The Cloud Roads

Trade Paperback

Published March 8, 2011 by Night Shade Books.

ISBN:
978-1-59780-216-1
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4 stars (34 reviews)

4 editions

Found Family in a delightfully imaginative setting

5 stars

Moon, the main character of the Raksura series, shares a great many characteristics with Murderbot: he's isolated, traumatized, often inspires fear in others through no fault of his own, and doesn't know where he belongs or how to fit in. Naturally, the first book is mostly concerned with reuniting Moon with his people and chronicling the joys and pains of integrating into this complex society. The plot is slightly predictable, but this is easily compensated for by the sheer originality of the setting: one of the few fantasy books/series I've read that does not bother with the conceit of fitting human society into a world where magic exists, but rather imagines a world where magic is just another routine natural force. There are no humans in this world but there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of sentient humanoid species, and just as many sentient non-humanoids. There are also floating islands, flying …

Review of 'The Cloud Roads' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

4.25 Definitely a good fantasy novel with refreshingly non-anthropecentric worldbuilding. Since I came here from the Murderbort Diaries, I was expecting a little more, but it's a worthy read with some great non-tradtional fantasy images, even if it reads a little like Gargoyles fanfic at times (I'm not saying the Raksura aren't their own thing, but there are some similarities). I didn't like the weird noun-based naming scheme and I am a little uncomfortable with what seems like veering really close to ableism and bashing mixed-race relationships. Knowing the author, I have little doubt there will be a very good resolution to those things. Still, I can see how it could turn some people off from reading. As an aside: the lgbt topics in this one are mostly in the past or a little subtle, though nicely laid.back at the same time.

Review of 'The Cloud Roads' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Sometimes you can learn a lot about a person by comparing themes across their works. Wells loves to write books about protagonists who are different and slowly come to find their place within a group. They have morally ambiguous pasts, about which they feel guilt. Her settings are expansive and luscious with rich world-building. Her villains have mind-control powers. It gives you a sense, right?

This was a very solid epic fantasy. I'm not in love yet, but I wasn't in love with murderbot by the end of the first book either. I'm interested to see what happens next.

Review of 'The Cloud Roads' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Interesting new fantasy world. I liked the premise that there were absolutely good and evil forces but they had their own agendas and didn't just line up for or against the heroes. The owners of the wind ships and the bumble-bee people were both good, but they didn't follow Jade and Moon's plans just because Jade and Moon were the PCs.

The hero Moon was almost too pissy sometimes; but didn't go so far that I disliked him. The balance of power between the two queens was interesting and didn't follow a predictable path.

Review of 'The Cloud Roads' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The weirdest thing about this book is that there are no humans in this book. Or rather, there might be but it's not clear. The protagonist is not human, and from his perspective, humans would just be with another one of the races populating his world. Therefore if there are humans, our protagonist never observes them, nor describes them in sufficient detail to recognize them.

Um. Lots of stuff happens! It's pretty great! If you like world building, alien biology, alien societies, marriage of convenience/arranged marriage and/or team stories, check this out.

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