I read this book as a suggestion for Read Harder 2023 and I was prepared to love it. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my hopes, and I found it disappointing in a couple of areas. The writing style is just not to my personal taste - no knock against the author for that one, I've just never really enjoyed the style, call it poetic or literary or whathaveyou. I think that was exacerbated by the feeling that the they wrote the whole thing with a thesaurus at their elbow. I love a robust vocabulary, but it felt forced here.
The plot was a variation on the 1001 Nights idea... much of the book is made up of stories about other events being told between the two main characters. It's a powerful device, but it falls a little flat here. I think because Anima's inner landscape isn't well developed enough. There are signs that the stories are having an effect on her, but because we don't really see her inner monologue well, her eventual action at the end feels formulaic instead of heartfelt.
The fact that this is a novella works against the story here. There is obviously a well-developed and complex world in the author's head, but in the short space, the reader is overwhelmed with geographical, political and social minutiae without the time or space to really embrace it. I haven't looked into it, but it feels as if this is a first published work. I think the world has potential and I hope that they continue to write it in, develop it, and come back with a more fully realized version of it.
All that said, I have read far more disappointing books, and overall I gave this one three stars. If you enjoy the more poetic writing style, it's definitely worth taking this one for a spin. ( )

It is hard to pull the story inside of a story format in a novella length text. It gets even harder when there are multiple embedded stories. And S. Qiouyi Lu pulls it off effortlessly.

The city of Ora is built from trauma - it makes the lives of its citizens easy and enjoyable and turns them into prisoners - without them realizing it for the most part. The Gleaming, the living network which nurtures and protect the city, have human avatars (or almost human anyway) who can use the network to jump into the minds of animals (real and man-made) and are tasked with protecting the city and its inhabitants. Anima is one of these avatars and as with everyone else, she believes in Ora.

Until things get a bit weird. First she is sent to stop someone from leaving the city which makes her wonder why would someone want to leave Ora and if they do, why would hey not be allowed to? Then a man appears where he cannot be - undetectable entity in a town which knows and control everything. And that man has stories - stories from the world outside of the walls of Ora; stories that don't exactly match with what reality is supposed to be.

So Anima hears the stories and tells her own (in blank verse) and somewhere in between there, things start changing. That stranger's existence should be impossible and yet, here he is and he keeps showing things that should not be, cannot be. All the stories belong to the same world but they are not really connected - they are glimpses into the lives of different people - mostly love stories although most of them are not happy ones. And then there is the job - Anima suffers when she is too late in one of the calls the Gleaming sends her on - and that makes the stories so much more alluring.

It is pretty obvious where the story must go - the author does not leave it any other path. But it is not predictable. Each of the embedded stories could have been a story of its own (or almost a story); weaved together they are like a string of pearls - each of them shining on its own and making a much bigger thing as a whole.

The only thing that somewhat annoyed me in this novella were the pronouns. We never get an explanation of all the differences (or even hints at what they are) and it felt like using a separate pronoun for every person we meet was just an exercise in using different pronouns just for the sake of it, hindering the reading of the text.

Still a good novella (although I found the writing in the embedded stories clearer and better than the one in the framework story). ( )

This just wasn't resonating with me at this point. The story-within-a-story is done well, but it's not currently holding my interest. Since I'm not currently in the right mindset to enjoy this book, so I'm putting it aside for later when I might be better able to appreciate it.

The city of Ora is a place of beauty grown from unbearable trauma. Its tangles of vines, structurally integral trees, and streets named for flowers and painted with their namesake floral motifs to visually distinguish them from one another both melt into and clash against the equally integral constant surveillance its citizens live under. The lives of the people of Ora are guided, guarded, and in many ways imprisoned by the body-hopping “nodes”—once-ordinary people who have been physiologically altered in order to interface with the city’s energy and information network—who observe everything that happens in the city. This is a beautiful and terrible book, delicate and intricate in its inventive biopunk storytelling, heavy and hard-hitting in its lingering impact.

In the Watchful City shows, through its structure of nested stories, how endless are the ways in which individuals and societies react to trauma and the aftermath of terrible events. Its queerness—as integral to its narrative as the trees and nodes are to the titular city—and its Chinese and Asian-diaspora cultural influences resist capitulating to the expectations of straight, Western readings, resulting in a narrative that does not feel much like anything I’ve read before.

The complexity of this novella is such that I doubt most readers—certainly not myself—are likely to absorb everything it has to offer in a single reading. Luckily, the brief novella format makes multiple readings easy, and S. Qiouyi Lu’s sensuous, poetic prose is absorbing enough to get lost in even after one knows how all the stories end. In the Watchful City is not only easy but rewarding to read more than once, and I think that readers who do so will continue to find new facets to this well-polished gem of a book.

I would recommend this novella to readers in search of innovative speculative work that will make them both think and feel (and I would also recommend that potential readers pay close attention to the author’s content warnings).

I received a free digital advance copy of this book from Tordotcom Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for my review. ( )

CW: suicide, mention of a suicide attempt, body mutilation, foot binding

I’ve only read one short story by the author before but I was so profoundly moved by it, that I had to add this novella to my tbr as soon as I got to know about it. And was doubly excited when I got the arc.

I will be honest and say it took me a few pages to get into this story and it was pretty slow going until then. Biocyberpunk is not a genre I would willingly pick up if not for being excited about the author’s work, and it’s also my shortcoming for not being aware enough about neopronouns that extensive usage of them in this story hindered my reading a bit at the beginning. But the author employs a story with the story kind of narrative device in this book, and by the time I was done with the first narrated “story”, I was totally hooked. Rooted in Asian history and culture, the author deeply explores themes of grief and oppression and trauma, and how they affect us, sometimes even without us knowing that we are experiencing the effects. Another thing that really connected to me was the subtle discussion about borders and immigration, and how this has a disparate impact on one’s core identity as well as relationship with family.

Amina is a fascinating character. Æ became an extrasensory human to watch over the city of Ora because ær circumstances didn’t leave Amina many choices. But new traumatic experiences has ær questioning if æ are truly protecting the citizens and if ær choices are correct. Meeting the enigmatic Vessel and ser cabinet of curiosities also opens up a whole new world of stories and possibilities to Amina, finally letting ær feel comfortable enough to make life altering decisions for ærself. We also meet many amazing characters within the narrated stories, who give us glimpses into understanding what having agency and being able to make choices means, and questioning us if we have the strength to face the consequences.

Overall, this was a very unique, one of a kind book which even if confusing at times, is something to be experienced. This queernormative Asian inspired futuristic world and it’s deeply moving characters have left an impression on me and I would definitely want everyone to dive into it as well. Just remember that this novella is more on the profound and thought provoking side, and not a fast paced sci-fi adventure. ( )