primeideal

I picked up "Untethered Sky" because it hits the Middle Eastern setting bingo square (it's set in fantasy Persia). It's a novella and a pretty quick read; the narrator, Ester, is a rukher who teams up with her roc to hunt landbound creatures, particularly the manticores that terrorize the kingdom of Dartha. Rukhing is a stressful career--many apprentices flunk out, or are injured or killed, before they successfully hunt. And Ester has a personal stake in the matter, since her mother and baby brother were killed by a manticore years ago, and her relationship with her father never recovered. There are also several mentions of birds taking a crap in this book. Good job, points for realism.

Unfortunately, the premise didn't really grab me. The stuff about apprenticeship being very dangerous felt more "background information" than "narrative stakes"--we know Ester's narrating this book, we can be pretty sure she's going to make it through training. And while it may be realistic that her family relationship fell apart, it meant I didn't get invested in the flashbacks very much--yeah, she wants vengeance on manticores, we get it. Spoilers to follow:

The section endings also felt pretty lampshady with their "This Is Ominous Foreshadowing, Guys." Like, here are the last lines of Part I:

That's how I want to remember the three of us. Not marred and bowed by tragedy, but young and joyous. What I would give to return to those days, riding together across the country on a perfect morning, a roc balanced in the air above us like an angel guarding our happiness.

and Part II...

"I'll miss you when you're gone, though."

That was truer than I could've imagined even then.

And the introduction of another character:

"Only the best of us," he said with admiration in his voice, "embrace God's purpose as clearly as wild beasts."
...
Prince Khovash's words that day have lingered with me so long that even now I can't hate him.

Actually the ending is less bleak than you'd expect given all that!

Based on some of the blurbs, I think some of the themes Lee was trying to engage with were "monsters" and "obsession"--the rocs are trained to hunt manticores, but if somehow the manticores were to be defeated forever, would the rocs and rukhers lose their purpose? Does the grueling training process produce humans who are just as "monstrous" as their bird partners? "Innumerable tedious hours are spent training and hunting, leading to a few crucial seconds to prove oneself, and those seconds are often determined by sheer luck," rang true in the context of sports, but I didn't really think Ester came across as a monster or bad example.

Towards the end, however, the parallels between "you can't really own a roc forever" and "you can't really own a human forever" became a strength of the writing style.

If only people were as simple and instinctive as raptors. I wished for a special reed whistle around my neck that I could blow to call him back.

The "dark days" training described in the beginning sounds brutal for the roc as well as the human; a captured fledgling is trapped in a sensory-deprivation tent to desensitize them to all associations except the rukhers' voice. The real "monstrosity" is not the rukhers' hunting behaviors or even any difficulties they face in relating to other people, but this form of captivity! In this context, the fact that Ester's roc leaves her in the end is bittersweet, but not devastating; despite everything she's been through, she still has the resilience to live freely and form relationships with her own kind. And Ester does, too.

Bingo: Middle Eastern setting for sure, also a great fit for Published in 2023, Novella, and Mythical Beasts!