In Arkady Martine’s Rose/House, vulturehood stands in contrast to personhood. It is an exploitive act of taking from the vulnerable, and the vulnerable are the first to have their agency—and thus their personhood—taken from them. Martine introduces the term “vulturehood” early on in the book, in connection with Basit Deniau, the architect of a mansion located in the Mojave Desert by China Lake, California, known as Rose House. He exists in the ultimate state of vulnerability (that is, death), yet he is also the king vulture, leading the wake that feeds on the two protagonists, architect Dr. Selene Gisil and detective Maritza Smith.

Both of these women are the only living people whom the AI installed in Rose House allows to enter it. Doing so, however, comes at the cost of their personhood: Dr. Gisil has hers taken by accepting Deniau’s legally binding will that she be his own personal archivist, despite a past history with him she has worked publicly to disown; Maritza surrenders hers when Dr. Gisil suggests, in order to trick the AI into granting her access, that they convince Rose House to consider her a vessel for the China Lake police precinct.

This moment serves as a crucial source of unsettlement in the story and helps the reader understand why all of the characters are so scared of Rose House. It also opens up the plot to a sea of mysterious possibilities as we, along with the characters, are now outside of the publicly known parameters of the house’s AI system. It’s also a moment of significant realization regarding the liminality of the concept of personhood. Rose House did not physically take Maritza’s personhood from her, neither did Deniau Dr. Gisil’s. Rose House merely redefined how it views the detective and changed its use of language to accommodate this shift. Similarly, by defining Dr. Gisil as his former student and archivist, Deniau controls not only the house’s but, due to his fame, also the public’s perception of her.

The plot progresses with seamless transitions which Martine achieves through parentheses and em dashes. These do not interrupt the flow but rather pick up parts of the plot that were saved to be continued at a more suitable point, adding suspense throughout the book. One of the most beautifully done examples of this is the moment when Maritza describes the strange dead body that Rose House called the China Lake police precinct to report:

His mouth is—ajar. Yes. Pushed ajar, by red and orange and coral-pink—

But more importantly, the second thing: death, in its exquisite and inevitable unfolding.

Only a few pages later Martine reveals what exactly is in the corpse’s mouth, at a part of the story that allows its exploration to the fullest.

Another example of how Martine not only moves the plot forward but also the characters in their surroundings without disrupting the reader’s own immersion in them is the following scene:

There is a single bench. A single window, very high up, that casts its beam of light to the center of that bench. An invitation. And if she sits down

(she is sitting down now)

the sunlight surrounds her, desert-hot, a blessing, a gift, for a fractional moment and then the wind hits her as well.

Using the parentheses in this instance immediately switches the passive theoretical into an active action that allows the plot to progress without interruption or losing focus. Martine showcases the same kind of effortless inclusion of relevant detail in scattering information that sets Rose/House in a futuristic setting—such as mentioning in passing the years 2168 and 2180, or climate refugees and nanodrones—aiding the reader in imagining the sort of world out of which Rose House and its predecessors emerged from.

As the story unfolds, Rose House shares more about itself—and it becomes apparent that an AI which depends on human labor and knowledge can never be objective and shares its creator’s characteristics and thoughts. In the case of Rose House, it carries on Deniau’s legacy by serving as an outlet for his consciousness while his body’s remnants are stored in the form of a “raptoresque” diamond on a plinth, overseeing the events he has fabricated postmortem.

Deniau’s manipulation of Dr. Gisil, however, began way before his death. The most obvious giveaway that Deniau programmed Rose House to continue his harassment is the AI calling him “the man who made us both,” taking away any agency that Dr. Gisil had in becoming the person she is (and also any doubts that Rose House might be an object free of subjective perspectives). Dr. Gisil herself is aware of the fact that Deniau is intentionally forcing her into association with him, despite (or precisely because of) her having distanced herself from him a long time ago. Rose House is considered to be haunted by the people of China Lake, but it’s Deniau who refuses to give up his earthly powers, circling above Dr. Gisil and preying on her in hopes she surrenders her will to him. He is haunting Dr. Gisil through Rose House, using it to continually mock her as an immortal reminder of a past she wishes to be erased: “Because it means he won after all, and I’m as trapped in his visions as I ever was when I was twenty and stupid.”

Once someone’s personhood is revoked, the vultures are free to feast—and the more pieces of one’s agency are devoured, the harder it becomes to put them back together as one’s own creation. Dr. Gisil performed the brave act of denouncing her vulture—and it still wasn’t enough to escape him.