Tensorate

Series · 6 books · 2017-2021

By J.Y. Yang, Neon Yang

Books in series

The Black Tides of Heaven

2017

The Black Tides of Heaven is one of a pair of standalone introductions to JY Yang's Tensorate Series. For more of the story you can read its twin novella The Red Threads of Fortune Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery as children. While Mokoya developed her strange prophetic gift, Akeha was always the one who could see the strings that moved adults to action. While his sister received visions of what would be, Akeha realized what could be. What's more, he saw the sickness at the heart of his mother's Protectorate. A rebellion is growing. The Machinists discover new levers to move the world every day, while the Tensors fight to put them down and preserve the power of the state. Unwilling to continue to play a pawn in his mother's twisted schemes, Akeha leaves the Tensorate behind and falls in with the rebels. But every step Akeha takes towards the Machinists is a step away from his sister Mokoya. Can Akeha find peace without shattering the bond he shares with his twin sister?

The Red Threads of Fortune

2017

The Red Threads of Fortune is one of a pair of unique, standalone introductions to JY Yang's Tensorate Series, which Kate Elliott calls "effortlessly fascinating." For more of the story you can read its twin novella The Black Tides of Heaven, available now. Fallen prophet, master of the elements, and daughter of the supreme Protector, Sanao Mokoya has abandoned the life that once bound her. Once her visions shaped the lives of citizens across the land, but no matter what tragedy Mokoya foresaw, she could never reshape the future. Broken by the loss of her young daughter, she now hunts deadly, sky-obscuring naga in the harsh outer reaches of the kingdom with packs of dinosaurs at her side, far from everything she used to love. On the trail of a massive naga that threatens the rebellious mining city of Bataanar, Mokoya meets the mysterious and alluring Rider. But all is not as it seems: the beast they both hunt harbors a secret that could ignite war throughout the Protectorate. As she is drawn into a conspiracy of magic and betrayal, Mokoya must come to terms with her extraordinary and dangerous gifts, or risk losing the little she has left to hold dear.

The Descent of Monsters

2018

JY Yang continues to redefine the limits of silkpunk fantasy with their Tensorate novellas, which the New York Times lauded as "joyously wild." In this third volume, an investigation into atrocities committed at a classified research facility threaten to expose secrets that the Protectorate will do anything to keep hidden. You are reading this because I am dead. Something terrible happened at the Rewar Teng Institute of Experimental Methods. When the Tensorate’s investigators arrived, they found a sea of blood and bones as far as the eye could see. One of the institute’s experiments got loose, and its rage left no survivors. The investigators returned to the capital with few clues and two prisoners: the terrorist leader Sanao Akeha and a companion known only as Rider. Investigator Chuwan faces a puzzle. What really happened at the institute? What drew the Machinists there? What are her superiors trying to cover up? And why does she feel as if her strange dreams are forcing her down a narrowing path she cannot escape?

The Ascent to Godhood

2019

The Protector is dead. For fifty years, the Protector ruled, reshaping her country in her image and driving her enemies to the corners of the map. For half a century the world turned around her as she built her armies, trained her Tensors, and grasped at the reins of fate itself. Now she is dead. Her followers will quiver, her enemies rejoice. But in one tavern, deep in rebel territory, her greatest enemy drowns her sorrows. Lady Han raised a movement that sought the Protector's head, yet now she can only mourn her loss. She remembers how it all began, when the Protector was young, not yet crowned, and a desperate dancing girl dared to fall in love with her.

#1-3

The Tensorate Series

3 Novellas

2018

The Black Tides of Heaven: In the first book of the Tensorate series, a rebellion threatens the power of the Protectorate. Akeha, one of the twin children of the Protector, leaves the Tensorate behind and falls in with the rebels. But every step Akeha takes towards the Machinists is a step away from Mokoya. Can Akeha find peace without shattering the bond they share with their twin? The Red Threads of Fortune: In the second book in the Tensorate series, Sanao Mokoya has abandoned the life that once bound her. Broken by the loss of her young daughter, she now hunts deadly, sky-obscuring naga in the harsh outer reaches of the kingdom, far from everything she used to love. On the trail of a massive naga that threatens the rebellious mining city of Bataanar, Mokoya meets the mysterious and alluring Rider. But all is not as it seems: The beast they both hunt harbors a secret that could ignite war throughout the Protectorate. The Descent of Monsters: JY Yang continues to redefine the limits of silkpunk fantasy with the Tensorate novellas. In this third volume, an investigation into atrocities committed at a classified research facility threatens to expose secrets that the Protectorate will do anything to keep hidden.

#1-4

The Tensorate Series

2021

The Tensorate Series, which has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, and Lambda Literary Awards, is an incomparable treasure of modern epic fantasy. Across four novellas, Neon Yang established themself as a fantasist in bold defiancé of the limitations of their genre. Available now in a single volume, these four novellas trace the generational decline of an empire and unfurl a world that is rich and strange beyond anything you've dreamed. In the Tensorate Series you will find: rebellious nonbinary scions of empire, sky-spanning nagas with experimental souls, revolutionary engineers bent on bringing power to the people, pugilist monks, packs of loyal raptors, and much, much more. The Tensorate Series omnibus contains The Black Tides of Heaven, The Red Threads of Fortune, The Descent of Monsters, and To Ascend to Godhood

Authors

J.Y. Yang

Author · 8 books

Neon Yang is the author of the Tensorate series of novellas from Tor.Com Publishing (The Red Threads of Fortune, The Black Tides of Heaven, The Descent of Monsters and The Ascent to Godhood). Their work has been shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Lambda Literary and Locus awards, while the Tensorate novellas were a Tiptree honoree in 2018. They have over two dozen works of short fiction published in venues including Tor.com, Uncanny Magazine, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and Strange Horizons. Neon attended the 2013 class of Clarion West, and received their MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in 2016. In previous incarnations, they have been a molecular biologist, a writer for animation, comics and games, a science communicator, and a journalist for one of Singapore’s national papers. Neon is currently based out of Singapore. They are queer and non-binary. Find them on Twitter as @itsneonyang, and otherwise at http://neonyang.com.

Neon Yang

Author · 7 books

Neon Yang, formerly J.Y. Yang, is a Singaporean writer of English-language speculative fiction. Yang is non-binary and queer, and uses they/them pronouns. Yang has written a series of "silkpunk" novellas, and has published short fiction since 2012. Their novella The Black Tides of Heaven was nominated for the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novella, the 2018 Kitschies Golden Tentacle and the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella. Yang's work revolves around "the human body as a vessel for storytelling", and is based on their background as a molecular biologist, journalist and science communicator.