Book Review: The Court of the Air

The Court of the Air, Stephen Hunt. 2007, Tor Fantasy, New York.
"A fantastical tale of high adventure, low-life rogues, and orphans on the run."

First off, let me just say something about the cover. I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but from a commercial point of view, covers are immensely important. People are more likely to pick up a book with a cover that appeals to them, so it's important to try and match covers with target audiences. This... does not always work. I've seen books with awesome covers which were, frankly, crap. I've also seem awesome books with covers that were just plain ugly.

As for this book? I love that cover. It reminds me of Jules Verne, and with that parchment colour I think that's exactly the type of thing they were going for. You see, this book is steampunk fantasy.

In short: I don't even know where to start.

Honestly. I don't know where to start. This is a good book. There are no obvious flaws, if anything, it could stand to be a little more of what it was. There are things in there I really would like to read more about, bits of background, details of daily like. Luckily for me, there's a part two. It was also rather obvious in some places where the writer got his inspiration, but as a mythology fan, I was more excited to recognise the elements than annoyed at the fact that I could see them.

Worldbuilding

This seems like a good place to mention worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is the creating of a world around the story, the larger picture, the background for the characters to play out on. A writer can go about it in a lot of different ways, but the important part is that the reader gets the feeling that there is more than the characters' immediate surrounding, that things are not just there to accomodate the story. Which they really are, but if that's obvious it gets a little boring. Unless you're writing a-- but that's a different story!

All narratives need a little or a lot of worldbuilding, even non-fiction ones. Most of the work's already done for the writer, in that case, but they still need to make sure it reads as a larger world. In fantasy and sci-fi, it's especially important, because you're working with a world that is not our own, and the differences are what make it interesting.

This book has heaps and mountains of the stuff. Fortunately, the writer doesn't insist on describing all of it, which also gets boring real fast, but gives the reader a little glimpse of these strange and fascinating things, moving the story along with just enough information to make the reader curious, but not really enough to satisfy that curiosity. That really made me want to keep reading, to figure out more about this world.

For example, this world has a history that comes across as centuries of events, of which the reader only gets little bite-sized chunks, which is good when it comes to history. There is a race of steam-powered robots, or steammen, with an ancient civilisation, an own State, a King, a pantheon of Steamo Loas, etiquette and political alliances. The navy of Jackals is a fleet of airships, blimps and zeppelins, the gas for which is mined by creatures called graspers. Debates in the political system of Jackals work by the politicians hitting eachother with sticks.

I could go on for a while. The best thing is, all of these things seem right and logical. They are in context with the rest of the story.

Characters

There are so many characters I'd like to talk about. Let's start with our two main characters. As an aside, these two do not develop a romantic relationship, despite being of opposite genders. This is a plus in my book, because all too often writers stuff in a romantic subplot which really doesn't work with the rest of the story and just annoys me. It's nice to see a thoughtful, deep and action-filled book without too much romance.

The character the readers are introduced to first is Molly Templar. She's an orphan, loving in a poorhouse, only just come of age, and with a strange affinity for mechanical engineering and steammen. The poorhouse is a pretty miserable place, considering she rather read than spend her days being hired out as laundry maid. Her salvation comes when a wealthy aristocratic woman buys her out, except that this madam turns out to be a madam, and Molly to be educated as a whore. Her first customer gets assasinated right in front of her and she flees, only to find the entire poorhouse has been massacred. It gets worse for her, though. All through her tribulations, she's a consistently level-headed young woman with a dreamer's streak. Her ambitions are not very high, but they are higher than what's expected of her, as a Sun Gate Poorhouse girl. This makes her a little rebellious. All considered, she takes her world being turned upside-down pretty well.

Our second protagonist is Oliver Brooks. He's also an orphan, living with his uncle, and he's a fey child. There is a thing in Jackals called the fey curtain, a sort of veil across the world. It's described as mist, shifting and creeping into people's homes. The thing is, any person that comes in contact with this curtain mutates in some way or other. Many die horribly, but especially children survive and develop strange powers. People are, unsurprisingly, horribly afraid of these children, and often have them put into magical torcs which can kill them with a single word.

Anyway. Oliver is suspected to be fey, so he's watched closely. He can't do much of anything, he's kicked out of school and the only job he can get is running errands for his uncle. One day he comes home to find his uncle assassinated. He runs to the police, who don't believe them. They die soon after. He's saved by a mysterious associate of his uncle's, and taken on a cross-country trek to the celgas mines. For him, too, things get worse. He's decidedly less stable than Molly, and doesn't take to his responsibilities well. When he is given a magical set of rifles, his instability only gets worse. At some point in the story, something in him seems to snap and his cruel side comes to the surface. He is honestly a little frightening sometimes.

One of my favourite characters was King Steam, the sovereign of the Steamman Free State. He is incredibly, incredibly old, very wise, and really a little tragic. He's single-handedly build up the steamman race after some dark disaster in the past, drawing the designs for every single one of his people. He is also a slipthinker, a type of steamman who can spread their consciousness over several mechanical bodies, or mu-bodies. Slipthinkers can control several bodies at once like this, and are powerful, held in high esteem, and very rare. Unfortunately for me, King Steam ends up dying n the final grand battle of the book, but I have to say, it was appropriate in the narrative. And anyway, the steamman believe he reincarnates, so he never really dies.

Another of my favourite characters is a spry old lady, and when I say old I do mean old, damson Loade. Her friends call her Mother Loade, which makes me giggle. She and her late husband Locke set up the greatest, best, and most successful gun manufacturing and selling business, Locke and Loade. This makes me giggle too, because I like puns. She end up going out in a blaze of glory. Literally.

Did I mention the writer isn't afraid to kill his characters off? I always admire that in writers. It's a difficult balance to strike, between unfairly and unsatisfactorily letting everyone die, and playing god just to keep the nice people alive against all odds.

I think this is a decent place to wrap up, so here we go:

Overall rating:
8.5/10
I. Love. This. Book. I really do. I mean, steampunk Loa! It's a really good blend of fantasy, the steampunk oil and grime, and nods to our own history and mythologies. The world is fantastic, and I'm glad there are at least two more books set in it, and the characters are engaging, each with their own pasts and issues and strong points.