“Any defiance of the wild leads at best to a fragile, temporary victory. Nature and fate are their own capricious monsters, ones that cannot be tamed any more than a roc ever truly belongs to her ruhker.”

Immediately intrigued by this novella, I was excited to read something that featured creatures from Persian myths, like manticores and rocs. It can be hard to do fantasy well in fewer pages, but Fonda crafts the world of Untethered Sky vividly nonetheless. The characters are, more or less, vehicles to the storytelling and to the atmosphere. There are a few meandering wisps of plot and moments of tension, but the ambiance was the real star of this show. It was almost inspiring to read about Ester and her dedication to a calling that is not only brutally violent but occasionally deadly; despite the risks, being a ‘ruhker’ is a vital position in Ester’s society. Ester is given a fairly standard tragic backstory, and her relationships with her fellow ruhkers is almost besides the point—though I did appreciate the side-stepping of the unnecessary romantic angle you see often in adult fantasy these days. The central relationship is between Ester and Zahra, her roc. (Her relationship to fellow ruhker Darius was also really enjoyable—their interactions felt quite realistic, but also endearing.)The storytelling is inviting and immersive; Fonda’s writing style was concise, which served the narrative well. You get these small segments of scenes more than full encounters, which makes it feel somewhat like a tasting course. But it helps establish the breadth of worldbuilding, even if some of it ends up being more superficial. This is a delightful fantasy novella that treads over new grounds, which is a hard enough task in this genre; it may be short, but what it lacks in volume and depth it more than makes up for in ideas, sentiments, and its remarkable world.