The Aeronaut’s Windlass

The Aeronaut's WindlassI recently finished the first book in Jim Butcher’s newest series (The Cinder Spires) called The Aeronaut’s Windlass. I few of my friends love his Dresden Files books, but I never got into them. However, I am a huge fan of his other series, Codex Alera. Before we flew out to Las Vegas, I decided to download this book because I figured it would be a series that I could get into and not have to worry about being too committed (the main reason I have not read the DF books is because I know if I get into them, then I will want to read all of them in like a two week period).

If you are doing the math, I started this book back in October and it took until last week for me to finish it. Yikes! I just could not get into it. Early on in the book, Butcher spent so much time trying to acquaint us with these characters by putting them in almost meaningless situations. I will say though, once the action started to pick up, somewhere past the halfway point in the book, it became pretty good. Butcher is at his best with intense action scenes followed by a momentary lull and then back to more action.

I should probably mention that I am not usually a fan of steampunk. Terry Brooks drifted into that realm with his last few Shannara books and the whole crystals and flying ships thing just does not do it for me. So to be fair to Jim Butcher, this could really be a problem with my tastes. The first half of the book is describing that world and to me it was just rather dull. To someone who loves steampunk, it was probably the greatest thing ever.

I am not going to mention to much more about it. We shall see if I read the second book when it comes out. If you read it, please let me know what you thought about it. Am I really crazy for not thinking it was great?

Author: Ngewo