Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Series is Greater than the Sum of its Parts

The Descent of Monsters (The Tensorate Series) by JY Yang

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  Last year, I reviewed JY Yang´s twin novellas The Black Tides of Heaven and The Red Threads of Fortune and was quite charmed by them, with their clever worldbuilding and experimental narrative styles. Described as ´silkpunk´ by the author, the world of the Tensorate is an ingenious mix of politics and magic. With The Descent of Monsters, JY Yang continues to experiment by writing this third instalment in an epistolary fashion. This is their boldest choice by far, as the switch between letters, diaries […]

A Lot of Story Packed into a Novella

Jy Yang by The Black Tides of Heaven

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I remember seeing quite a few positive reviews of the Tensorate Series on CBR so I jumped at the chance to download it when the first novella was the free book available from Tor’s monthly book club earlier this year. It wasn’t quite what I expected – the world building itself was fascinating, but I was surprised by the wide range of time this novella covered.  Since I knew it was a series, I think I expected this one to cover the twins growing up […]

Trust no one

The Ascent to Godhood by JY Yang

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Cbr11bingo Rainbow Flag, Bingo #6 From About the Author: JY Yang is the author of the Tensorate series…. A finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, they are also a lapsed journalist, a former practicing scientist, and a master of hermitry. They are a queer, non-binary, postcolonial, intersectional feminist, and have more than two dozen pieces of short fiction published. They live in Singapore and have an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. JY Yang’s fourth novel in the […]

You Can Swim Against The Tide

The Black Tides of Heaven by J.Y. Yang

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It’s ridiculous how much story is contained in this short novella. It’s like Hermione’s enchanted purse, it looks small but contains vast worlds and time. In 240 pages, J.Y. Yang takes Akeha and Mokoya from newborns to adults with lovers and families, and builds an empire in turmoil around them. The Black Tides of Heaven is the first four books of A Song of Ice and Fire in a novella. Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery […]

Underrepresented #CBR10 Bingo

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JY Yang is a queer, non-binary, post-colonial intersectional feminist. They live in Singapore. The Descent of Monsters is the third in JY Yang’s Tensorate Series. I reviewed the first two volumes earlier this year, and the third continues the riveting and ingenious story of a world where a very privileged few hold ultimate power and wield it with disregard, if not contempt, for the rest. While the first two volumes focus on the extraordinarily talented twin children of the supreme dictator known as the Protector, […]

These Twin “Silkpunk” Fantasy Novellas are Fantastic

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      This is another series that I feel I probably would have missed completely if I didn’t sign myself up as a Hugo Awards voter. And that would have been a damn shame because I’ve now discovered another awesome fantasy author. It might be odd of me to try and make this distinction, but The Black Tides of Heaven and The Red Threads of Fortune are not so much as a pair of novellas – they are too tightly entwined for that. Rather, […]



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