Untethered Sky

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The first part of Untethered Sky focuses on Ester’s apprenticeship. The most important aspect of her training is to build a trusting relationship with her adolescent roc, Zahra. I was especially touched by the respect and thoughtful care exhibited by Ester in all her interactions with Zahra. I relieved myself in a straw-filled chamber pot and received one change of clothes through the bars. I drank water from my canteen in small sips every few minutes, but even so I wore my throat down. Ruhkers can barely talk at all after the dark days. What I said was not important, only the sound of my voice. So I told Zahra about how long I had been waiting for her. I told her about the other rocs and ruhkers in her new home. I told her about our future, about how we would always hunt together. I told her everything about my family and the place I grew up: olive trees and goats, the stone house, creek water ice-cold from the mountains, falcons waiting on above. Mother and Father and Arnan. When boredom and exhaustion turned my constant talk into babbling nonsense and dragged my chin to my chest, I slept. Sweeping, leisurely, and epic, and combines political intrigue with sharply choreographed action scenes, but it's a character-driven family drama at its heart."— Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Jade War Untethered Sky couldn't be more different from Lee's beloved Green Bone Saga. I loved that Lee pivoted in a different direction to give us a novella about a rukher and her roc.

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. Zahra was her name. When the crate opened, all I saw at first were her eyes, the largest of any living creature, enormous golden orbs fixing me with a raptor’s murderous glare. She was a year-old fledgling taken from the nest, already lethal and immense. I was a woman of eighteen, small, wounded, over-anxious. Sweat coated my hands and lathered my body beneath heavy leather work gloves and a tarnished scale vest. Ruhkers have been killed on the first day. If it happened to me, another apprentice would take my place.I don't suppose my father ever guessed that I asked it as endlessly as he did. Some say ruhking is a calling. For me it was an answer to a question that had bored clear through my soul. I had a hole worn through my center, like one of Arnan's interesting blue river stones. People have admired rocs for centuries. Artists paint them, sculpt them, tell stories about them. I wanted to be one. I wanted to be the monster that kills other monsters. Ruhkers must be endlessly patient, determined, and stoic. They can’t express frustration, anger, or pain around their charges. During his apprenticeship, one of the other young ruhkers, Darius, had his arm broken by a roc while he was tethering it. He passed the leash to his other hand, tied it one-handed, and finished his chores cleaning the mews, sweeping with his right arm while his left hung dangling. All the while he never made a sound. After Darius’s arm healed, Babak gave him the next roc to train. beautifully immersive writing and natural worldbuilding - fonda lee proved she's just as good at writing traditional adventure fantasy as she is at gritty urban fantasy. I’d like to thank TOR, Fonda Lee, and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an early copy of Untethered Sky! This isn't the rich sprawling fantastical experience of Fonda Lee's saga. Here, you will find unexplored character arcs aplenty and dead-end roads of adrift possibility that The Green Bone saga will have spoilt you to expect.

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. i should’ve let you kiss me that one time in the field, but i was scared, and if you ever feel the urge to do it again, i would want you to. ” I absolutely loved Untethered Sky. Despite going in with high expectations from having read some of Fonda Lee’s previous work, I was still blown away; I was so engrossed that I read it in a single sitting. And with its shorter length, that’s a perfectly reasonable way to consume this story. If you like reading about falconry, and animal training hunting scenes, this book will be a treat for you because that is basically what this is about. Me, I was bored and bored.Fonda Lee explores a new world via a standalone fantasy novella with a focus as razor-sharp as the talons of its deadly rocs."— Literary Hub 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