Yoke of Stars by R B Lemberg is a novella set in their Birdverse series which you can read in any order. This is a story within a story that follows Stone Orphan, an apprentice assassin who is visited by Ulín, an inquisitive linguist. Instead of providing Stone Orphan with the name of a person for Stone Orphan to kill, Ulín instead shares a story which prompts Stone Orphan to share one of their own. This novella is the painful untangling of both protagonists’ own stories and how they came to be in the situation they find themselves in the beginning of the book.

R B Lemberg is a queer, bigender fantasist, poet, and professor who has spent time living in Ukraine, Russia and Israel before migrating to the United States. In the mere two-hundred pages that Yoke of Stars occupies, Lemberg manages to deftly explore themes of gender identity, differing cultures, bodily autonomy, coercive relationships, power imbalance, and the concept of freedom. Lemberg does this in such an expert way that the reader is forced to consider why these issues are still hotly debated in so many places all over the world when understanding and solving them could be so simple. 

The polite push and pull of Stone Orphan and Ulín’s conversation is a fierce sharing of trauma that dredges every dark moment out into the open and frames language and relationships in a harsh new light, forcing debate over what is right or wrong or good or bad. We see steady character growth from both our protagonists over the course of their storytelling and every new piece of information that they reveal makes you love them a little more.

Throughout the novella there is careful dialogue around names, gender, and pronouns where the differing fantasy cultures are juxtaposed against the background of this conversation. Etymology is discussed in depth, exploring the different evolutions of words that have sprung up in different cultures from the same root word, and the different meanings and implications that these words have in these cultures. While these cultures are fantastical, so much of it rings true for our own world. 

This is a beautiful novella written for those who crave thought-provoking fantasy stories that stray from stereotypes and reflect the issues of our own world back to us with wisdom and patience. 

Yoke of Stars is due for publication on 16th July from Tachyon Publications.

To find out where you can pre-order your copy, visit R B Lemberg’s Website