On My Shelves: The Aeronaut’s Windlass

I've previously reviewed the Dresden Files and the first couple of volumes of Jim Butcher's Codex Alera (both of which I enjoyed a lot). The Aeronaut's Windlass begins a new series, The Cinder Spires.

This may be Jim Butcher's most ambitious series. Dresden's adventures take place in a world that looks very much like ours, and the basic setup is easily understood, even if the supernatural underbelly of the world is complicated and often obscured to the reader. Codex Alera takes place on a world that is at least generally Earthlike and with a setting that is superficially recognizable, enough for us to have a firm footing to build our understanding of the differences from.

But The Aeronaut's Windlass dumps us directly into a world where people live in gigantic "Spires", rarely if ever venturing to the surface. Where the Spires come from, why human beings are here (and using obvious Earthly names, implying something of their origin), the origin of the strange devices and powers they use ("etheric" technology – a steampunky sort of magic), none of it is explicated. It's all simply presented for the reader to take or leave as is.

I found it something of a mental mouthful. The side details implied all SORTS of things about the world that were interesting and worth understanding, but the novel has no time to spend telling us about them, because there's WAY too much to do.

Like the Codex Alera novels, this is a book with multiple viewpoints and complex, interconnected events. Our heroes range from Gwen (Lady Gwendolyn Lancaster), a noble of the Spire whose family is directly responsible for growing the crystals on which all their technology depends, to Bridget Tagwynn, a more innocent young woman who has just joined the Guards, Captain Grimm, once an officer of the Fleet and now a sort of honorable privateer, and Folly, an apprentice etherealist (people who can directly sense and control etheric forces).

The main action of the novel begins with Captain Grimm discovering an apparent fat target was bait for his ship, and barely escaping with the lives of most of his crew. The damage to his ship, the Predator, is severe, and Grimm has no idea how he can afford to repair it.

Meanwhile, Lady Gwen – having rather forcibly told her mother that she will serve her turn in the Guards – finds herself present when Bridget is confronted by an arrogant nobleman; Gwen's well-meaning intervention ends up triggering a challenge to a duel between Bridget and the nobleman.

But as the duel is about to start, a few days later, sirens begin to scream: Spire Albion is under attack. Gwen, Bridget, and Gwen's cousin Benedict soon find themselves confronting a squad of intruders – Auroran troops whose mission is to destroy the crystal-growing "vatteries" and cripple the Spire's ability to support its Fleet or industry.

Captain Grimm fortunately has recognized that the brief aerial assault was mere cover to allow for the landing of infantry, and he and his crew go to the aid of the Spire; eventually they reach Gwen and Bridget's group, who have managed to stand off the invaders through the rather direct expedient of Gwen threatening to discharge her gauntlet into the invaders' explosives.

But this is the merest fringe of the assault, and something far more deadly and terrifying is underway. It will take all of them together to first recognize, and then deal with, the threat of monstrous invasion and treachery directed by a malevolent etherealist.

The characters are striking; I like all of them, from the stunningly direct and take-no-backtalk Gwen to the rigidly controlled Captain Grimm and the Luna Lovegood-like Folly, whose apparent madness hides an incisive mind and sometimes frightening power. (Etherealists are all mad, or going so; they manifest it in very different ways)

The main adversary is truly… creepy. I'd rather not spoiler it more, but boy, that's someone I REALLY don't ever want to meet. Her and Hannibal Lecter.

I strongly recommend this book and hope that the sequels won't be long in coming; while the immediate threat was dealt with, there are a lot of vital loose ends!