Yoon Ha Lee blurbs this as a book about "linguistics and consequences" and it's hard to find a better phrase to describe this novella.

The brief plot setup: Ro is a linguist who is training to sync up and jump into the body of a Star Eater, the only biological beings that can harvest the meridian element used for interstellar travel. He manages to do it against all odds, but things are not quite as he expects in his new body.

"It gives you no hesitation, the theft of another's self?"

Ro paused. That was the part he tried not to think about. As far as anyone knew from reports of the jumped Linguists, the leap took over the original Star Eater completely. At least for the Ponto lifetime.

What's interesting to me is that this is a story about learning that you're partially complicit in larger atrocities that are now your responsibility, even if the source of them is not (entirely) your fault. It's about the lies you repeat enough until they become true. It's about language and colonialism. I also don't think the book has any easy or pat answers here.