A Palace Near the Wind

The premise of this novella really intrigued me—it plays with the tension between environmentalism and progress for progress sake. Ai Jiang's lovely prose paints intricate scenes, oscillating between gentle, melancholic emotional passages and repulsive, horror-tinged descriptions. Unfortunately, the novella format feels like its greatest disservice. There's virtually no world-building, leaving me stumbling along trying to piece things together. Perhaps this was intentional, mirroring the protagonist’s own disorientation, but the story moves so quickly—with little time to process and almost no explanation for the events—that it left me feeling more confused than immersed. Given that it's part of a duology, I think there was enough room to further develop both the world and the plot. The concept and characters were compelling, and the prose was absolutely beautiful—it just needed more space to breathe.