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.

I’m way behind the curve on this one, but then again I read almost nothing in the science fiction genre from roughly 2002 to 2010, so I’ll hold that out as an excuse for why I’m only now talking about Crystal Rain, a 2006 first novel by Tobias Buckell.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love adventure stories, and this is an all-out adventure with airships, steam-augmented sailing ships, spacecraft, war, a range of settings that includes city, ocean, jungle, arctic, and alpine, and great characters, some with their own mysteries that are gradually untangled.

(See that scene on the book cover over there on the right? That’s actually in the book!)

Whenever possible, I prefer to form my own opinions about a book before hearing what others have to say, so I went to look at the Amazon reviews after finishing this book. It well-deserves its four-star average, but the few who did complain seemed to be focused on a dislike of the Caribbean-derived dialect of the primary culture of Nanagada. Personally, I thought this was very well done. I’m a very “auditory” reader. I tend to hear the words in my head, especially dialogue like this, and it was like listening to actual speakers with a grammar and dialect different from mine.

I thoroughly enjoyed Crystal Rain. Ragamuffin is the next novel, and it’s on my “to read” list.

Last night–sadly!–I finished reading King’s Dragon, first in the series Crown of Stars by Kate Elliott.

This is not a new book. It was published in 1997, but back then I wasn’t reading heroic fantasy. Such a pity — because now that I have finally read it, I have to say it’s been a truly long, long time since I flat-out enjoyed a book as much as this one. This is the sort of book that got me hooked on reading in the first place—which is not to say it’s juvenile. Not at all. It’s intricate and smart, with lots of suspense and great pacing, and filled with likeable, admirable characters to whom ethics matter. Just my cup of tea.

I picked up the book because it was pointed out to me that Kate lives in Hawaii. I don’t keep up at all with science fiction and fantasy these days, so this was news to me. But I thought it was only right that I should have some familiarity with Hawaii SF&F writers (as few as we are).

As it turns out, Kate is far more productive than I am and has published multiple series. I started with Crown of Stars because it happened to be available on the local library shelf—sort of. I actually picked up another book in the series, not realizing it was a series, and promptly returned that and ordered volume 1.

It is so nice knowing I have much more to look forward to. The only thing that irritates me is that I don’t have the next book in hand. Yet.

Click here to follow Kate Elliott on Twitter

Minor updates on 07/09/2013