Book Review: A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang (2025)
I have been looking forward to reading this book since Ai Jiang told me it was forthcoming back in 2024. Ai was the first person to ask me for an advanced review years ago, and it just so happened that her unique style of patient, otherworldly strangeness and intelligent, authentic portrayals of human reasoning and emotion was perfect for my tastes.
Every time I read an Ai Jiang work, I was first astounded by its quality and, secondly, that it had been produced by someone so early in their career. Ai is genuinely meteoric talent, unique in her style and wielding distinct authority in her authorial voice. When she deservedly nabbed a Nebula and Stoker in 2024 for the novella Linghun, I was overjoyed for her as both a critic and fan.
A Palace Near the Wind, book one of Natural Engines, is a distinct departure from her previous work, and the arc and aim of the story feel very akin to the major publisher debut of other authors I have known. The plot is aggressive, laying out the main character’s quest in the early pages, and though much of Ai’s trademark reflectiveness and patience is here, it feels reshaped, forming a story that is inherently bigger and bolder than what she has written in the past.
“Just as we borrow the wind, the wind also borrows us.”
Liu Lufeng is the eldest princess of Feng, an idyllic country populated by biophilic people that live symbiotically with the natural world. Unfortunately, Feng is under perpetual encroachment from the Palace, a consumptive, modern, and mechanically-inclined society that rules through force. Destined to follow her sister and become the next bride of Palace’s King in exchange for reprieve for Feng, Lufeng plots to stop the perpetual cycle of sacrifice and loss by assassinating the King during their wedding.
Once in the Palace, Lufeng discovers that the world is much more complex than she previously understood, and while the people and their King may continue to be a blight on Feng, their motivations for doing so may go beyond simple greed. In time, she discovers a great deal about her family’s legacy, and that they are bound to machinations beyond Feng by much more than marriage. It’s a rich and fantastical story that moves at a brisk pace while being patient in revealing its layers.
Initially, I had mixed feelings about the setup of the story, as the exceedingly sharp contrast between the people of Feng and the Palace felt too stark. As a reader, I value intricate and complex ethics in fiction, and Ai is so good with subtlety and nuance, that being thrust into this world where literal tree people (those from Feng have bark-like skin and do not consume meat) are pitted against those who build structures out of bone and revel in wanton destruction was a bit too pointed for my literary tastes. Still, many of Ai’s trademark qualities were still present, with welcome, creative worldbuilding and strong, instinctive character identities. While it didn’t dwell in the literary spaces that I’m drawn to, and the story was more fabulistic than I like, this was still decidedly an Ai Jiang work, and that distinctive quality is present her even if the shape of the story is different from her past work.
“…to wear them, to display them.”
While I liked the foundation of the story, I have some issues with the pacing and structure of this novella, as the first half of it (up to Lufeng’s wedding) really feels like a prologue for what comes after, but what follows feels like an uncharacteristically hurried setup for the next installment in Natural Engines. Honestly, I can recognize no aesthetic or literary reason why this is an approximately two-hundred-page novella with a follow-up rather than a full-length novel, but I suspect it has something to do with a publisher trying to grab cash on the back of a rising-star author. More on that later.
Further, I had problems with pivotal plot characters, places, and actions not being introduced until 60% of the way through what is a very short book. It’s difficult for a reader to care about a major plot mechanic that the characters knew about, but was only introduced three pages before. The end result is twofold: it feels like this is but a teaser for things still yet to come, and that the book itself is an oddly divided part of a whole. While the full and final form of Natural Engines might be excellent, it won’t be because A Palace Near the Wind is an exceptional standalone work, as it feels much more like something to prepare readers for the next part of the story.
Beyond the high-level structural issues, I think in the novella suffers from too much time spent in Lufeng's head, puzzling out things around her without influencing them. I sometimes felt like a spectator to a spectator. Unfortunately, by the end of the novella it feels like one long stretch of set-dressing, where too few things of consequence have happened to create a satisfying story arc, and the curtain ultimately falls just before the much-anticipated production is about to begin.
Reflections on popular criticism, and the wider fiction market
A few years ago, a close friend of mine landed what was supposed to be their big publishing deal. It was a full-length trilogy agreement with the kind of publisher that is right at the top of the list in their genre. I was elated for my friend, having watched them struggle and write through the evening as a high school teacher. They were now getting their due, and I was so excited to watch their dream blossom.
I’d already read the first book of the trilogy and knew it was a banger. They presented a unique take on the genre, their world building was on-point, and they created a distinct texture that really made the world and the characters come to life in my mind. Like a good friend, I preordered the major-publisher iteration of the book I had already read, and when it came it, put down what I was reading so I could be among the first to witness my friend’s success.
The book was not the same; it had been sandblasted and simplified, with much of the memorable reflectiveness and impactful writing stripped out so that it could be faster-paced, leaner, more marketable. I was bored by the end, and I’ve never read the two follow-ups, which are now available. Perhaps most disappointing of all, is my friend never really broke through. They still teach high school. They had toiled their whole life to be a novelist, and when the chance came, the publisher seemingly stripped out everything that made them a noteworthy talent.
I spent four paragraphs telling that story because I thought of it constantly through the second half of reading A Palace Near the Wind. While there were telltale signs this was an Ai Jiang book, there are also shortcomings that I can’t believe would be there if she were the only person shaping Natural Engines. Perhaps anecdotal, but presently A Palace Near the Wind has a significantly lower Goodreads score than Ai’s other non-anthological works, and if you skim the reviews, you see a lot of criticisms that aren’t typically associated with her work. This tells me I’m not alone in my conclusions about this novella, and it probably wasn’t produced under ideal circumstances.
To a degree, I am to blame, as I held unshakably lofty expectations for this book with no view as to how it was conceived and developed. I don’t know if Jiang was rushed, distracted, or simply not able to put her best self forward, but I definitely came in expecting this to be among the best reads of the year…but that’s not how popular fiction works at scale. There are peaks and valleys, and every work isn’t a promise to outpace the one that preceded it, but neither is it a sign of inevitable decline. With my own factors considered, I believe there are still significant issues here, and this book really needed a bit more time to dwell on its events and deepen the roots it has put down. It gets caught between being a personal story and an epic, ultimately coming up wanting in both columns. I hope Ai Jiang gets all the time and support she needs for the follow-up, because there are strong elements here.
Final Thoughts
Well-conceived but flatly executed, A Palace Near the Wind showcases some interesting worldbuilding and memorable character dynamics, but the arc of the novella feels uneven and incomplete. There is a distinctive sense that these one-hundred-and-ninety-two pages are little more than prologue, and while the prepared board is intriguing, the pieces are yet to move.
Score: 6.0
Strengths
Interesting and original world and characters, if a bit straightforward
Solid, free indirect discourse from Lufeng, who operates as a consistent lens through which the story unfolds
The first half is a quality, focused story
Retains moments of austere dignity in its prose, and these shine despite broader shortcomings
Weakness
Structurally questionable, with two narratively discordant halves
Why two novellas? Give me a non-cynical answer and you can take a candy from the dish.
Limited value as a standalone read
You can purchase A Palace Near the Wind on April 15, 2024.
