![\"Cover](\"\/pictures\/books\/red-station-drifting.jpg\")
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\nI wasn’t too impressed with the first story of Aliette de Bodard I read, when it was linked from Metafilter<\/a>. I found the story, set in a Vietnamese or Vietnam inspired far future “too laboured, too trying to be interesting, but in the end it’s just another Orientalist allegory”. Which is somewhat ironic, as De Bodard is actually of Vietnamese descent… Can a writer be Orientalist if she’s actually writing from her own cultural background? That’s a question we’re going to come back to in discussing On a Red Station, Drifting<\/cite> as it’s at the heart of the problems I’ve had reading this book.\n<\/p>\n \nThe reason I bought On a Red Station, Drifting<\/cite>, after that rough start I had with de Bodard was because she was nominated for the novelette Hugo and I discovered that her nominated story, The Waiting Stars<\/a>, was “an excellent slice of Banksian space opera, a story of love, family and two incompatible views of the world”. On a Red Station, Drifting<\/cite> promised to be more of the same. It’s set in the same universe as The Waiting Stars, where the Dai Viet Empire ruling the stars makes a welcome retrieve from the usual Roman Empire model. At the time of this novel however it’s in trouble, with a weak emperor on the throne and rebel warlords springing up and taking over star systems.\n<\/p>\n
\nOn a Red Station, Drifting
\nAliette de Bodard
\n116 pages
\npublished in 2013
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