The Aeronaut's Windlass

by Jim Butcher
630 pgs  (The Cinder Spires series #1)

The Aeronaut's Windlass is the first book in Jim Butcher's new "futuristic-dystopian-steampunk" series. It takes place on a world in which humans live thousands of feet up in the air. They've built giant spires, which are a couple miles across and over 10,000 feet tall. Each spire is in and of itself an independent nation, with its own government, culture, and interests--interests which often end up conflicting with those of other spires.

Their technology is based on crystals, which are grown and used to provide electricity, power their weapons, and enable travel using impressive airships.

Captain Grimm is a privateer for Spire Albion, who sails his merchant airship Predator, ambushing airships from Spire Aurora, which is involved in a cold war with Spire Albion.

While transporting Gwendolyn Lancaster and Bridget Tagwynn, two young heiresses training to join the Spirearch guard, the Predator is ambushed by venomous creatures under the direction of Spire Aurora., and Captain Grimm soon finds himself and his crew in the middle of a cold war that just got much hotter.

This is the first book by Jim Butcher that I've read. I haven't read any of his Dresden Files series, which currently consists of more than a dozen books, and which I've been planning to eventually get around to. So I was excited to see he was starting a new series, one I could start reading at the same time he was writing it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆