Aliette de Bodard

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-13

Aliette de Bodard was born on November 10, 1982, in New York City and holds both American and French citizenship; of French and Vietnamese descent, she grew up in Paris, where French became her first language. She holds a degree from the Ecole Polytechnique and works as a railway signalling engineer alongside her writing career. Her fiction frequently constructs alternate histories in which Aztec or pre-colonial Vietnamese civilizations remain dominant world powers, as seen in her novel The House of Shattered Wings (2015), set in a devastated, magic-haunted Paris ruled by fallen angels, and in her long-running Xuya Universe sequence, which includes The Tea Master and the Detective (2018). Her short fiction, including the widely praised stories 'Immersion' and 'The Waiting Stars,' has earned extensive recognition: she has won Nebula Awards for Best Short Story (2012), Best Novelette (2013), and Best Novella (2018); BSFA Awards for Best Novel (2015) and Best Short Fiction (2015, 2021, and 2022); the Locus Award for Best Short Story (2013); the Ignyte Award for Best Novelette (2021); and the ESFS Award for Best Author (2025). In 2015 she became the first author to win both BSFA fiction categories in the same year. De Bodard's work is noted for its attention to sensory detail and its focus on parent-child relationships, particularly between mothers and daughters, a dynamic she considers underexplored in speculative fiction.

Universe(s)

Dominion of the Fallen

Core Canon books: 3
Current rank: #823 in the official ranking
Weighted average: 3.53
Award recognitions: 2 won, 2 finalist mention

Books

The House of Shattered Wings (2015) · Dominion of the Fallen Core Canon
The House of Binding Thorns (2017) · Dominion of the Fallen Core Canon
The House of Sundering Flames (2019) · Dominion of the Fallen Core Canon
Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders (2020) · Dominion of the Fallen Expanded Canon
Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances (2022) · Dominion of the Fallen Expanded Canon

Aggregate across all universes

Total Core Canon books across all universes: 3 books
Award recognitions across all universes: 4 (2 won, 2 finalist mention)

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