Episode 573-With Aliette de Bodard

The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome Aliette de Bodard, author of The Red Scholar’s Wake.

About The Red Scholar’s Wake: Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates’ enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.

Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si’s help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si’s technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it.

But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together…

About Aliette de Bodard: Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris. She has won three Nebula Awards, an Ignyte Award, a Locus Award, a British Fantasy Award and five British Science Fiction Association Awards.

She is the author of the lesbian space pirates romance The Red Scholar’s Wake (Gollancz/JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc, 2022), and of Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances (JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc), a fantasy of manners and murders set in an alternate 19th Century Vietnamese court. She also wrote Fireheart Tiger (Tor.com, 2021 BSFA Award winner), a sapphic romantic fantasy inspired by pre colonial Vietnam, where a diplomat princess must decide the fate of her country, and her own.

Her space opera books include The Tea Master and the Detective (2018 Nebula Award winner, 2018 British Fantasy Award winner, 2019 Hugo Award finalist).

This week’s picks:

• Aliette: Mr. Bad (Chinese language drama)
• Tracy: The World We Make (Audio) by N. K. Jemisin
• Patrick: Will Trent (ABC)

Links:

• Aliette de Bodard on Mastodon
• Tracy Townsend on Twitter
• Patrick Hester on Twitter
• The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2023 Patrick Hester

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