Book Rave: The Cloud Roads
May 29th, 2011
This is a terrific book. I thoroughly enjoyed it–and probably spent too much time reading it during an otherwise rather discouraging week.
The main reason I grabbed a sample for my Kindle is because Kate Elliott tweeted how much she liked the story world (again proving the power of word-of-mouth!). If I’d been on my own, I don’t know if I would have picked it up. Honestly, the cover doesn’t do much for me, and I’m fairly meh about the title–but the story’s what counts and the story is enthralling.
The protagonist is named Moon, and he’s a being who can shift between groundling form (basically human) and a rather fierce and dangerous winged being. The Cloud Roads is a fantasy. There is no time spent on trying to concoct an explanation for how or why this is possible. It’s simply magic–and this level of non-explanation works absolutely perfectly in the context of the story.
Moon is an outsider, belonging nowhere, but desperately wanting to belong, though unwilling to admit it. His adventures within an utterly fascinating and incredibly diverse and detailed story world are simply enthralling.
The Cloud Roads is the first book I read after finishing Bob Meyer’s fascinating civil war epic Duty, Honor, Country. I started three or four other books in between, but none caught my interest until The Cloud Roads, and then I was hooked from the first page. It’s not that anything truly compelling happened on page one, it’s just that Martha Wells has such a lively style of writing that I knew right away I was in for a good read. I’ve already grabbed a sample of another one of her books.
Posted on: Sunday, May 29th, 2011 at 12:45 am
Categories: Reading, Recommended Reading.
Tags: Martha Wells, The Cloud Roads
May 29th, 2011 at 11:50 pm
I was ecstatic when Martha Wells released Cloud Roads, it had been several years since her last release. I was and am one of many fans haunting her website and blog hoping for word of a new release and/or contract.
I can’t think of anything that she’s written that I haven’t enjoyed. All of the Ile-Rien books (Element of Fire, Death of the Necromancer, and the whole Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy) and Wheel of the Infinite remain my favorites. Element of Fire, one of her first books that is available in many e-formats, is a good introduction to her writing.
I keep hoping that her two out-of-print books, Death of the Necromancer and Wheel of the Infinite, will show up in purchasable e-format one day. Until that day may paper copies just keep getting more worn down.
Hope you enjoy her other books.
May 30th, 2011 at 12:02 am
I was really surprised to see that Death of the Necromancer wasn’t an ebook. That was the first one I looked up. I’ll take a look at Element of Fire–thanks!
June 8th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
[…] Martha Well’s terrific novel The Cloud Roads got me thinking about the archetype of the wounded man, because the hero of this book definitely […]