Cyberpunk in the Tang Dynasty: A Review on To Embers We Return by Ning Yuan

[yuerstruly]

From political intrigue to showbiz, from sci-fi to coming-of-age, Ning Yuan covers just about every subgenre of baihe novels you can find, and it’s no surprise that she’s brought a genre breakthrough with her latest completed novel, To Embers We Return, a historical cyberpunk novel. Wait, historical cyberpunk? How does that work? If you didn’t believe this could exist, well, Ning Yuan did it, and executed it well beyond my expectations, and perhaps surpassed all her readers’ expectations. To Embers We Return is an action-packed yet romantic novel at its core, and if you are interested in a cast of women attempting to navigate a society that welcomes and honors their feats with positions of power but challenges their core beliefs, then this novel is for you. There are also three side couples that play important roles, both their characters and relationships deeply intertwined with the plot. The plot pushes the romance, and the romance pushes the plot.

As I am somehow terrible with summaries (and making it sound better than an existing one for a beautiful translation), I will quote Douqi’s synopsis here:

When Shen Ni, the empire’s foremost machinist, returns home victorious from battle against their long-standing foe, the emperor showers her with rewards, including the hand in marriage of the woman she had loved in her youth — Bian Jin…Shen Ni takes on the onerous task of retrieving Bian Jin’s lost memories and repairing her much-battered cybernetic spine and neural core, but Bian Jin seems to be keeping something back. Can they trust each other? And can they trust the empire?

The novel’s beginning stage starts off mellow, with much of the setting being Chang’an, the empire’s capital. This is, however, nothing to worry about, as the exciting gradual worldbuilding in these chapters make up for what some people might classify as a slow start. This doesn’t mean the first volume isn’t action-packed! The Black Box virus that infiltrates the entire empire and lands beyond is a consistent threat within the city, even with its so-called fortified walls, so we get to see much of the main cast facing it head-on. The setup for the romance subplots take place here, and we get to see four different couples, all bitterly sweet, with different flavors of push-and-pull. The second volume, which takes place outside the city, rides on the setup of the primary conflict, which is the Black Box virus making rounds even in hard-to-detect corners of the world. It also further develops the romance, and every pair contributes to the overall plot.

Ning Yuan challenged herself with this novel, and though it sits at 832k words, it is in fact one of her shorter plot-heavy historical novels, with At Her Mercy sitting at 1.24 million words and The Cultivation of a Prime Minister sitting at 1.71 million words. It is also a much more digestable read, and keeps you hooked from the beginning. While I wouldn’t say Ning Yuan is particularly praised as a prose stylist, her writing gets the job done, and she hits all the emotional beats where you want them to be. She has mentioned that To Embers We Return was a challenge for her, as it’s something she has never tried before. I commend her for her efforts.

My only gripe with this novel was the pacing—as I have mentioned earlier, the novel starts out on the mellower end, especially compared to the latter half of the plot development. This was, however, not a problem, compared to the last 7% of the main text, which felt somewhat rushed. I believe she stuck the landing, but the resolution was bordering deus ex machina. When I reached the ~500k mark, I thought that she wouldn’t be finishing the novel at less than one million words, and though the plot took a sharp swerve that allowed a sooner resolution, I think more could have been done. Taking this into account, I would probably rate this a 9.2/10. It’s above a 9 for me, but I’m not sure if it quite hit that 9.5 or 10 mark. Still, I would recommend this to anyone potentially interested in the plot or genre, and Ning Yuan as a writer makes many callbacks sprinkled throughout the text, which will leave you mindblown.

P.S. The aesthetics I imagine in my head are Xianzhou Luofu technology meets Court of Fontaine Underground area.

Comments

[snowynight]

Thanks for the rec! It sounds fascinating!

[aurumcalendula]

This sounds really cool!

[douqi]

Yessssss you posted it!

While I wouldn’t say Ning Yuan is particularly praised as a prose stylist
You see I always say this and then she gut punches me with a perfectly normal sentence like 下次给我起个乖一点的名字吧.

but the resolution was bordering deus ex machina
Shen Ni, dusting off her hands: Yes, I am indeed a god, thanks for acknowledging that.

I feel like she deserves points just for the ambition and difficulty level of this setting alone. I also did want it to address socio-economic inequality (which was signalled throughout) more than she was ultimately interested in (though I guess I can write fic about the personal cybernetic augmentation scheme Dou Xuanji ends up putting in place with Shen Ni's grudging assistance, Bian Jin's support and Zeng Qingluo's enthusiasm).

[yuerstruly]

Yeah, she delivers some great lines, and I feel like that matters a lot and, in fact, makes more impact when we look at her writing as a whole. I honestly really liked that she trekked into unknown territory, and this is material you could not find even in Anglo-sphere publishing. Maybe in the future!! This still defeats the other cyberpunk I've tried so far, other than PKD who isn't exactly classified as "cyberpunk" but someone who writes works with "traces of cyberpunk elements" (whatever the hell this means!!)

[douqi]

Trying to imagine Neal Stephenson writing a cyberpunk with no main men in it... his brain might just explode.

[trobadora]

That sounds fascinating, thank you for sharing!