Untethered Sky

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Middle-eastern based fantasy world (Persian mostly I think, with -polis named city) with extreme power falconry: big rocs are trained to hunt big animals particularly vicious human eating manticores by dedicated trainers. And this is about our fmc (I think she is female, she is so bland I hardly remember and I only read it last night) training her roc, them hunting and more stuff having to do with rocs and our trainer and her roc. The End. 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. 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. ”

Lee’s series will stand as a pillar of epic fantasy and family drama.”— Library Journal, starred review, on Jade Legacy while i enjoyed this story, i will say that if you don't love the concept of animal companions and if you're not absolutely sold by the premise, you won't like this book because that's pretty much all there is to it. it's a simple, straightforward narrative with not many surprises and a fairly predictable ending - i think the execution is good but if this wasn't a novella, i would've eventually gotten bored. Untethered Skyspends a lot of timeexploring Ester’s relationship with her roc, Zahra. Lee consulted with falconry experts to get deeper insights into what it’s like to raise a bird of prey as a companion, and that authenticity really comes across in the book. The passages where Ester flushes out prey for her roc feel immediate and detailed, as do the descriptions of animal behavior and even the materials used for things like jesses and lures.

as long as your heart beats, you’ll be a ruhker. i know this as much as god knows every creature, because i once thought there was no reason for me to be alive, no logic to survival, no meaning to be found past endurance of loss, yet there was. ” I was six years old the first time I saw a roc. At first, I thought it was an especially large buzzard circling overhead, but then it drifted lower in the sky, and I saw the shape and color of it, the sheer size of it. I started running, laughing and shouting, toward the open ground beneath where it balanced on the stiff wind. I wasn’t afraid, just childishly delighted, as if I’d seen a horse the size of a tree, or a dog the size of an ox. Ester’s path leads her to the King’s Royal Mews, where the giant rocs of legend are flown to hunt manticores by their brave and dedicated ruhkers. 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. Untethered Skyis a powerful story I would wholeheartedly recommend to pretty much any fan of adult fantasy. It’s a short, snappy read that nonetheless feels epic and timeless, with fantastic character development, worldbuilding, and a fascinating animal/human relationship. My only regret is that there isn’t more of it.

A delicious morsel of heart’s flesh, its story as wild and yet poised in its craft as a stooping hawk. Fonda Lee’s characters are so real, broken and raw that they need no crowns, no wars, no prophesies to enlarge them. They simply, believably are, and in so being, they sweep us into a story as magical and wondrous as it is deft. One of the best fantasy novellas I’ve had the pleasure to read."—Christopher Buehlman 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. Ester is a fascinating character working through her own past traumas, most notably the brutal killing of her mother and brother by one of the mighty manticores. She set her on her own path, not only to seek her own personal vengeance against the manticore who killed her family (or, at least, a proxy for that manticore), but also seeking her independence and place in the world. Ester has a complex relationship with her father permeated by sexism, mourning, and prejudice and Ester ultimately seeks respect and identity in her new role as the rukher. I tilted my face toward the sky, trying to soak in enough sunlight to carry me through the days to come. Then I went into the pen to join my splendid monster in darkness.But while Lee spends time on Ester’s personal tragedy, and her masterful foreshadowing in Ester’s voice bridges each section, tying the past to the future on vibrating threads, much of the book glows with joy. Lee’s description of the rocs and their relationships with their trainers is full of awe and wonder. The irritation many ruhkers feel about the nobility they must occasionally entertain feels reminiscent of the residents of any tourist town, irked when strangers wander into their territory to prevent them from doing their work. But the court of Dartha also has its wonders, and the temple to the Almighty Fire Bringer, Dartha’s god, makes an impression with its beauty and sense of sacredness, despite its short appearance. If you like extremely tense political maneuvering and intrigue, you will love Jade City. Fonda Lee is the new Mario Puzo; Jade City has officially dethroned The Godfather."—Sarah Gailey

Gripping action set in vast spaces writ as clean and spare as a dry bone . . . the result is tremendous."— The New York Times I’m astonished at how Fonda Lee managed to evoke specific, piercing emotions in me in such a short book. The ending left me in tears. This is a story I’ve been waiting for: spare, gracefully told, filled with feelings of overwhelming awe and quiet aching. It feels like a folktale, complete with the incoming dread of a fable, yet balanced with the same comfort and warmth. I will treasure Untethered Sky for years to come. Ester’s family was torn apart when a manticore killed her mother and baby brother, leaving her with nothing but her father’s painful silence and a single, overwhelming need to kill the monsters that took her family. Arnan’s voice didn’t seem to be receding at all even though I was walking away as fast as I could. Finally, his screams cut out, presumably because he’d run inside to complain about me, and I closed my eyes at the bliss. The bees droned again. The birds chirped once more. Ester has sought purpose ever since a manticore murdered her mother and baby brother. Her path leads her to the Royal Mews and the rocs, the giant birds who are the only things capable of killing a manticore…but the bond between roc and ruhker is as dangerous as it is strong.But the superb strengths of The Green Bone Saga's storytelling are retained here, even if they were delivered in a different and smaller format. The dynamic between Ester and Zahra was engaging to read, and the terrific action scenes you can expect from Lee's writing are evident in the text. The last chapter was a breathtaking hunt sequence filled with emotions and tension. Plus, it was refreshing to see the implementation of popular creatures in Middle-Eastern mythologies like Roc and Manticore. Whether by Fonda

Lee] juggles the personal and the epic with deft, admirable skill, weaving a story that is equally sweeping and intimate."—NPR on Jade War I’d like to thank TOR, Fonda Lee, and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an early copy of Untethered Sky! A fully grown female roc stands a head taller than most men. Fully spread, her wings reach as wide as three people lined up fingertip to fingertip with arms outstretched. Rocs aren’t the impossible size that storytellers and artists would have you believe, but nevertheless Zahra loomed over me. She made the falcon I’d flown as a girl seem like a toy. Then, a miracle: My mother became pregnant. My parents were afraid to be too hopeful; after all, my mother had lost babies in their fifth month. So they prayed earnestly but quietly and tiptoed on cosmic eggshells, trying to pad our lives with good deeds in the hopes that this time their efforts would be noticed and rewarded. My father held a summer feast for three hundred people and gave our servants time off to visit their relatives. My mother did healthful breathing exercises and drank special soups and admonished me if I ever so much as muttered an unkind word about anything. 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.Anywho, if you want to fall in love with a giant bird and read about a complicated and fierce animal-human bond that will crush your soul and leave you heaving with tears streaming down your face, read this. Out of every five apprentice ruhkers, two will be killed or crippled, two will leave or be sent away, and only one will ever fly a roc. And the dangers do not diminish after that. Babak had seen apprentices come and go. He would place no odds on my success, yet his equanimity was an odd comfort, because I shared his blunt assessment: Either I would become a ruhker, or I would die trying. I would train and care for Zahra, yet she could never belong to me. In name, she belonged to Antrius the Bold and the Kingdom of Dartha, but even that was not true. A roc is always a wild thing, always God’s monster alone. Untethered Sky was more character driven that I expected. There isn't a ~main conflict~ per say, but the story takes an intimate look at Ester's relationship with Zahra. Since this was a novella, I don't want to say too much and let y'all read and find out for yourselves. It's a much different take on animal companion trope we all know and love in fantasy. I highly recommend and I think y'all are gonna like this one when it comes out in April! The combination of rocs and manticores inspired Lee’s descriptions of Dartha. “ Rocs and manticores both originate from Persian mythology, so I wanted the fictional kingdom of Dartha to evoke the monsters’ ‘natural habitat’ of the Middle East,” she described. To keep the worldbuilding tight for the length of the piece, Lee focused much of her real-world research on the art of falconry, on which the role of the ruhkers is based. “I did a substantial amount of research into the sport and culture of falconry,” Lee revealed, “and also into the climate, landscape, plants, and animals of what is now modern-day Iran. I wanted to make all the little details of Ester’s day-to-day life feel real and authentic (within the context of a world with giant birds and man-eating monsters).” But where Lee found elements from history that would have limited her storytelling, she let them fall away. Commoner women would have been unlikely to attain a position as royal falconers in Persia, she confessed, but “I felt quite free not to adhere to that in my fantasy world, where the widespread threat of manticores led to the development of the ruhking profession, and the only creatures that can kill manticores sometimes have strong gender preference (as parrots and other domestic birds often do).”