Para (wanderer)'s Reviews > The Wings Upon Her Back

After several months of on and off reading, I finally managed to finish, and god damn did it deliver the promise of its premise. Absolutely brilliant. Plucky rebels, the protagonist’s slow deradicalization arc, it had my attention from the start. Just because it took me several months, it doesn’t mean it’s the book’s fault. Starting it just as I started a new job was simply ridiculously bad timing.

Winged Zemolai is a military enforcer in an increasingly fascist city of Radezhda, which her warrior sect is ruling with an iron fist. After her act of mercy to a secret devotee of another god is discovered, she abruptly falls from grace, losing her wings, her position, her leader’s good graces, and barely escaping with her life. But while she’s dying from her injuries and the withdrawal from the drug that kept her mechanical wings working, she is discovered by a group of young, hopeful revolutionaries, who let her recover in hope she might be useful to their cause.

As always, I loved following a protagonist who’s over 40, with all the aches and pains and jaded cynicism that come with it. Zemolai is by no means sympathetic, at the start she’s a hidebound cop through and through, guided only by her blind faith in her god and her leader, but she’s interesting and well written and I liked how slowly (oh so very slowly and reluctantly) she starts to admit that maybe young revolutionaries have a point. It’s not a magical switch. Even at the end she’s still a firm believer in order. But there is a change in her faith, questioning, maybe even redemption.

This is alternated with chapters following her from childhood, explaining how she became Winged Zemolai. Radicalization, as opposed to the present-day deradicalization, from her childhood dreams of flying, to leaving the scholar sect she grew up in to enter the warrior school and attracting the attention of an ambitious but profoundly abusive mentor, and all the atrocities that followed. This dual structure, the pacing, I have no complaints.

The worldbuilding is also fun. It’s a very narrowly defined setting, just one isolated city, and you’re never quite sure if it’s sci-fi or fantasy or maybe both (probably both). The gods are both real and present, yet not, since they’re asleep in their realms and it’s never clear what their motivations are or if they’re really gods at all. I liked the ambiguity of it. I should probably also say that mecha warriors aren’t really people piloting giant machines (a plus for me, since I don’t particularly like that), but simply enhanced humans. With cool mechanical wings that plug into their backs.

As with Zemolai’s potential redemption, the ending is similarly open-yet-hopeful for Radezhda itself. In both cases, they might have been steered towards a better path, but there is clearly a lot more work to be done. Nothing is solved, there is simply a chance for a new beginning and a possibility of a better future. And the way the last chapter is written is simply perfect.

Highly recommended! And if you need more convincing: it’s a standalone and not particularly long at that 😉

Enjoyment: 5/5
Execution: 5/5

Recommended to: those who like revolution subplots, anyone looking for very imperfect queernorm worlds and zero romance, fans of sci-fantasy
Not recommended to: fans of giant mecha anime (you will be extremely disappointed)

Content warnings: abuse, gore, torture, addiction

More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.