Review: The Aeronaut's Windlass

The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a fan of Jim Butcher's urban fantasy series, even though it's now getting darker than I usually prefer. He used to be one of the few authors I bought in hardback, because his books stand up to re-reading; he has a smooth, competent style, wry humour, and a knack for writing action, and his main characters are clever, creative and principled.

All of those characteristics are on display in this book, which I've been wanting to read for a while. I enjoy the idea of steampunk, even though the execution often lets it down, so I wanted to see how a writer I knew was above average dealt with it.

As I expected, Butcher refuses to follow the unwritten rule that you can have airships, or you can use vocabulary correctly, but not both (since I listened to the audiobook, I can't swear that there are no homonym errors, but I doubt it, because he's not prone to those). I did notice he sometimes fell into the common error of using "may" during past tense narration instead of "might," and possibly confused "hurling" and "hurtling" at one point. His young female characters are actually intelligent and sensible, though Gwen is a lot less sensible than Bridget. And he includes talking cats, an element which improves every book I've seen it used in, even otherwise bad ones.

The characters in general are varied and distinctive, and several of them get viewpoints. There are three completely different etherealists, semi-wizards whose work with ethereal forces leads to various kinds of mental illness and eccentricity, and one of them, Folly, is a viewpoint character. There are three completely different Spirearch's Guard who get viewpoints: the experienced and competent Warriorborn Benedict, the princessesque Gwen, and the physically strong and personally humble Bridget, who is technically a member of the quasi-aristocracy but whose house has fallen to the point where that doesn't make much difference in practice. She works with the cat Rowl (I'm assuming the spelling, because audiobook); there are several other completely distinct cats, but only Rowl gets a viewpoint. There's also the airship captain Grimm with a viewpoint, and one or two of the invading marines.

As well as these central characters, we get several members of Grimm's crew, none of whom I had any trouble telling apart; a couple of other guards, including an aristocratic snot that Bridget is going to duel at one point, though that whole subplot disappears and is never revisited after another spire attacks; the Spirearch, a puckish older man with a lot more political influence than he pretends, and considerable nous; and Brother Vincent of the Wayist Temple, a Buddhist-like sect of martial artists and librarians. Of course, listening to the audiobook means that the different characters literally get different voices, but I feel like I would have been able to distinguish them on the page just as easily. Their interpersonal and (in the case of the viewpoint characters) intrapersonal dynamics make sense and are in close relationship with the plot, both driving it and being driven by it, as they should be.

The worldbuilding is... local. What I mean is that we don't get much that isn't directly plot-relevant. We know that humanity has inhabited Spires, made out of almost-indestructible Spirestone by the long-gone Builders, on a hostile world for thousands of years. We know they get their meat, leather and food in general from vats, because one of the characters is from a family who has a vattery. We know quite a bit about how the various kinds of etheric crystals work, because they power the airships and the weapons and are valued, scarce resources, and another character is from a family that grows them. We know that the creatures of the surface are highly dangerous, because the heroes fight some, and that therefore wood (which apparently can't be grown in vats, but has to be harvested from the surface) is extremely expensive. But we don't know where metal comes from; it just never comes up, even though quite a few things are made of metal - usually brass, because, after all, this is steampunk - and we know that iron rusts extremely quickly if not protected by a copper coating.

Spires trade, but also fight, using airships in both cases; they're more or less countries, just vertical countries made out of extremely hard stone. And that's the background to this book. A spire that periodically goes to war for economic reasons is attacking the spire where our heroes live, and they must pull together and be heroic in order to repel the invasion. There are pitched battles, investigations, negotiations, and a small amount of romance of sorts, as well as coming-of-age-style character growth.

It gets intense; there are deaths of innocents and named characters, widespread destruction, and considerable pain of various sorts for our heroes, including a strong depiction of post-battle horror of the kind that can lead to PTSD. For my taste, it (and the recent books in Butcher's main series, The Dresden Files) are getting darker and more intense than I prefer; I'm more of a cozy fantasy reader these days. But they're so well done that I tolerate it better than I would from a less skilled author. I'd still hesitate to read a sequel, because military SFF has never been a favourite of mine. I'm a fan of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels despite, rather than because of, the military parts, for example, and the ones I like the best are the least military.

The mismatch to my personal taste does figure into my rating, placing this in the Silver tier of my annual recommendation list, rather than the Gold tier it might deserve if I was rating more objectively. It's still a recommendation, especially for fans of Butcher, Bujold, and steampunk done well.

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