Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    In the Vanishers' Palace
    In the Vanishers' Palace
    In the Vanishers' Palace
    Audiobook6 hours

    In the Vanishers' Palace

    Written by Aliette de Bodard

    Narrated by Nancy Wu

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From the award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series comes a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

    In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land . . .

    A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village's debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world.

    A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference.

    When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement.

    But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies-and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn's dark, unspeakable secrets . . .

    Contains mature themes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 2, 2019
    ISBN9781977345974
    In the Vanishers' Palace
    Author

    Aliette de Bodard

    Aliette de Bodard writes speculative fiction: she has won three Nebula Awards, an Ignyte Award, a Locus Award and six British Science Fiction Association Awards. She is the author of A Fire Born of Exile, a sapphic Count of Monte Cristo in space (Gollancz/JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., 2023), and of Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances (JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc, 2022 BSFA Award winner), a fantasy of manners and murders set in an alternate 19th Century Vietnamese court. She lives in Paris.

    More audiobooks from Aliette De Bodard

    Related to In the Vanishers' Palace

    Related audiobooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      For The Wolf

      Jun 16, 2021

      ⏵ RELEASED 17 JUNE 480 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author Hannah Whitten ⏵ Publisher Orbit Books Wolves run through fairy tales, flashing a tooth here, a tail there. But if you pick this up expecting to see familiar motifs popping up, you’ll

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Jasmine Throne

      Jun 16, 2021

      The Jasmine Throne
      2 min read

    • Article

      Ursula K. Le Guin

      Jun 15, 2018

      He was thinking of Lookfar, abandoned long ago, beached on the sands of Selidor. Little of her would be left by now, a plank or two down in the sand maybe, a bit of driftwood on the western sea. As he drifted near sleep he began to remember sailing t

      15 min read

    • Article

      To Save Arrhinsal

      Sep 1, 2021

      TOLIN CRAWLED FORWARD, staying alert. All around, the dense, wiry thickets of the hedge were strangely silent. That usually meant danger, when the green tangle of thorns should be cheery with the songs of finches, the dusky clucking of hedge hens. On

      8 min read

    • Article

      Raiders From The Sea

      Sep 1, 2023

      CANNY LIFTED HER head from the swirls of gold and red and put down the brush, stretching her frozen fingers. The sun fell through the scriptorium window in warm panels, but the room was still cold, and she’d been at work on the manuscript in front of

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Witch Finders

      Jul 16, 2020

      Beth pulled her cloak tightly around her. It was the very last day of October and the air was damp and chill. Dead autumn leaves lay in deep piles in the woods and smoke curled into the night air from her cottage. Not far to go now. She bent her head

      4 min read

    • Article

      Wayétu Moore

      Jun 15, 2018

      Lai was hidden in the middle of forests when the Vai people found it. There was evidence of earlier townsmen there, as ends of stoneware and crushed diamonds were found scattered on hilltops in the unexpected company of domestic cats. But when the Va

      29 min read

    • Article

      A Symposium On The Mysterious

      Sep 1, 2023

      A Symposium On The Mysterious
      24 min read

    • Article

      O Fortuna, Velut Luna

      Sep 15, 2018

      What is Miss Treece’s trouble, according to a popular notion? The man A has failed to show up. Arousing herself at the restaurant, she fixes her lipstick when her solo supper concludes and takes herself down the stairs situated behind the bar. There,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Sister Acts

      Oct 23, 2023

      by Charlotte Wood (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) She goes first as a guest, just for five days, seeking respite from unresolved grief after her parents’ deaths. The place she has chosen is the home of a small order of nuns near the remote Australian town wh

      2 min read

    • Article

      To Save Arrhinsal

      Nov 1, 2021

      Tolin lives on Arrhinsal, an island that floats in the sky two miles above the land below. One day, while hunting in the maze of tunnels that run through the island’s thick hedges, he encounters a girl who, her sword raised, has turned to face a huge

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Lost Prayer

      Feb 2, 2023

      A Lost Prayer
      10 min read

    • Article

      Red Kite Grey Shadow

      Nov 3, 2022

      Red Kite Grey Shadow
      6 min read

    • Article

      'Empire Of Wild' Tells A Small Story — But Not A Slight One

      Jul 29, 2020

      Cherie Dimaline's new novel seems small in scope — it's about a woman who loses her husband and is determined to bring him back, nothing more than that — but it's rich, tightly written and powerful.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Concerning The Future Of Souls

      Mar 19, 2024

      As a toddler she had caused a sensation in her family when she announced she wanted to live in a little hole like the ant. Not an ant, the ant. This might have been misheard. She was an easygoing child, not particularly thoughtful and stubbornly inar

      13 min read

    • Article

      In Love And War

      Jun 10, 2021

      April 1943 - Krakow, Poland Irena was bent over her needlework, stitching the frayed seam of her skirt when she heard a single gunshot ring out. She jerked and then scowled. After four years of war, she ought to be used to it. Why, the other night a

      11 min read

    • Article

      Shelter

      May 28, 2022

      Shelter
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why The Whale Lives In The Sea

      Apr 1, 2024

      Why The Whale Lives In The Sea
      3 min read

    • Article

      Are You Lonesome Tonight?

      Aug 8, 2019

      Are You Lonesome Tonight?
      6 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Guide

      Jan 2, 2022

      Summer Reading Guide
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Swan

      Aug 27, 2021

      The Swan
      5 min read

    • Article

      This Back Is a Familiar Back

      May 1, 2023

      This Back Is a Familiar Back
      8 min read

    • Article

      Named

      Mar 19, 2018

      Named
      10 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Radio

      Feb 22, 2023

      Quantum Radio
      5 min read

    • Article

      Paper Princess

      Apr 1, 2023

      Paper Princess
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for In the Vanishers' Palace

    4/5

    101 ratings10 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      The novella In the Vanishers’ palace feels like it is trying on all the genre labels. It’s coming-of-age YA, for one, a little more so than I am used to from de Bodard. It is also is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast (particularly the animated Disney film, including a Library Scene), uses both sfnal tropes (a post-apocalyptic world abandoned by malevolent Aliens) and fantasy tropes (magic spells and dragons), against a setting that borrows from Vietnamese folklore. And it’s also a queer romance, specifically one of the paranormal and interspecies kind. Plenty of labels, forms of address, and pronouns to go around. And it works, on most levels -- so many, in fact, that not all of them have to come into play to enjoy this novella. The parallels with the Disney movie, for one, are obvious, but only once you start looking for them; it can be read largely as a paranormal romance that happens to be queer, or vice versa. But it’s never less than at least three genres simultaneously, and it works out very nicely, mainly because de Bodard keeps the whole thing firmly grounded emotionally and psychologically. Ambitious, but solid.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      It started out really well. The world was interesting, but we weren’t given any more. Then the MC started suffering from Stockholm syndrome, but it was not presented as such, just an inexplicable and unexplained lust. Then the captor got into the act. There was a lot of pearl clasping and drama, but no depth, just the same basic expression of desire over and over. It got old quite quickly. There was a brief reprieve when the MC entered the Vanisher’s library with the twins, but again, only questions were thrown out and no answers.
    • 5/5
      The only bad thing about Aliette de Bodard's book is that they have to finish. I really this fantasy story and sapphic romance. The world building is outstanding and fascinating.
      The narratot is also fantastic!
    • 4/5
      Wonderful sapphic sff novel set in post apocalyptic world and inspired Vietnamese culture. The narration by Nancy Wu is great as always.
    • 4/5
      A different Beauty and the Beast meets Alien Invasion set in a non-western setting. I would have liked a little more build up of romance in the story but was enchanted by it all and truly drawn in. There was an alien invasion and with them they brought what became diseases, which were meant to change people to make them more useful to the invaders. This is now a hard world with very limited resources and really everyone has to justify their existence. Life can be nasty brutish and short and Vu Con sometimes helps but their price can be harsh. Yen is the price, she is willing to save her mother to be the price as she can see that there isn't really a place for her and she can see that soon she might be judged as not useful and choice may be taken from her.It's interesting and the world is one I'd like to see more of and learn more of.
    • 5/5
      Start with a well-written fantasy. Combine Vietnamese characters and traditions with Beauty and the Beast. Add a dash of science fiction. Shake it up and add a dollop of philosophical and ethical musing. You end up with the book In the Vanishers' Palace. Oh, and a dragon!This book made me think about questions such as "How do we define usefulness?" and "How do we grow into the 'best' us?" and "How do we love someone who isn't like 'us'?". All those lead to the deeper questions of how we define "we" and "us." I fell in love with this book because it told a good story and challenged me to expand my horizons. I like that magic was comprised of words, that words held power in so many ways. I loved the idea that Beauty was a tutor to the wards of the Beast -- that made so much sense to me. And did I mention a dragon?This book is not your traditional fantasy. If that is what you are looking for, perhaps a different book is for you. Nor is it a conventional "Beauty and the Beast." If you want to spread your wings and try a unique fantasy, then this book might well suit you.
    • 4/5
      Odd short novel. A blend of bucolic village life - if somewhat hard on the less useful villagers - with post alien invasion mutant dragons and plague viruses. The world-building is not explained clearly, but the basic premise seems to be that aliens came, conducted genetic experiments, and left. In their wake are a few technologies, mutant viruses mostly lethal but occasionally imbuing the victim with strange powers and the aliens former slaves, who retain some access to more technology than the villagers know.Yen is just assisting her mother as a healer, the headvillager's daughter needs every succour possible, and so she uses her most potent words, summoning YeCon the Water dragon. However every healing has a price and the village sees the assistant as less valuable than the Mother and offers Yen instead. Yen having always wanted to flee the village finds herself in a very strange place instead.It doesn't really go anywhere in terms of plot, but perhaps the moral is no more than trust others as you'd want to be trusted yourself.
    • 3/5
      This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling set in an alternate world that uses Vietnamese culture to tell the story and has a science fictional feel to it. A dragon that also use science and gene therapy to cure the virus damage done by the Vanishers plays the part of the beast. Yên is traded to Vu Côn to pay the debt her healer mother incurred by calling on the dragon to heal someone important from the village. Yên is convinced that she will be eaten or killed for entertainment, but it turns out she is tasked with teaching the children of the dragon. Of course the palace she is in could also kill her since it is the former home of the Vanishers. There are secrets in the palace and a growing attraction between the two. Overall this was an interesting retelling and I would certainly read more in this setting.


      Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley
    • 4/5
      4 stars for In the Vanishers’ Palace by Aliette de Bodard. This is true Aliette de Bodard, meaning it's lush, emotional, and absolutely lovely. It's a story of survival and love set in a post-war world, and about the secrets that can affect both. #InTheVanishersPalace #NetGalley
    • 4/5
      From the author’s website: ’In the Vanishers Palace is a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast, where they are both women and the Beast is a dragon. Set in a ruined universe inspired by Vietnamese folklore, where scholar-magicians and spirits walk the earth…’Aliette de Bodard is rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors of short fiction - In the Vanishers' Palace is her latest release and it's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast inspired by Vietnamese folklore and dragons. It's set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world which has been partially ruined by a mysterious group of creatures called the Vanishers who have now vanished and left the people of world to try to pick up the pieces. It's fantasy (because dragons and magic) but also felt science-fictional in places (post-apocalyptic and I kept feeling like the Vanishers might be aliens). Adding in the romance element and it's a testimony to de Bodard as a writer that such a short work can successfully manage all these elements. The prose was beautiful as I've come to expect from de Bodard and the story was poignant. Plus there's an awesome description of the beast's library :-)