This isn't a story about literal transformation, though, only the metaphorical transformation that occurs when the central dream of your life is won - and then something goes wrong. Beautifully told by Fonda Lee (my brain keeps trying to correct her name to Jane Fonda, aging is a curse), Untethered Sky tells the story of a rukher on a mission and the roc that brings all her closest-held dreams into being. Sacrifices also had to be made to world-building, often leaving it up to readers to infer certain details about the wider world rather than spelling it all out, but here is where a narrower scope is advantageous to the story. The author can spend more time developing the culture and customs of rukhers when they’re socializing in the Royal Mews or when they’re on the hunt, going into fascinating detail into everything from training methods to the proper care of rocs.

While I've described this to some friends as adult Pokemon, that's more facetious than truthful. Indeed, Lee soars into the world of Roc training that was reminiscent of H is for Hawk's more harrowing passages of loss and hawking. These aren't mythical birds that speak or communicate in the typical sense; indeed, a mix of discipline and knowledge lead the trainers to failure or success against the beasts they hunt. Full points for world building! I don't suppose my father ever guessed that I asked it as endlessly as he did. Some say ruhking is a calling. For me it was an answer to a question that had bored clear through my soul. I had a hole worn through my center, like one of Arnan's interesting blue river stones. People have admired rocs for centuries. Artists paint them, sculpt them, tell stories about them. I wanted to be one. I wanted to be the monster that kills other monsters. Judging this by my novella standards, Untethered Sky is one of the best standalone novellas I’ve read. After years of not reading novellas, I am really coming around to the format, and books like Untethered Sky demonstrate the power that novellas can have. It is a tightly plotted and told story with the feeling of a much longer epic fantasy. While I was completely satisfied with the ending, I would love to be able to revisit this world again and again. Highly recommended. I absolutely loved Untethered Sky. Despite going in with high expectations from having read some of Fonda Lee’s previous work, I was still blown away; I was so engrossed that I read it in a single sitting. And with its shorter length, that’s a perfectly reasonable way to consume this story.I relieved myself in a straw-filled chamber pot and received one change of clothes through the bars. I drank water from my canteen in small sips every few minutes, but even so I wore my throat down. Ruhkers can barely talk at all after the dark days. What I said was not important, only the sound of my voice. So I told Zahra about how long I had been waiting for her. I told her about the other rocs and ruhkers in her new home. I told her about our future, about how we would always hunt together. I told her everything about my family and the place I grew up: olive trees and goats, the stone house, creek water ice-cold from the mountains, falcons waiting on above. Mother and Father and Arnan. When boredom and exhaustion turned my constant talk into babbling nonsense and dragged my chin to my chest, I slept. this was a lil novella i read right after coming out of a mini reading slump and it definitely delivered what i expected, but this could have easily been a 4 stars if it was a full length book. fonda lee we were robbed 😤 Fonda Lee wonderfully and brutally reimagines the mythic monster hunter with one of the most iconic and compelling literary duos I've ever read." - Matt Wallace, Hugo Award winner and author of the Savage Rebellion Trilogy Ester’s path leads her to join the King’s Royal Mews, where the giant rocs of legend are flown to hunt manticores by their brave and dedicated rukhers. Paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra, Ester finds purpose and acclaim by devoting herself to a calling that demands absolute sacrifice and a creature that will never return her love. The terrifying partnership between woman and roc leads Ester not only on the empire’s most dangerous manticore hunt, but on a journey of perseverance and acceptance.

Gripping action set in vast spaces writ as clean and spare as a dry bone . . . the result is tremendous."— The New York Times Thank you Tor Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. Untethered Sky marked the first time I read a book by Fonda Lee that doesn't take place in The Green Bone Saga series. And as a diehard fan of The Green Bone Saga, I will let you know now that Untethered Sky is a different kind of book compared to The Green Bone Saga. First, the novella is told through the first-person perspective of Ester, unlike The Green Bone Saga which uses multiple third-person POV chapters. Untethered Sky is also more high-fantasy in its nature than The Green Bone Saga's urban epic fantasy. And I liked the change in direction here. This is where the true heart of Untethered Sky takes flight, and where Lee’s ability to laser-focus in on how worldbuilding and character intertwine really pays off. Because the final test to pass is to build, develop, and then master a relationship with a young roc, stolen from its nest and dropped into the dark. This is not a world of telepathy between beings, nor is there any bridge of empathy Ester can walk to better understand her roc, Zahra. There are just behavioral tactics that Ester employs in those first dark weeks, when she must remain in the enclosed cage with Zahra, feeding her, attuning her to her human voice, and doing everything in her power to convince the young predator that she is her master, not her prey. It is a microcosm that speaks to the nature of the conflict these riders and the kingdom find themselves in, and showcases the extreme sacrifice and danger demanded to combat a larger threat.Wild rocs were a rare sight in the south where I grew up. My father was a minor landowner with a small but fertile and well-managed parcel of pastureland upon which we raised goats and grew olive trees. We weren’t wealthy, but we were well off enough to have house servants in addition to field serfs. After I was born, it seemed my mother wasn’t able to have more children. She miscarried several times, each loss causing her tremendous pain and heartache. In some of my earliest memories, she’s lying on cushions, sweaty, pale, and exhausted, her breath sour from throwing up. “You were too big and came out too late,” she moaned. “You ruined something inside me.” Fonda Lee is an author I hold in exceptionally high esteem. Her Green Bone Saga was nothing less than transformational in my understanding of modern fantasy. That trilogy didn't simply push the boundaries of what is expected of fantasy, it does a pirouette over the fence into uncharted territory. When I wrapped up Jade Legacy, the final book in the trilogy, I knew that Lee had scored me as a lifelong reader. Untethered Sky is an epic fantasy fable in the guise of a nature memoir and a heartfelt monster story about finding one’s purpose and the pursuit of obsession at all costs. thank you, i whispered, as she disappeared from my straining sight for the last time. for allowing me to hunt with you. for letting me borrow your strength. for lending me your wings. ” Fonda Lee is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the epic Green Bone Saga, beginning with Jade City and continuing in Jade War and Jade Legacy. She is also the author of the acclaimed science fiction novels Zeroboxer, Exo and Cross Fire.

As in her Green Bone Saga, Fonda Lee excels at nuanced characterization of complex interpersonal relationships. In Untethered Sky, these relationships include those between ruhkers and rocs and amongst the ruhkers themselves. All these relationships are built on mutual respect and collegiality but with an unspoken barrier preventing deeper connections. The cautiously affectionate interactions between Ester and her fellow ruhker Darius are especially poignant. darius. darius and ester's relationship actually made me hurt sm. they. could. have. had. it all. 😭 they may not make grand gestures or profess their love loudly from the rooftops. but their love is real, and it's deeper than any words or actions could ever express. sometimes, the most powerful love stories are the ones that unfold quietly, in the spaces between words and actions. and in those quiet moments, their love speaks volumes ❤‍🩹 i actually cried myself numb when darius watched ester leave and he stood there stupidly without following her. but that ending healed me and gave me hope, that they got the chance to be happy and together someplace safe. the real star of the book was ester and zahra though <3

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I have seen this compared to dragonriders of Pern, and not so, IMO; the roc training here is pretty clearly falconry like. No riding, no telepathy, just plain old falconry but with extra big and mean birds and prey.