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.

‘For me, I AM AI was less about the nefarious creep of technology and potential negative impacts of generative artificial intelligence than it was about a very realized, widespread hardship that is already well-proliferated today: the near-inescapable compulsion to sacrifice our innate desires and personal ambitions in the name of financial prosperity or security.’

‘Jiang has done something truly masterful here in that she leaves just enough blank space on the pages, and just enough secrets in the novella, for the curious reader to seek layers of meaning which may have not been intended or expected. This is a line only the best authors can walk, and it imbues their fiction with a timelessness and sense of resonance that many readers will find affecting, and the right reader might just call perfect.’