Thank you to Netgalley and Tordotcom for providing me with a digital ARC of this book! 

Untethered Sky is a solid, engaging fantasy novella inspired by Persian and Arabian folklore which details the story of a young girl, Ester, whose mother and brother are lost to the brutality of a raging manticore. In this world Fonda Lee constructs, there is only one natural predator that can rival and potentially cull a manticore: the roc, a giant falcon featured in Persian myth. Ester then resolves herself to a life of hunting and killing manticores by training to become a ruhker, a highly skilled roc trainer. 

Told from the first person perspective of Ester, the story follows her as she slowly develops a trusting relationship with the adolescent roc she is tasked to train named Zahra and shifts from apprentice at the Royal Mews to a fully-fledged manticore hunter. The trusting—yet deeply tenuous—relationship between Ester and Zahra is the cornerstone and highlight of the novella. Lee plays heavily on this concept of the relationship between humankind and nature through the complex dynamic ruhkers have with their rocs. Ruhkers build an intensely personal attachment with their rocs while also maintaining the understanding that these are wild creatures who cannot be owned or reciprocate such attachments. 

Despite its length, Untethered Sky is full of complexity and a luscious, intricately carved world tattered by the existence and destruction of manticores. This is my first foray into Fonda Lee’s work and I’m impressed by her concise yet deeply evocative writing style here. The prose never feels understated and deftly conveys the complexity of Ester’s narrative journey which culminates with her killing the heterochromic-eyed manticore... at a cost. 

A sharply earnest coming-of-age fantasy story about finding one’s calling, the power of mythical beasts, and how our love for a wild animal cannot restrain them—yet we care for them anyway.