Margins
Natural Engines book cover 1
Natural Engines book cover 2
Natural Engines
Series · 2 books · 2025-2026

Books in series

A Palace Near the Wind book cover
#1

A Palace Near the Wind

2025

From a rising star author, a richly inventive, brutal and beautiful science-fantasy novella. A story of family, loss, oppression and rebellion for readers of Nghi Vo's The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Neon Yang's The Black Tides of Heaven and Kritika H. Rao's The Surviving Sky Sometimes called Wind Walkers for their ability to command the wind, unlike their human rulers, the Feng people have bark faces, carved limbs, arms of braided branches, and hair of needle threads. Bound by duty and tradition, Liu Lufeng, the eldest princess of the Feng royalty, is the next bride to the human king. The negotiation of bridewealth is the only way to stop the expansion of the humans so that the Feng can keep their lands, people, and culture intact. As the eldest, Lufeng should be the next in line to lead the people of Feng, and in the past, that made her sisters disposable. Thankful that her youngest sister, Chuiliu, is too young for a sacrificial marriage, she steps in with plans to kill the king to finally stop the marriages. But when she starts to uncover the truth about her peoples' origins and realizes Chuiliu will never be safe from the humans, she must learn to let go of duty and tradition, choose her allies carefully, and risk the unknown in order to free her family and shape her own fate. A powerfully imaginative, compelling story of a young woman seeking to save her family and her home, as well as a devastating meditation on the destruction of the natural world for the sake of an industrial future.
A River from the Sky book cover
#2

A River from the Sky

2026

From the Nebula and Bram Stoker Award-winning author comes the lyrical and moving science-fantasy follow-up to A Palace Near the Wind, as Lufeng and her sister Sangshu fight to protect their culture and their world. For readers of Nghi Vo, Amal El-Mohtar and Kritika H. Rao. Fleeing from the bone palace and crashing into the waters below its steep walls, Lufeng and her siblings reach Gear, with its huge deadly water wheels, where their sister Sangshu is waiting for them. In the chaos of the enormous waves, within moments they're snatched away and taken into rebel territory, where they learn more of the deadly experiments Zinc has wreaked upon the people. Loyal to Copper now, Sangshu herself is a victim of Zinc's experiments. Desperate to find her family, she races through Gear to Engine, ruthless Zinc's industrial heartland, where she burns with a desire to fix her own mistakes and those of others and find a way to save her world. This powerful, beautifully told novella explores the bonds of family, the pain of leaving all you have known behind, and the terrible price of our industrial future.

Author

Ai Jiang
Ai Jiang
Author · 9 books
Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, a Nebula-, Locus-, Ignyte Award finalist, and an immigrant from Fujian. She is a member of HWA, SFWA, and Codex. Her work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, Uncanny, among others. She is the recipient of Odyssey Workshop's 2022 Fresh Voices Scholarship and the author of Linghun and I AM AI. Find her on Twitter (@AiJiang_) and online (http://aijiang.ca).
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