I jinxed myself. 

Contrary to May’s introduction post, this month was more hectic than the last few. I should’ve seen that coming- birthdays and warm weekends make for a packed planner. It made me glad to have chosen In The Watchful City as the Book of the Month. Short, easy, and physically small enough to fit in my purse, the book was able to keep pace with me as I moved through May. A refreshing take on an old genre, In The Watchful City was a quick read that managed to pack a lot of punch for such a small package. 

Author S. Qiouyi Lu takes us into the city of Ora where a city-wide biological surveillance system called the Gleaming watches over the populace. Anima, an extra-sensory human connected to the Gleaming via a vine on the back of the neck, fulfills ær duty by sending ær consciousness into different animals throughout the city to watch, speak to, or attempt to detain citizens. When a stranger shows up with a cabinet of curiosities, the objects within widen Anima’s perspective outside of Ora and into different countries, cultures, and times. As more objects share their stories, Anima is forced to confront ær own life and ær job within Ora. Exploring the effects of imperialism, grief, dehumanization, and betrayal, In The Watchful City stitches together disparate stories to explore the question of what makes us who we are. 

The book is a mosaic of narratives and characters. There is the framing narrative, following Anima in the city of Ora; and there are four short stories about the lives of each of the objects in the qíjìtáng. New characters, and the worlds they inhabit, unfold with every new object. With so many characters and settings in such a short book, worldbuilding takes a backseat. Instead, Lu relies on atmosphere to tie the stories together. Ora and the worlds of the objects have just enough details to feel like fully-realized settings. Those details, sprinkled between the stories, help connect them to the framing narrative and maintain the reader’s suspension of disbelief. From the floating islands and two suns to naga and mermaids, the atmosphere created throughout the book lets you know nothing is off the table- so nothing ever feels like it doesn’t belong. 

This “Anything Goes” kind of world allows for what I found the most interesting part of the book: the blending and mixing of various real-world cultures and mythologies. Several east Asian cultures were used to fill the world with life beyond what the atmosphere could accomplish by itself. Mythological creatures popped in and out of stories, either literally, in the case of mermaids and kitsune, or metaphorically in the case of the Jianjian. After sci-fi’s (and, let’s be real, a lot of fiction’s) mining of Eastern culture to add “exoticism” to their novels, it was great to see several of these very different cultures represented in a rich, thoughtful manner. One short story even took a cultural practice that’s been vilified in western culture and recontextualized it so effectively that I came away wanting to do more reading on the subject. That’s one of the powers of good cultural representation- and that wasn’t the only amazing representation in the book. 

While I knew this book had characters that did not fit within the gender binary, I didn’t know how many wonderful queer characters we’d be meeting. Both this book and The Fifth Season, our January Book of the Month, have upped my bar for queer characters in modern fiction. Neither of them pushes the ideals of our phobic society onto their fictional societies. Instead, these queer characters are allowed to exist within the narrative, not as a function of their gender or sexual identity, but just as characters. The one short story in In The Watchful City that does focus on gender identity does it in such a wonderful and unique way that it transcends the typical gender identity narratives that you find in mass media (I don’t want to spoil it but “The Form I Hold Now” is one of my favorite short stories in the book). Knowing that this kind of representation exists in smaller books and publishing houses is a gift. You can bet I’ll be looking out for more in the future. 

All that said, I did have one quibble about the work. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about it without spoiling the ending, so if you’ve read the whole book feel free to scroll to the spoiler section! If not, no fears- with the positives of the book and ease of reading combined, I’d still recommend In The Watchful City to fans of sci-fi and fantasy. It’s a quick book packed with interesting ideas and prose, and I look forward to any books S. Qiouyi Lu puts out in the future. 

Stay tuned for next month’s Book of the Month- I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while! And no, it’s not more sci-fi, don’t get your panties in a bunch. 😉 See you next week!

The review above is intended for people who have not read or completed the book. For that reason, it is spoiler-free. The following section is going to discuss some of the themes, what worked, and, in my opinion, what didn’t. That means there are SPOILERS BELOW. If you plan to read this book, venture no further. This is your warning.

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For real folks, this section is going to talk about the very end of the book. last warning!

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Something I noticed almost immediately after reading the first short story, “A Death Made Manifold”, was that S. Qiouyi Lu is an experienced short story author. Their list of work confirms it- most of their published work is in this format. The parts that elevate In The Watchful City are hallmarks of good short fiction: building atmosphere, fleshing out characters with dialogue or action, and selecting specific scenes to flesh something out or move the plot forward. All of these techniques worked well throughout the book and dazzled in the object stories. That said, not everything about short story writing correlates to longer fiction. The longer framing narrative, the one that tied the book together, worked- until Lu had to end it. 

Anima’s arc from believing in ær role and duty to ultimately forsaking it was only shown in short, interspersed chunks. Between short stories that gleamed and glittered, we spent time watching Anima slowly question ær lack of feeling and interaction with the outside world. A turning point happens after Juniper completes suicide. Anima is plunged into doubt. The problem is, since we’ve been as swept up in the short stories as Anima has, these small mentions and slow descents into questioning feel far apart and easily forgotten. It wasn’t until I went back and skimmed only Anima’s sections that I saw the progression of Anima’s dialogue. The changes in tone and feeling are slight; so slight that I missed them the first time. This is the herald of a short story stretched and broken apart. The nuance in Anima’s section escaped me while I was otherwise distracted by the other short stories. 

After much reflection, though, I don’t think that is what soured the ending for me. I could see the above criticism being a Me Thing, in how and when I read the book. After rereading Anima’s sections, I hit on what bugged me: Anima’s choice to leave doesn’t make sense to me. 

At one point, Anima asks Vessel, “Why do you subject me to tragedy and death?”. For the most part, æ is right; the only short story I found any real joy in was “The Form I Hold Now”. Still, that ended in a riot, and the shadow of imperialism darkened any joy that did exist within. Otherwise, every story had some form of death, betrayal, or heavy themes like the dehumanization of a culture to promote genocide. With all these distressing stories, it’s hard for me to understand why Anima would want to rejoin the outside world. Anima’s background was already full of pain from losing ær parents. Why would more pain and suffering convince æ to go back out? 

I think the intended idea is that feeling something, even difficult emotions like those in the object’s stories, is better than feeling nothing. This is true! But I would’ve liked to see Anima experiencing a range of different emotions, including love, peace, or pure joy untainted by outside factors. It would have made the intention deeper, I think, to know that feeling emotions does come with a price but that the tradeoff is a worthy one. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed the book. The first section of the reflection should have made that abundantly clear. “As Dark As Hunger” alone was worth the price of admission, so I won’t be holding back on recommending the book to others. It was an enjoyable read with many good qualities. The end won’t stop me from revisiting bits of this book in the future.

I’d be interested to hear other people’s thoughts on the ending- if you felt differently about it, feel free to drop me a comment! I’d love to hear someone else’s take on the ending. As always, see you next week- can’t wait to share June’s book with you!