Winters Orbit, the debut from Everina Maxwell, is a lot of things. First and foremost, it’s queer SF romance. I saw it described as a story of “disaster husbands”, and it’s that, too. But it’s also a story of two men investigating conspiracy and murder, a story of challenging cultural attitudes, a story of resistance, and reshaping oneself to not only survive, but thrive. It’s a story which looks at people, and who we are, through a future lens, using the shape of the future to tell us something about ourselves. And, you know what, it’s also a story of a relationship, one which we can see grow from difficult beginnings into something real and true.
So, you know, something for everyone.
The heart of the story is the relationship between Prince Kiem, the somewhat lackadaisical, social butterfly minor royal whom all the others try to forget about, and Jainan, the recently widowed husband of one of Kiem’s many relatives. The two men are pushed into a rapidly arranged marriage in order to satisfy the terms of a galactic treaty, which isn’t exactly a great starting point for any relationship. Kiem is cheerful, gregarious, and blithely unaware of his own significance, or the power that his family wields over the other worlds in his system. Jainan is withdrawn, introspective, and very, very conscious of the personal and institutional power dynamics in play. The interplay between the two men is wonderfully done; the story switches between their viewpoints often, and seeing how each looks from behind the eyes of the other is a revelation. Each is, of course, convinced of only the worst in themselves, and, in the finest dramatic tradition, manages to misunderstand the other man at every turn. It works because we can see each of them genuinely trying to make the best of their situation, trying to make it work, and being tripped up by their own preconceptions of what the other thinks and says and does. As Jainan and Kiem grow closer, this sort of thing happens...I want to say less, but instead I’m going to say differently. They start to talk at each other, rather than past each other, and shape their relationship through warmth and grounded truths, rather than their own preconceived cultural expectations.
Also, they fight a lizard bear.
But yes. The contrast between the two men, one of whom is living within the shackles of duty, and the other of whom can’t be convinced to even put them on for the weekend, is a joy; both their voices are so different from each other, but both have a heart and soul that comes right off the page and seeps into your bones. It’s a relationship which, in its peaks and troughs, made me sigh with frustration, laugh, and occasionally choke back a sob. They’re a great pair, and if one wouldn’t work as well without the other, maybe that’s the point. Maybe that warmth and connection is what makes the story work. In any event, this is a story of two men bound by duty and expectation, trying to find their way forward, trying to find something more. And it shows us both men, all their flaws and foibles, and old mistakes and past horrors, their charming banter and their growing affection, and asks us to come along for the ride as they try and find each other, and themselves. And that works, and it’ll keep you turning the pages, just to see what happens next - how Jainan is going to teach Kiem about the responsibilities and pressures of power, or how Kiem is going to tell that one story about how he fell into a canal in front of a camera crew again. They’re a mismatched pair of smart, dumb people, and by the en dof the book, I loved them for that.
(I wanted to put a content warning somewhere, so it’s going to be here: there’s some mention of past domestic abuse in this story, and it comes up as part of the flow of Kiem and Jainan’s relationship.)
Anyway. Then there’s the story itself, the narrative wrapped around the relationship at its heart.And you know what, it’s a pretty fun story. There’s the question of whether the Galactic superpower that demands these links between worlds in the first place will accept Jainan and Kiem’s marriage, or whether their worlds will be left cut off and vulnerable. There’s the question of exactly why Jainan’s first husband suddenly died in a mysterious vehicle accident whilst working on a secret government project. The two new and unexpected husbands start looking into the death of Jainan’s husband, and very quickly find themselves getting on the wrong side of all sorts of people - the military, the press, internal palace security, political dissidents, intergalactic auditors, and the aforementioned lizard-bear. The relationship is the core, but the plot wrapped around it is fast-paced, compelling, and as full of twists and turns as a...twisty, turny thing. Trying to work out who was doing what and why was a delight. The book plays fair, too. What the protagonists know, we know, and I have to say, much like them, I still didn’t expect most of the stuff that falls onto them from a great height. The investigation is intriguing, and the tension that it evokes as the pair dig further into some rather dark secrets is, well, by the end, it’s taut as a wire. Because the relationship between Kiem and Jainan feels so real, its easy to empathise and sympathise with them, to care, to be drawn into their concerns - and when those concerns rapidly escalate to world-spanning conspiracies, well, I was left on the edge of my seat.
I have a lot to say about the world that got built here too, incidentally. How it feels organically realised and real. How there's so much in play with the power dynamics between the central Imperial power and the worlds it chooses not to always entirely call its vassals. How a system which is slowly shifting away from an implied military past toward a more collaborative model is struggling to deal with the consequences of that past. How that imperial power is resisted, quietly and otherwise, and how it chooses to assert itself. But I’m running out of words, so I’ll just say that the world building is rock solid, and makes the stage on which Jainan, Kiem and their friends and enemies exist feel as real and alive as the characters themselves.
In the end, this is a moving story of two men finding each other and themselves, and also a cracking work of science fiction that was so compelling I was literally up reading it until 3am to see how it finished. You really ought to give it a whirl.
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