David Meadows
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Registered: 09-2003
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The Court of the Air
The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt
This is the author's first novel and it's so impressive that I think he's going to have trouble topping it.
It's a fantasy set in an invented world that you think might be Victorian England or something... but you soon realise the resemblance is very superficial. Hunt creates so much new stuff in his world that it's far removed from any cliched or borrowed setting. He has unique "low" technology, a variety of magic, multiple races (including steam-powered robots that are somewhere between voodoo mystics and Tibetan monks), numerous political factions, and a rich society and history that makes sense in the context of all the other stuff he's invented.
At the start of the book, literally everything is world-building. There's a new idea on every page, and it's all fascinating. So fascinating, that the characters can be cardboard, the plot a confusing mess, and you're still compulsively reading to learn more about the world. And the plot does start out as a confusing mess -- elements come randomly on stage, do something meaningless, and vanish again. Our heroes go on long rambling journeys that don't really seem to have any point other than to show off more than Hunt's world. Honestly, I wasn't at all interested in the plot for the first two-thinds of the book.
As [would-be] writers, we all know this is a terrible way to do things! You can't have a random plot and cliched characters. Clever world building alone does not make a good novel.
But in this case it does. Hunt does it so well that he gets away with it and kept me reading.
And then, two-thirds of the way through, something incredible happens. You look at the plot elements and huge cast of characters he's been laying out (seemingly at random) and go... "oh yeah... that all makes sense..."
His plot isn't a confusing mess. He's just been quietly moving the pieces into place, quietly and without drawing attention to it. And when he's ready, he sets in motion an endgame that comes as a complete surprise -- and yet not as a deus ex machina, because everything he does has been carefully set up and foreshadowed. Everything makes sense, nothing seems random or capricious or cheating the reader. He's been moving things around like a chess grandmaster.
I was going to recommend this book as an example of superb worldbuild. And it really is worth reading just for that. But in the end, it's also a superb story.
An amazing piece of work. 10 out of 10.
---
"You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public." -- Scott Adams
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1/14/2008, 12:29 pm
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QS2
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Registered: 03-2006
Posts: 576
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Re: The Court of the Air
How bothersome, now I'm going to have to keep an eye out for this book. 
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1/14/2008, 6:27 pm
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