In a story that wanes and waxes between the ordinary and the uncanny, between fantastical flights of imagination to more grounded and seemingly possible encounters between lovers or kin or therapy groups, this reader’s expectations were constantly thwarted to delightful effect. Perhaps the most compelling concept in the book are the “bright doors” alluded to in the title, bewitched portals to parallel worlds that might-have-been or no longer are, where the rude, sinuous shapes known as the “invisible laws and powers” breach into reality to terrorize the few that can perceive them. Overall, I would highly recommend this breathtaking book to readers who embrace complicated queer characters and worlds painted with a palette that ignores genre boundaries.

We retreated to our quarters…In moments, I was with them, transported by a symphony of sensory implants to that mirrored elsewhere where they now dwelt. A place of bejewelled rivers and jutting karst massifs. A sym of the Li River valley where we met decades prior. And then I saw them, not as a printed, sapient sphere, but as they had been, then. Before the climate-born plague claimed their flesh. I saw Amaranth, their skin a river of pale gold flowing across my lips. Amaranth, whose eyes smouldered like braziers of obsidian as they met mine. Amaranth, whose gaze left me as breathless as the river emptying into the valley. I took them into my arms and we made love, our bodies
more youthful and sumptuous in this façade for our senses. By the
manufactured reproduction of the loess delta, I tasted Amaranth.
The ecstasy was real even if the veneer was not.

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The final stop of the tour (for now) is in Toronto in November. Hope to see you at Another Story books with the spectacular Ai Jiang as a conversation partner!