The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher (2015)
Lacking depth and explanation
Book cover blurb
Since time immemorial, humanity has lived inside the Spires, habitats towering for miles over the dangerous, monster-infested surface of the world. Captain Grimm of the merchant airship Predator was dismissed from Spire Albion's military in disgrace - now his ship and crew are all he has, and he's fiercely loyal to both. When the Predator is severely damaged in combat, Grimm is offered a choice - take on a clandestine mission for Albion's leaders, or stay grounded for good.
But he will learn that the conflict between the Spires is merely a premonition of things to come. Humanity's ancient enemy, silent for more than ten thousand years, has begun to stir once more. And death will follow in its wake...
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My Review
I still can't quite decide if I actually liked this book or not. I read all 630 pages, but every time I discussed it with my wife, during the read, it was always to complain about things that irritated me.
I never felt we really got to know any of the characters, other than superficially, which is pretty surprising considering every single one of the 69 chapters contains a point-of-view switch. Every character was also a little too run-of-the-mill in my opinion. Cliche even. Captain Grimm was the only character I really clicked with, but even he was what you would picture a stereotypical ship's captain to be.
The world itself was interesting but it wasn't explained adequately enough. Even by the end of the book I was still frustrated by umpteen questions I'd carried throughout the story without receiving answers, mainly about the Spires structures. How do they work exactly, the formation appearance, and just how many of them were there?
All in all, this felt much more like the middle book of a trilogy rather than the first.
It's quite nicely written but it doesn't seem on the same level as The Dresden Files to me. I wondered if Butcher had possibly created this long before he'd polished his craft and released it later in his career. I even wondered at several points in the book whether it had been written by him at all.
But, having said all that, I read the whole thing, so he's obviously done something right. Although I definitely won't be reading subsequent books in this series. Sorry Jim.
My copy of this novel
Orbit paperback edition.
Published in 2015
630 pages
ISBN 9780356504681