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.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Clockwork Dynasty

by Daniel H. Wilson
309 pgs

In The Clockwork Dynasty, Daniel H. Wilson crafts an alternate-history story in which a secret society of automatons has been living amongst humanity for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Automatons, which are essentially robots, have a real-life history that dates back at least as far as ancient Greek mythology (think of the owl in the original Clash of the Titans movie). In Wilson’s version of history, these automatons, are self-aware, with emotions and intelligence, and have had centuries to enhance themselves through technology far more advanced than ours.

When June Stefanov was a young girl in Russia, her grandfather told her he witnessed a soldier in WWII withstand a hail of bullets and single-handedly destroy a German tank. He said the soldier had supernatural strength and left behind a mysterious metal artifact, which he then presented to her, and which she has worn as a necklace around her neck ever since. She has spent the rest of her life investigating the mystery behind her grandfather’s story. She travels the world hunting down examples of antique automatons, which she believes hold the key to unlocking the mystery behind the relic she wears around her neck.

June’s latest find is one of an automaton built hundreds of years ago to resemble a 12-year-old girl. She eventually figures out how to activate her, and when she does, she becomes noticed by the race of beings she’s unwittingly been investigating her whole life. She soon finds herself in the middle of a feud that has been brewing for hundreds of years, and her survival becomes tied to that of this mysterious and fascinating race.

I really enjoyed Wilson’s three previous books, and once again, he showcases his background in, and love for, robotics and has written a story that is wholly unique. This time, however, his story falls more in the fantasy genre, than in science fiction. He doesn’t spend a lot of time establishing the roots of his story in real life science and technology, like a lot of science fiction stories do, but instead, expects his readers to suspend their beliefs and just enjoy the story, which I did.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Rise of Ransom City

by Felix Gilman
370 pgs

The Rise of Ransom City is "sort of" a sequel to Gilman's The Half-Made World, a book about just that, a world still in the process of coming into being, or focus. As Gilman returns to that half-made world, he does so from the perspective of Harry Ransom, a naïve and conceited inventor who sets out into the world at a young age in pursuit of fame and glory. He's so convinced that he'll obtain both that he writes pieces of his autobiography as he goes, describing the cities he passes through, the people he meets, and the experiences he has, and he mails them randomly out into the world, sure that eventually the world will want to gather these pieces together to chronicle the life of the man that changed their world.

As he begins to tell his story, Harry addresses us, his readers, and speaks to us of the great battle of Jasper City, which we are obviously very familiar with, as it forever changed the landscape of our world and brought about the end of the war between the Line and the Gun. He tells us that things were much different before that battle, and that he is almost single-handedly responsible for its outcome. Now that he's piqued our curiosity, he goes back and tells us of the circumstances of his life, and his brilliant invention that ended the war.

Gilman's storytelling method was a big part of this book's appeal for me. He makes you believe that you're reading about events that shaped the history of a world that is both similar to our own wild west era as well as fantastically different. It's a world that possesses a spirit, a spirit that took hold of the technology brought about by man, and used it for it's own design. It's a world where the spirits of the old gods now inhabit steam locomotives, battling each other and using mankind as their soldiers.

I've enjoyed every one of the books by Gilman that I've read. They're unique, genre-bending, and impossible to adequately describe, but I wouldn't want them to be any other way.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Half-Made World

The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman

I haven't read many books within the fantasy sub-genre known as steampunk, but from the few books I've read, it's a genre that appeals to me. The books I've read have all taken place in very creative worlds, consisting of technological systems that mirror those of the real world but with just enough of a variation to give the book a slightly skewed feel. They also contain fantastical creatures and humans who, like the technology, resemble those of the real world, but are not quite right.

The Half-Made World takes place in a world that is just that, half-made. Descriptions I've read of the book describe it as a reimagining of the American West during the 19th century. Only the west in this world isn't just uncharted and untamed. It's much more than that. It experiences weather systems that are extreme. It contains creatures that inhabitants of the made world would never dream could exist. And the line between the earth and the sea starts to get a little "fuzzy".

The book is about two warring factions: the Line and the Gun. The Line is an industrial force that enslaves the inhabitants of the world as it continually extends its reach throughout the world, and the Gun is a brutal regime that takes control of its agents through its ability to speak directly to their minds and coerce them to obey the Gun's will. The Red Republic is a force that used to battle both the Line and the Gun but which now only seems to exist in the legends of the past.

A former general in the Red Republic may hold in his mind, information about a secret weapon that's the only hope of stopping both the Line and the Gun. He resides in a mental hospital on the outskirts of the west and has been forgotten by the rest of the world. His mind was destroyed by weapons of the Line many years ago. But now both the Line and the Gun have become aware of his existence and the threat he poses to them.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆