I remember waking up one lazy Sunday morning and 0.5 seconds into consciousness my wife asked if The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in the Water is any good. It was a Kindle Daily Deal. I blearily squinted at her phone screen, noted Zen Cho’s name on the byline, and mumbled, “Oh, yeah, for sure.” 

And I may not have been awake enough for pants but I was right on the money with this book recommendation! This novella follows the (mis)adventures of a bandit group in a mythical Malaysia. When a waitress is accused of witchcraft after rebuffing the advances of a handsy customer, two bandits intervene and accidentally cause the waitress to lose her job. Later, back at camp, they discover she’s not just a waitress, but Guet Imm, a nun escaped from her burned temple, and she’s coming with them whether they like it or not. 

This was my first time reading Zen Cho, but her work has been lauded up and down fantasy Twitter for awhile. The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in the Water was nominated for a Locus Award! And for good reason. Cho perfectly balances comedy and commentary about gender, colonization, faith, and class. Her characters, especially Guet Imm and the bandit second-in-command Tet Sang, are fully realized and compelling. I loved the inclusion of Malay words—while a non-Malay reader could use context clues, I happily pulled out my phone to search “jampi,” “tokong,” “pahala,” and more. Ever since we watched The Untamed on Netflix, we’re reading and watching wuxia and Chinese Boy Love dramas pretty much nonstop in this household. I’m listening to SCI Mystery music as I write this review. I'm very much in the practice of searching the Internet for terms I'm unfamiliar with.

As far as the queer rep, Tet Sang is a trans man. I’m not marking that as a spoiler because TERFs have been annoying me lately about revealing a character’s “true” gender, like it’s some sort of mystery. Tet Sang says he’s a man, so he’s a man. The end. Anyway, I thought Zen Cho struck an interesting middle ground with queerness and transness that I don’t see so often. Recently, I’ve read stories with trans characters where their transness is a one-off line. He mentions using a binder, or she mentions being mistaken as a boy in her youth. Or it’s the other end of the spectrum: the whole book is about being trans. 

In Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in the Water, Tet Sang’s transness is explicitly discussed, and his transness informs his perspective. He knows the bandits’ aren’t the most observant folks since he has little trouble hiding his menstrual cramps from them. When he goes to negotiate with noble woman, there’s some moments of awkwardness since he last saw her pre-transition. That’s not to say Tet Sang’s queerness is tokenized or obscures all other parts of his self. Tet Sang’s thoughts are more often occupied with if he can trust Guet Imm, the latest antics of the bandits, and survival. This one facet of his personhood is brought up at organic narrative moments. His transness is integral to the character, the plot, and the themes of the novel. But it’s not the only theme, the main plot, and the most emphasized part of his character. 

Overall, Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in the Water is such a fun book. I giggled and ooh-ed and aw-ed. If you love Asian fantasy, you owe it to yourself to buy this book. I’m already reading Black Water Sister, Zen Cho’s latest masterpiece.