REVIEW: In the Watchful City, by S. Qiouyi Lu

Title: In the Watchful City

Author: S. Qiouyi Lu

Rating: ★★★★ (4 out of 5 stars)

In the Watchful City is a biocyberpunk story and a visceral experience relating to the intersections of gender, class and power as well as to the aspects of decolonisation and agency in an Asian-inspired and Asian-centric world. As a non-big reader of science fiction, I was worried about being unable to get through the novella. However, I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it and how digestible the story and its worldbuilding actually is.

The novella follows Anima (ae/aer/aers), an extrasensory non-binary human that serveils the city of Ora and protects its citizens. Anima’s world and perspective on it expands when Vessel (se/ser/sers), a mysterious visitor, enters Ora and narrates stories associated to various objects contained within a cabinet that Vessel carries with ser.

One of the things I love about this book is the richness of Lu’s writing, which I am enamoured by with its opening:

Anima closes aer eyes and sees the world.

Ae borrows the body of a crow in flight. The two suns creep toward the horizon, casting long shadows from the floating islands overhead, shadows that cross the lapping waves of the Hailei Sea to the shores of Ora, plunging the city-state into twilight, even as sunset engulfs the rest of the world. The glow of the streelights in Tiankyo, capital of the Skylands, underlines the gathering clouds. Sheltered by trees, Ora bides its time below, cut off from the rest of the world by choice, dark save for motes of light that escape through gaps in the canopy.

Interwoven throughout the novella is the series of short stories told to Anima, allowing the story and its themes to fluorish in a way that is pertinent to aer growth as a character without slowing down the story. With each short story, we see their subtle and overt meanings underlie and progress the shift in Anima’s understanding of the city aer protects and the rest of the world, and aer position within them.

In the Watchful City beautifully subverts cultural and societal norms, and in doing so, shows the complex and intricate world Lu has created built on history, myths and hope.

Content warnings: on-page suicide, body mutilation, self-harm