Friday, November 27, 2015

The Aeronaut's Windlass (The Cinder Spires #1)


The Aeronaut's Windlass - Jim Butcher This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.
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Title: The Aeronaut's Windlass
Series: The Cinder Spires
Author: Jim Butcher
Rating: of 5 Battle Axes
Genre: SFF
Pages: 630
Format: Kindle




Synopsis:
People live in Spires, miles long wide and high habitats, that keep them safe from the elements and creatures of the harsh and destructive world.
Fleets keep the Spires safe.
Now there is a war on between Spire Albion and Spire Aurora. This story is about introducing the disparate set of characters, introducing us to elements of this world and details one skirmish in the war that probably has deeper consequences for the rest of the story than we are aware of.

My Thoughts:
Impressive. Skillfully and wonderfully made. This is definitely steampunk but Butcher works it like a master and I actually liked it. That impressed me as well :-)

I liked the characters. Grimm was great [I'm kind of partial to that name now as I've been bing watching the tv show Grimm on Amazon Prime and I just imagined the Grimm from the tv show as the Grimm here in the book], Rowl the Cat was done to an absolute perfect T and yet not overused and hence simply a prop. The others all fit into a good slot and helped things along.

We only get hints about the world however. Which considering how big this book was was probably a good thing. Save the whole "this is what our world is like and this is how it came to be" plotline for another book. I will be looking forward to that plotline however.

Codex Alera is my favorite series of books andyet  I can't stomach the Dresden Files so I wasn't sure which side of the line this series would come down on. Happily, I loved it. As much as I want to go buy a hardcover though, I am waiting to see how long this series goes and in what direction it turns. If it is a 6 book series like Codex Alera then I can totally see myself buying these. If however it becomes some sort of open ended cash revenue river like the Dresden Files then I will remember this fondly with a small sigh of regret.

Highly recommended as  a fast paced, thrilling SFF story that will keep you engaged through the whole book.

1 comment:

  1. I actually read his Codex Alera series before Dresden, thankfully. I hated the dresden books and if they had been my only window to Butcher I never would have tried this. Thank goodness for Alera.

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