“The Empress of Salt and Fortune” by Nghi Vo

This is a short book that I got from Tor.com. It’s hard to place, there’s elements of whimsy and fantastic creatures, but it also talks about serious topics regarding the kingdom it’s set in and the political world that it’s in. Overall the world building is excellent and leaves you wanting to know more and to reread the book to pick up on more details.

The story follows the cleric Chih who is travelling with their bird companion Almost Brilliant. Almost Brilliant can remember everything that they hear, and their goal is to record history, essentially. They head to the abandoned palace after the death of the Empress. There they meet Rabbit, a woman who used to be a handmaid of the Empress. She tells them stories about the palace. They learn about life, the people, and the conflict. They also learn that Rabbit had a baby, who was then claimed by the Empress as her daughter. That daughter is about to be crowned Empress of the kingdom.

It's a short work, technically a novella I think, but it packs a lot in. Each chapter starts with a list of things that Chih is chronicling in their work. I would have to reread the chapters, but I think that the items are mentioned in the stories or bear some other significance. And the stories, while they were hard to decipher at first, talk a lot about the politics of the land and the impact that those have on people. It also has to do with history and storytelling, Chih talks about how eventually all gaps in history will be filled in, you just have to be patient. And it is clear as the story goes on that Rabbit is an unreliable narrator, and that her experiences are colored by her viewpoint.

Much of it has to do with the power that women have, the Empress brings down a country by sending fortune telling messages around. There are many stories of women who go missing, and disappear from history. Rabbit is nearly one of them, she was sent by her parents to the city because they didn’t have enough to barter with. It shows the toll that this land has on its women.

In general the world building is very in depth and it nails the balance of telling you what is going on so that you aren’t frustrated versus showing you what’s going on so you can watch and pick up on things. There’s things like talking birds that remember everything, and ghosts that wander around. The names of characters confused me for a while, they tend to have multiple, like how In-Yo is also the Empress. But a lot of times you can pick up on what is going on from context clues, so while it sometimes makes you work, you never feel stranded.

This was a really fun read, especially since it is so short. There’s a sequel that I want to check out if I get the chance, to see if we find out more about Chih beyond that they are a cleric recording stories for history.