R. B. Lemberg

Real Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: In the School of Assassins, Stone Orphan waits for a first assignment. After their first kill, they will graduate, and attain the coveted cloth of bone. But instead of a commission, Stone Orphan gets an inquisitive linguist, Ulín. By turns, Stone Orphan and Ulín narrate tales of love, suffering, exile, and self-determination, and two wounded souls try to find hope in each other through the radical act of listening.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE show more PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: A storyverse like Lemberg's is not going to be for everyone. A person who can write this is not from the US and not on the gender binary and not wired like the usual drudge/drone in that they aren't very interested in the Overculture and its concerns. No one who was could've written this: "A story moves back and forth in translation, and it is remade every time. Each of us is a story translated to a language vastly different from its first. You can try to translate yourself back, but it won't be the same story."

This is not the thought, the distilled realization, of a person who lives in one language, or one who simply waits to talk again. There's a radical act of vulnerability in listening to what is actually said to you, not simply responding to how whatever is heard makes you feel. Life is not therapy. Author Lemberg lives in that reality.

The Birdverse is multiple tales old now. In accordance with my long-standing policy of not reviewing books I've spent my own United States dollars on, I have not reviewed earlier ones. I'm pretty sure that you can pick this book up and derive a delicious reading experience from its lush, limpid prose with no further background than is provided in the book. That is not to say it will be a doddle. You're wise not to think visually *first* in the Birdverse. There's a reason one main character here is a linguist.... I loved reading it because I am comforted by the Birdverse and its unremarked queerness and prevalence of spectrums. I think those things are background at this point but I also think someone whose first foray into it is this book might disagree with me (this explains the absence of the fifth star). I'm sad to say that is really not very important to me. I think the point of reading is to broaden horizons, to shape and sculpt and prune the thoughts in one's head. Books like the Birdverse ones are going to make themselves at home in spaces you yourself did not realize were there, or fit themselves onto and around ideas you are growing.

Not always comfortable but almost always very healthy for your worldview. I'm sure this book, light on the more troubling things I've heard others describe in Author Lemberg's œuvre as negatives in their reads, is short enough to make your reading pleasant as well as mind-expanding. These people are struggling through barriers we all recognize between ourselves and others. The overcoming of traumas, or not, is a constant. The manner these obstacles are illuminated in the story is enough to cause me to urge the read on you as soon as you can get it.

I don't imagine a lot of cishet people really think about gender othering. It's not asked of you very often. Try it here: Whenever an assumption made in the story brings you up short, don't dismiss it or snort past it; think, "how is my world this frustrating or confusing or nonsensical to another person?" It can open broad vistas. That can only be a good thing for you, and those around you.

At the end of the day, a read gives you what you reach for within it. I got the certainty that I'm not insane, I'm trying to translate from my own inner worldtongue into a different one, spoken by people who care very little for the nuances I love and live for.

And you? show less

This was a collection where I took no notes, not because nothing moved me, but because all of it did, the entire thing at once. And it is all so personal to the author, a sort of memory in poetic form, that it felt false to pick out lines or even poems that I identified with or felt some type of way about. It was all their life, and it was made up of so many elements, so far removed from me — immigration after immigration, gulag, legacies of war and ethnic cleansing, parents locked in show more their grief, estrangement after estrangement.

Even the theme here, Everything Thaws, is less a cause for hope than for another kind of grieving — that which you thought was permanent will also melt away.

I could not put this down. It felt important to bear witness to, and to think about the harms we pass down generations when we don't have the space, tools, or sometimes the inclination to unlearn them. In the end there is not so much joy as there is a new, chosen community, the determination to do better when they can.

And to not be silent. show less

These Birdverse stories take us deep into the lives of those who do not accept the limits of their world as it is. Over decades, indeed centuries, of individuals striving and being the change, their world has been remade, though not perfected. The tone is heavily melancholic, but hilarity does break out, and hope's banner continues to fly.

One of the many reasons I find R. B. Lemberg’s writing so captivating is that they don’t weigh the reader down in details, be it their stark, to-the-point writing style, or their lack of handholding in explaining how the magic of Birdverse works. Rooted in deepname magic, the mythology of the people of this world and their deity Bird remain mostly unexplained, but Lemberg tells their stories in such a way that you feel you understand the complexities regardless.

The Birdverse is a world show more where queerness is the only way of life, and neurodivergency is understood and accepted. Frankly, it’s beautiful. When we are faced daily with hatred and anger, with politicians trying so hard to strip us of our rights, it’s so unbelievably refreshing to find characters and a world like this, where what makes us special and unique is celebrated instead of vilified.

With The Unbalancing, Lemberg tells a story of love, struggle, and sacrifice, but ultimately also of community, about how we are at our strongest when we can put our differences aside and work together. If you’re looking for a happily ever after, you won’t find it here. What you will find is a story of hope, even when things seem to be at their darkest. I won’t lie, I struggled through the beginning of the book; why, I’m not sure, but I didn’t find it as immediately engaging as The Four Profound Weaves, Lemberg’s previous Birdverse novella. However, I’m so glad I stuck with it, as the finale of the story, while heart wrenching, did leave me with that feeling of hope.

Can we also take a moment to appreciate the cover design and interior layout work of Elizabeth Story, because it is fantastic. I was blown away by the cover design for The Four Profound Weaves when I first saw it, and I'm so pleased to see that creativity being carried forward with The Unbalancing. I hope Story does the design work like this on all future Birdverse books!

Someday, I’d like to read more of the Birdverse. Originally told in short stories and poems published in various magazines online (The Four Profound Weaves was the first novella length story, and this is the first novel), I’d love for a collection to be published collecting all the previous works (I’m looking at you Tachyon Publications!). It is a rich and vibrant world that I hope to read more of far into the future.

The Unbalancing will be available September 20, 2022. I’d like to thank Tachyon Publications for the digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

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