The Unbalancing: A Birdverse Novel

Huge thanks to the author, R. B. Lemberg, the publisher, Tachyon, and NetGalley for the advance reader copy of this book.

The short version of what may be a behemoth of a review: If you’re looking for lyrical prose, an action-packed magical fantasy reminiscent of the legend of Atlantis, protagonists that focus on the facets of trans identity and neurodivergence, found family, queer romance, emotive worldbuilding, an original magic system, ghosts, and a wholly unique voice in the speculative fiction landscape- this is THE book you need. If you’re looking for a traditional fantasy story that won’t rock the boat or make you think a lot- this might not be the book for you, but still try it just in case.

“The Unbalancing” impacted me in such a strong way that I feel nearly incapable of doing it justice in a review, but trust me when I say that this will be one of my most recommended novels of the year, and perhaps my favorite novel of 2022. I want to yell about it from the rooftops. I want to re-read it. I want my book club to read it, I want my pastor to read it, and I want every librarian in my state to read it and put it in their collections.

Lemberg dumps the reader into the universe of Birdverse with relatively little introduction, but I appreciate how some of the mythology and history of the culture is explained via oral history sharing between the characters in the novel. Although some reviewers have complained about the lack of visual descriptions of the setting or straightforward explanations for the universe the story is set in, I think Lemberg does an excellent job of providing us just enough information to follow the plot while keeping the novel moderately cerebral. If you’ve never read any of Lemberg’s Birdverse works, you should have no problem still following the plot of “The Unbalancing.” Personally, I think that the Birdverse setting is more approachable and easier to conceptualize in “The Unbalancing,” compared to another Birdverse novel, “The Four Profound Weaves,” especially for those of us who have not read Lemberg’s extensive number of other Birdverse works.

What stands out to me about “The Unbalancing” is the descriptions of the protagonists’ internal experiences throughout the novel. Rather than focusing all of their energy on the plot, Lemberg delves deep into the narrators’ identities, and you can truly see Lemberg’s own life experience shine through in the lyrical expositions of each protagonist’s story and the way their identities intersect. This is an Own Voices novel of genuinely astounding quality. I’m not sure if I’ve ever before felt such an intimate connection with a narrator.

The overall plot of “The Unbalancing,” of two people figuring out how to love and how to save their home and culture at the same time, was exciting and kept me seriously engaged. The couple of twists at the end- when we learn more about the star’s magic and creation, and how the protagonists act during what is effectively the apocalypse- answered many of the questions I had from earlier in the book.

In conclusion: Read this, as soon as possible, and then read it again.

The Unbalancing is a book about survival and being realistic (even in a world of magic) and consent and neurodivergent life, all set in Lemberg's fantastical Birdverse. There's a lot here that is philosophical and intellectual, but Lemberg always manages to keep the storyline moving forward. The book nods to the traditional Western shape for storytelling--intro, conflict, crisis, resolution--but also avoids this form, making the book somewhat circular and focused on personal decisions, sharing, attraction, and action. It's also a different way of approaching climate fiction, and is meditative and full of beautiful language even when describing catastrophe. I love the pace of the novel, the way the characters become involved and care for one another, and the introspection of the narrator. I'd love to read this with other people who know Lemberg's other BIrdverse work; having said that, though, I think it can stand on its own with newcomers to the author's writing.

This novel explores what it means to come together as a group for the common good, and what to do in the aftermath despite the outcome. It was beautiful! My favorite aspect was that the ichidi, or as we would call them nonbinary people, were so normalized and accepted in their society, it’s amazing to see such positive nb rep!

There's no entry into the Birdverse, You just open the book and you're there. The way the Birdverse unfolds before and around me is part of what is so rich and magical about it.

I was hooked on R.B. Lemberg's work after reading The Four Profound Weaves,. Both books drop you right into the Birdverse and leave you to sort out the details as you go. There's no time to decide whether this is a world you WANT or not. It's a world you're in, and now you have to see how it works. There's something very, very good about this (I do feel as if the Unbalancing is a bit smoother with this process, but that's what happens when authors keep writing books - they get even better).

R.B. Lemberg is a skilled worldbuilder, and the Birdverse is a perfect and rich example of what speculative fiction is meant to do. The world they've created is one in which "they" is a given: there's room for all kinds of fluidity, neurodivergence, sexual preference (or not) and gender expression. Chances are that if any of these things are especially important in your life, you'll feel seen here in a way that is joyous, powerful and necessary.

Anyone with the power to distribute literature to people who need it should have R.B. Lemberg's work in their library.

An exquisitely crafted story about love and deep magic, about people coming to terms with the past and their own powers, set in a community and a landscape that faces total destruction. I've been a fan of Lemberg's Birdverse stories for years, and this book delves deep into the magic that helped create the world and create the magic woven into that world. There's a love story here, twined together with the story of a place and a people shaped by, and tied to, the star that once fell into the sea near their island. Lemberg's prose is a thing of beauty as always, and there's a quiet fierceness to this story that I found absolutely mesmerizing.

I've read short stories from this author and I was so excited to see this novel offering! The worldbuilding in this is fantastic. I can't adequately say how excited I am by the OwnVoices representation and hope to continue seeing more of it! I love the way this is character-focused and I loved the style of the writing.

In some ways, The Unbalancing is a fast journey. The story moves quickly. The characters feel, and act, and face an apocalyptic danger, and all that drew me through the pages.

In others, The Unbalancing is very deep. R.B. Lemberg's words gave me a path to follow, so I never felt lost, yet these characters and world have some very different assumptions and ways of living than we do.

Reading The Unbalancing is like walking a rope bridge over a waterfall. It's a short span, and yet, there are glorious discoveries if you want to slow down and look. I'm very much looking forward to reading this again, to immerse myself more in the magic system, social system, ways of communicating and processing the world, and the loveliness of the sentences.

I recommend The Unbalancing highly. Whether you want a good story, a many-faceted consideration of other ways of being, or to observe the author's skill at solving unusual writing challenges, you'll find treasure here.

The Unbalancing is billed as the first full length novel in author R.B. Lemberg's acclaimed "Birdverse" fantasy universe, which previously featured the critically acclaimed novella The Four Profound Weaves. Now the Unbalancing is not much longer than that novella (I'm guessing the ad press refers to it crossing the word count for the Hugo/Nebula definition of "Novel"), but honestly - that's fine, as The Four Profound Weaves (Review Here) was an incredible queer fantasy novella that was one of my favorite works in 2020, dealing with queerness and the right to choose one's own identity and path in a world filled with authoritarians and others fighting against change. So I was exceedingly thrilled to hear that this longer story (one that apparently was a full story adaptation of an earlier poem by Lemberg) was coming in the same universe.

And the Unbalancing is really interesting and really good, even as its very different from The Four Profound Weaves, featuring not a battle for one's right to assert queerness in an anti-queer world, but rather a queer-friendly world in which one queer main character isn't quite sure how they should identify themselves amidst all the options open to them. The story features a romance between an autistic protagonist, whose ancestor constantly urges to take steps towards power and leadership for the good of all despite their lack of comfort in it, and a woman who does take that power and leadership and tries to use it, sometimes impatiently, to remedy and save a land she sees her predecessor as having failed...and to prove herself despite the abuse she suffered emotionally from a parent growing up. It's a story that really surprises in how it unfolds, without really any true villains, as it deals with issues of consent, of power, of how people act in different speeds and have different wants, and about mistakes of the past and ways forward in the future. It is naturally well worth your time, in what little time it takes to finish.


---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------------
Nearly a Thousand Years Ago, the starkeeper Semberí was gifted into their keeping the Star of the Tides, a being it tethered to the islands of Gelle-Geu in hopes of peace and prosperity. But the Star has always been asleep, somewhat difficultly, and the Star's nightmares have shaken the islands....and are only getting worse and worse.

Unbeknownst to the almost anyone on the island, Semberí's spirit has remained on the island, searching for someone who can take their role as starkeeper and calm the Star. They believe that person to be their descendant, the poet Erígra Lilún, who possesses the capability to hold three deepnames, offering them the strongest possible magic.

But Lilún has no interest in this role - they do not feel comfortable with power or leadership or even masses of people, and prefer to enjoy the quiet of Semberí's hill and to stop at two deepnames, rather than take three. Lilún finds themself needing to take things slowly, and doesn't even understand what kind of Ichidi they are, other than the fact that they aren't only male or female. But when Lilún takes Semberí's advice to go visit and see the newly appointed starkeeper, they find a surprise: Ranra Kekeri, an often brash and impulsive young woman desperate to solve the problem and to fix the Star...and whose assertions of leadership Lilún can't help but be drawn to.

Ranra's speed is often too much for Lilún, but even so the two of them find themselves drawn together, even as Ranra gets more and more frantic (to Lilún's discomfort) as the Island's safety becomes more and more in jeopardy. Will their combination be able to save Gelle-Geu? Or even themselves?
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While set in the same "Birdverse" world as Lemberg's last novella, The Unbalancing is a very different story. Here the islands of Gelle-Geu are a generally good place to live, with a people that are utterly accepting of those who are queer, with multiple forms of being non-binary (known here as being "Ichidi") accepted and having their own distinct names based upon how one relates to the M-F spectrum. Everyone involved in the story is trying to do their best to save their land and/or their people, and even the people who would traditionally be the villain in this type of story, like the Trader who opts to use their trade fleet to evacuate the Island as best as possible rather than to stay and place hopes in the protagonists to save it, aren't actually treated as villains, but instead as reasonable people each trying to do the best for themselves and their people. This is a story really of two characters, Lilún and Ranra, as they try to find their place in society and in trying to lead their people to avert disaster, rather than of any enemy or villain to overcome...and of course of the romance that grows between them.

And well, except in potential for power, Lilún and Ranra couldn't be more different which makes this dynamic really really work. Lilún is very clearly on the autism spectrum - they aren't quite fully comfortable in large groups, aren't comfortable with (if not downright scared of) the idea of grabbing power or trying to take a leadership role, and often needs to take time, slow things down and to breathe on their lonesome when things get difficult...even if the timing isn't there for doing that. They care intensely for their people and their land, and especially care for the idea of consent: whether the Star consented to its current situation 999 years ago (since the Star is sentient), whether their ancestors had consent to plant the Star here when they came to an inhabited island populated by welcoming native peoples, and whether the current plan to save the land and heal the star is one that everyone involved is okay with and understands. They could have in theory had the power to save the islands and heal the star, but their mentality prevents them from wanting to grab that power, and requires them to have far more time than available...if any amount of time could be enough at all. This is of course immensely frustrating to Semberí, who is desperate for someone to fix their own mistakes with the Star and sees only Lilún as being close to themselves and with the ability to understand their story to fix it, and is sometimes frustrating for Ranra, who is much more impulsive and aggressive.

Ranra is someone who dealt with an emotionally abusive mother - a mother who was declared mentally ill essentially as a result, but whom she can't quite sever herself from and stop herself from wanting to prove herself. She stopped herself from taking the most powerful deepname combination - the Warlord's Triangle - which is one known for solitude and dictatorial behavior, but still has tendencies in that direction. And yet her need to do something, to fix things and to save the land is based upon her caring, and her desperation to both prove herself and in her belief that she has no other choice. It's an attitude that both pushes her away from Lilún....and draws her in, as she sees in them someone who equally cares even if they can't quite understand Lilún's need to slow down. And it's an attitude that also at times estranges her from her closest other friend and former lover, and when the solution she devises requires people to cooperate together and become closer, it causes her problems.

Lilún and Ranra's dynamic is fascinating, and Lemberg takes it all in directions you wouldn't expect (well if you haven't read the poem first), as Lemberg doesn't provide her characters with easy or necessarily happy answers...because there aren't ones. In the end, the story suggests that people will each have their own ways of trying to do their best for themselves and each other, may find their own identities at their own pace, and that sometimes the mistakes of the past can't simply be healed and may require the possibility of starting over. I'm really glossing over a lot of interesting stuff that happens here, as this story is honestly perhaps a bit overstuffed, but it works really really well and I do recommend it quite a bit.

The Unbalancing was just so beautiful. And queer! Which is my favorite kind of fantasy fiction.

This was my first introduction to Lemberg's Birdverse and their gorgeous, lyrical prose, and I'm definitely a fan. To be honest I'm short on words for how to even convey the way this novel made me feel. The imminent peril, the romance, the magic - I read the whole thing in one setting and putting it down at the end really was like waking up from a lucid dream where everything was unfamiliar and fantastical and yet you were so deeply invested in what was happening. I can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy and read it all over again.

My first introduction to the Birdverse was in The Four Profound Weaves. At the time I said it had the feel and sense of a myth in the making. The Unbalancing while telling a much different story, has the sense of a myth or legend being broken and remade, as the poet Erigra Lilun and the new starkeeper Ranra Kekeri are the ones left holding the very large and torn bag, so to speak, when the most heartbreaking chapter of this world’s origin story comes home, not to roost but to destroy, on their beloved home islands of Gelle-Geu.

The island confederation of Gelle-Gau has experienced regular earthquakes during its nearly 1,000 year history. Because one of the 12 stars that are part of this world’s creation myth – which is no myth in the Birdverse – rests uneasily in the ocean between the islands. Whenever the star gets restless there’s a tremor. In recent years those tremblers have been getting bigger, longer and more frequent.

There’s clearly something wrong, and it’s getting wrong-er all the time. The last starkeeper, the person whose duty it is to monitor the health of the submerged star, didn’t want to know. Or knew too much and wallowed in despair rather than searching for a solution.

Whatever is upsetting their star is going to result in an extinction level event for the islands. And it’s already too late for their beloved Gelle-Gau. The question before the new starkeeper and the shy, withdrawn poet who perhaps should have been starkeeper years ago is whether or not it is too late for their people.

And whether they will have time for a new beginning for themselves.

Escape Rating A: I enjoyed my introduction to the Birdverse in The Four Profound Weaves and The Unbalancing was even better. Weaves was lovely but it was a bit of a quieter story in its way, while The Unbalancing is considerably more dramatic and dynamic by the very nature of the crisis it must contend with.

The world, at least as far as the islands of Gelle-Gau are concerned, is ending. Attempting to hold back that literal tide pretty much guarantees a fast-paced story filled with high stakes, epic conflicts and nearly crushing lows and blows.

At the same time, it contains a beautiful story of opposites not only attracting but discovering that they belong together and need each other – not just to overcome the disaster that has crashed into their budding romance – but because they are both unbalanced, just as their star is, and they need each other to bring balance to their lives, their hearts, and ultimately their people.

This is also very much a coming of age or coming into maturity or simply a coming into self knowledge story. Ranra, the starkeeper has always known who and what she is in all her prickly, sometimes overbearing, always pushing forward self.

Lilún, very much on the other hand, is cripplingly shy, and so uncertain of their own nature or their place in the world to the point where they almost completely isolate themself. Lilún’s part of The Unbalancing is to finally figure out who they are in relation to their wider world. Because initially the only thing about themselves that they are certain of is that they are a gardener and tender of trees.

(Even their name evokes that identity. The name Lilún is reminiscent of “lulav”, one of the four plants that epitomize the Jewish harvest holiday Sukkot. Among the other plants is the etrog citron, which is abundant on Gelle-Gau to the point that it is used as the basis for a cool citrus drink similar to lemonade.)

What gives this story its oomph – and lots of it – is the race to heal the star and save the islands. That the effort fails seems like it would be one hell of a downer – but it’s not. What makes the story rise in the end is the acknowledgement that the land, though beautiful, is not important. It’s the people that made the islands, and they’ll find a new place that they will make just as beautiful and fruitful, because they are bringing both the heart of Gelle-Gau and the heart of their beleaguered star along with them.

The more I read of the Birdverse, the more fascinated I become with this fantastic and fantastical place. The story in The Unbalanced is complete in and of itself, but it hints at depths that I found myself wishing I knew better. In other words, I loved it AND I wanted more. And I found it in Geometries of Belonging: Stories & Poems from the Birdverse, a collection of many of the foundational stories of this marvelous place. I’m looking forward to diving in and learning that MORE – and soon!

Represenation: Queer MC, queer and trans MC, many QTBIPOC supporting characters

Stars are alive. They dance, talk, and breathe. Except for the one that fell near Gelle-Geu, that one sleeps restlessly. Generations of starkeepers have kept watch, and now Ranra, the newest starkeeper is left to worry about the increasing tremors that her predecessor ignored. Lilún, a poet who wants to live a simple life alone, has been visiting their ancestor, Semberí. Their ancestor was the first starkeeper, and insists that Lilún should be the starkeeper to be there when it wakes. Semberí also tells them stories of the stars' deliverance by Bird, their goddess, as the island shakes more and more often. Ranra and Lilún meet, sparks fly, and they both work together to figure out a solution to the restless star before it's too late.

Rating: 4.5/5 Lemberg's writing is gorgeous and very poetic. I really love the magic system in this universe, and I enjoyed this more than The Four Profound Weaves. Not to say that I didn't like it, I simply felt this had a much clearer and better paced story and the stakes were far higher. I loved the system, if that's the right word, for how trans people (called ichidi in this) identify themselves with tokens that represent what type of ichidi they are. I liked Ranra and Lilún's relationship, but it did feel like it moved VERY fast for people who supposedly knew nothing of each other up until that day they meet at the starkeeper's ascension party. I wish we could have seen far more of the supporting cast, I really liked some of them and felt like they had so much more story to be told. There's not much more I can say that wasn't said in the summary without spoiling the story too much.

I am constantly thrilled when I get to read new works by RB Lemberg. I've loved their shorts for years and the novels are even more immersive and beautiful!