the royal mews, ready to move to the next stage and try to tame a newly captured wild roc. Once she completes the first, dangerous step in bonding with her charge, she'll be sent out to hunt the manticores that plague the countryside, and there is nothing she wants more in life than this. She's a young woman dedicated to a dream, surrounded by a precious few who understand her obsession, and holding deep in her heart the reason she left her family behind to follow this path. We watch her take those steps into the life she's dreamed of, and watch the relationships she develops with the people - and giant birds - around her as she grows into that life and her own self.

Untethered Sky is a perfect example of what a novella should be - beautifully self-contained, efficient and neat. Fonda Lee uses the shortness of the form as a boon, not a burden, so tightens in the focus on Ester, her perspective, her emotions and her struggles, leaving us deeply embedded in how she views her own life. It's not a book that throws the big drama at you right away, and not one for dramatic, sweeping emotional moments, but it has a quiet certainty that builds as you read, and leaves you in an emotional chokehold by the end of the story. All the more impressive when it does it in only 160 pages.

The viewpoint we get, then, is a very narrow one - just Ester, her two closest friends, and her bird, with brief moments and appearances from others as required. It's this triad of friendship, with the only people who can really understand what she cares about, that is the focus of the first half of the story, though we expand out a little as we go on. And again, that close focus is such a boon to this novel, because in so little space, we get such a good understanding of the three characters, how they interact, and the bittersweetness of this period of their relationships.

Because this isn't a happy fun novel of monster-hunting adventures. It's more a story about growing up, especially emotionally, and about losses of various different kinds. It's a story that's interested in the complexities of friendship dynamics, and how people can behave in perfectly reasonable ways that nonetheless hurt even those closest to them, and the guilt we can feel for our actions that drives us, no matter how unreasonable it may seem on the outside.

What is also does, which I found particularly interesting, is to tell it from the perspective of a character who could so, so easily have been a secondary character in a story told a slightly different way. Ester is great, and interesting, and a lovely, flawed person whose head we ride inside. But Ester is, in a certain light, not really the protagonist of the events we see. And so we're seeing only one particular side of these events, one particular slant on them.

And, of course, that's true of any story. But it is a well-managed thing that Lee has crafted her story such that it works, it stands alone and as itself, and is interested and balanced and complex... while at the same time, leaving us with a lingering feeling that this isn't the main event, or the close view. We're looking in at the window, instead of riding in the front seat, and that's fascinating. To play with the audience's perspective like that, and to do it without being heavy-handed or obvious, is such a delicate, skillful thing, and it was a joy to read.

Unsurprisingly for the author of The Green Bone Saga, the world Lee has created here is also fabulous. But again, the brilliance of it comes through in the fact that there are only 160 pages in which to do it. Lee has given us a world inspired by historic Persia, but she has mainly done so in little parts here and there, rather than focussing on it. We see satraps and fire rites, of a king and the manticores that plague his kingdom, but none of these are foregrounded, instead just moments that enrich the main story of Ester and her obsession and her life. It is surprisingly well-fleshed for how little actual page-time is dedicated to it, and once again it is a testimony to Lee's deftness in craft.

It's also a setting we see less often in fantasy, and one which felt just as ripe for that extra flourish of the fantastical as any of the other historical settings we see more often.
If I have one critique of the story, it is that the foreshadowing at times is quite heavy-handed, and perhaps feels more weighty than the events that later happen actually deserve. That being said, logically, some of it is genuinely catastrophic from the characters' perspective, so the problem is more that, having had the foreshadowing, the actual events are not made to feel quite so dramatic in the moment for the reader. But it's a very minor gripe, and one that did not really spoil the narrative at all for me.

Over all, I think Lee has crafted a poignant, beautiful novella, rich in emotion, and one that exists in such a perfect, neat form that it could only ever have been as it is. Some stories do not need a full novel to explore, and are better for their brevity - we inhabit them for a moment, focussing on a small window or time, or a specific idea or emotion, without the core of the narrative or themes being muddied by wider context. This is precisely one of those stories, and I hope we see more standalone novellas from Fonda Lee in the future, if this is what they're going to look like.

UNTETHERED SKY by Fonda Lee
Published: 4/1/2023 by Tordotcom
Novella of 160 pages


A delightful excursion into high fantasy that most reader’s will gulp in one or possibly two seatings. A journey of self actualization that Ester travels from childhood to adulthood, and along the way achieves persistence, vengeance, friendship, and even love. Ester experienced tragedy and trauma when she witnessed her mother and baby brother brutally slain by a manticore. ( The manticore being the legendary Persian creatures that persisted in western European medieval art in the form of a gigantic beasts with the head of a human, body of a lion and a tail of venomous spiked protuberances.). In response to the countryside being plagued by attacks of the Manticores ….. formed were the King’s Royal Mews, where dedicated “ruhkers” were trained in the art of the mastery of the Rocs of legend, that would hunt and kill the Manticores. ( The Rocs were the enormous legendary birds of prey in the mythology of the Middle East ). Ester’s path of destiny led her to become a Ruhker, and become paired with the fledging Roc, named Zahra. This path required self sacrifice and dedication in forming the bond between woman and beast. Ester was determined to not only seek revenge for the demise of her family , but also to make a mark in the world for herself. Along the way she also forges a bond, and friendship, akin to fledging love with Darius, another ruhker.
This masterful novella explores the themes of redemption, self-sacrifice, friendship, and love, along the journey of Ester as she achieves her own self actualization. This short adventure will pull at your heart strings, and is much more than a simple tale of vengeance. There are terrific action scenes during the hunt of the manticores that are filled with emotion and tension. Fonda Lee proves to be a masterful storyteller with this beautiful tale, as she maintains an almost constant sense of dread and danger in dealing with the monsters of life.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review.

I love me some Fonda Lee. Between the danger of hunting manticores and of training rocs, I was IN. Going into an animal-centered book, you do have to brace yourself for some kinds of trauma in that regard, but I do think that it was all done with care. Ester lets being a rukher quickly consume her identity, projecting onto her roc Zahra. As the story goes on and they get closer, you just know that the devastation is impending. It's a phenomenal novella, giving you just enough about the world as a whole for you to understand the stakes... but not so much that it becomes a full length novel. It's truly phenomenal.

*Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

The novella starts off slowly with gradual and subtle worldbuilding that reminds me of a Melissa Caruso or Andrea Stewart novel. Lee only ever gives you enough world to understand exactly what happens in the moment—and nothing more. She does the same with backstory. And it works perfectly if you’re the type to get overwhelmed by terminology etc.

Lee’s skill at foreshadowing is also superb. By the time that we reach the end of the novel, she has delivered on every single thing that she promised, no matter how large or small, and you can see a clear cause-effect correlation between every single section of the novella. And yet it’s only clear in hindsight. It’s not clear in that it becomes predictable while you read it. That, to me, is expert foreshadowing.

The story has strong stakes right from the get-go, which adds a sense of urgency and purpose to the main character, which makes her instantly relatable.

Lastly, the ending of the novella is the most perfectly satisfying ending that I’ve read in a long, long time, which mostly has to do with the fantastic use of foreshadowing and (release of) tension.

I´m so torn about this one, but mostly because I just wish it was longer! I know this is only a novella, but I adore the world Fonda Lee is describing and the whole concept of the Rocs and their handlers. I think I would have loved a longer story set in this world, with more complex characters and a deeper storyline, because it was sadly rather shallow. The ending came rather abruptly and left me disappointed even though it logically made sense. Would love more of this universe though!

I loved everything about this novella, the characters, the story, the setting, and the writing. All of it. My only complaint is that I wanted more than a novella's length to explore these characters and their world. I rarely want to annotate while reading, but I found myself itching to highlight so much of the beautiful and insightful prose. There's just something so special about Lee's voice. Her writing is somehow both matter of fact and emotionally evocative, which shines here just as much as it did in the Green Bone Saga.

The premise of the story is fairly simple but really, really cool. Ester's family was murdered by a manticore, and she becomes obsessed with being a ruhker so that she can dedicate her life to killing the horrid, man-eating beasts. The book follows her journey of training her roc and becoming a successful ruhker until tragedy strikes and changes everything. Of course, there were plenty of moments that completely ripped my heart out, which seems to be Lee's specialty as this point, and I was surprised by how much I came to care about these characters so quickly.

The rocs were so interesting, and the relationship between roc and ruhker was a fascinating one to examine. It allowed for the exploration of obsessive, one-sided love, as well as the process of accepting the loss of something, possibly everything, important to you. I was torn between loving the relationship between Ester and Zahra and being horrified by the brutality of Zahra being ripped away from her natural habitat and manipulated into servitude by the person claiming to love her. I wasn't expecting so much nuance to be packed into such a tight story, but somehow Lee managed it.

Overall, this was a beautiful, quick story that fantasy fans will most likely enjoy. I would have loved to get even more of it, especially the world-building, but I have no complaints about what we did get. Therefore, I rate this one 5 out of 5 stars, which should come as no shock to anyone who knows how much I love Lee's work.

Untethered Sky follows Ester, a young farm girl whose life is changed forever after a fearsome manticore attacks and kills her family. Ester goes on to become a ruhker, one of the legendary trainers and keepers of rocs, giant birds who are used throughout the land to kill manticores. As Ester and her roc, Zahra, train and grow together they face many challenges and Ester must learn which she fears most: the manticore, or losing Zahra.

This novella was absolutely amazing and had me hooked from the get-go. I love the way that Lee writes. It's familiar and comforting, but you need to remember to never get too comfortable, because a twist in the story is imminent. Beyond the gut punches that were so expertly written, this novella offers some wonderfully complex characters that although I wish we had more time to sit with them, the author does a great job of making their stories feel complete. Despite the novel's length, the world-building and use of mythological creatures is excellent.

I would highly recommend Untethered Sky to all readers. I think what's great about this book is that it will appeal to readers across genres. Those who typically do not read fantasy will be able to easily read Untethered Sky and find themselves immersed in this world. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for allowing me an advanced reader copy of this book!