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The Court of the Air (Jackelian #1)

by Stephen Hunt (Goodreads Author)

3.28 of 5 stars 3.28 · rating details · 2,196 ratings · 417 reviews

When streetwise Molly Templar witnesses a brutal murder at the brothel she has recently been apprenticed to, her first instinct is to run back to the poorhouse where she grew up. But there she finds her fellow orphans butchered, and it slowly dawns on her that she was the real target of the attack. For Molly is a special little girl, and she carries a secret that marks her...more

Hardcover, 582 pages

Published June 10th 2008 by Tor Books (first published 2007)

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Feb 22, 2011 Dan Schwent rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: steampunk

Oliver Brooks, a boy altered by the feymist, has his life turned upside down when his uncle is killed and he's framed for murder. Molly Templar escapes murder at the brothel where she was being trained, only to find her orphanage home the scene of a massacre and quickly figures out she was the real target. What bonds these two orphans together and what does the mysterious Court of the Air have to do with things?

Court of the Air was definitely worth my seven bucks. It's full of action and twists....more

20 likes · like · see review

Jan 15, 2009 Brooke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, fantasy

This book has its flaws. It's a crazy mass of characters and governments and shadow governments and shadow gods - there are so many forces at work throughout these 600 pages that I wished I had an eBook reader with a search function so I could go back and remind myself how it all fit together. But it was a hell of a ride, and I found myself reluctant to finish it because I wasn't quite ready to be done with it.

Unlike with other sprawling, epic stories, I didn't find myself emotionally attached t...more

12 likes · like · see review

Sep 06, 2011 Amanda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: best-of-the-best, steampunk

I would say this book along with book 2 by Hunt set in the same world are now two of my new favorites. Yes- there are tons of sub-plots, slang and characters parading together through this novel, and I love it! I guess from reading the reviews that some readers got frustrated and gave it a lower rating based on the notion that they thought too much was going on at once and couldn't keep up. I do not understand this problem. Other readers said that the author left too much up to the reader; which...more

4 likes · like · see review

May 24, 2011 Lindsey rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After two hundred pages into the book, I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. While Stephen Hunt's worldbuilding is very interesting, all of his characters are completely flat. Even the two main characters of the book seem just like cookie-cutter archetypes. Two orphans with a special, mysterious destiny and absolutely zero character flaws? Yawn! Not only do they not have any flaws, but these orphans don't seem to actually contribute anything useful either. They drift around the novel gettin...more

10 likes · like · see review

Mar 26, 2009 Dayna rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a book with a lot of potential. Interesting concept, with some nods to Dr. Who, but the author left way too much up to the reader. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this book needed more exposition. Slang that was almost indecipherable, barely there descriptions of the characters, people, environment, etc. I like to have a good visual image while I read, and this book simply did not provide that. How can I enjoy an escape when I can't imagine what anything looks like? If the author r...more

17 likes · like · see review

Jul 23, 2010 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR!!! a more adult themed "steampunk" novel. sure, the two main characters are kids but this isnt meant for the young adult section. it is bona-fide science fiction. and i loved almost every minute of it.

i did have a bit of trouble remembering who all the players were and was let down at the end mostly becuase i couldnt recall where ka'ord was from. and i wouldve enjoyed to know what happened with commodore black a bit more as well.

this would probably be an awes...more

1 like · like · see review

Margaret Killjoy really? I've been trying to get through this for months. it's imaginative as hell, and that keeps me going, but i kind of don't give a shit about any...more
Jul 24, 2010 08:08am

Steev Hise wow, so are you saying most "steampunk" is oriented toward young adult readers? interesting.
Jul 24, 2010 01:40pm

Brian steev, yeah i think most widely released steampunk is geared towards y/a. i had a long discussion with one of my co-workers about this, basically i th...more
Jul 24, 2010 05:46pm

Sep 04, 2009 Woodge rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: enemies

Shelves: fantasy, steampunk

I got to page 172 before deciding against finishing this story. The author crams many different ideas into this steampunk-fantasy-mashup of a tale. The two main characters are orphans. Molly Templar gets placed by the orphanage into prostitution, but her very first john turns out to be an assassin. She escapes but we don't know much about who the assassin is, who he works for, or why Molly would be targeted. By page 172 I still don't know.

Then there's Oliver. When he was very young he and his pa...more

9 likes · like · see review

Aug 02, 2009 Akiva rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Trashy, steampunk fantasy kitchen-sink. This would make a pretty decent thing to read at the beach and that is no small accomplishment, but overall it kind of annoyed me. There were some rather clumsy bits of writing, awkward exposition, things appearing when they were convenient and disappearing when they weren't, the main characters were twinked out general issue orphans who weren't particularly interesting and were drafted by assorted ancient powers and deus ex machinae (excuse me, the "Hexma...more

4 likes · like · see review

Sep 18, 2008 DeAnne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It’s a brilliantly fast 600 pages. It’s science fiction…I guess? The lines delineating how things like this are classified are fairly blurry. It’s got sci fi elements, and adventure elements, and buddy story elements, and gods and self creating steam driven metal entities, it’s good fun. I highly recommend it.

I wandered around with a book in front of me for a day and a half. I was teaching my son geography and while he was labeling things, I was reading furiously. I just couldn’t put it down. I...more

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Oct 25, 2011 El Templo de las Mil Puertas added it · review of another edition

Shelves: reportero-recomienda, 13-eltemplo

" Stephen Hunt hizo su debut en España en 2008 de mano de la editorial Oniro con la primera parte de la serie Jackeliana, compuesta hasta la fecha por cuatro entregas, dos de ellas ya editadas en España, La Corte del Aire y El reino más allá de las olas, historias bastante independientes unas de otras, si bien podemos encontrar personajes comunes en ellas. En este número de El reportero recomienda nos centraremos en la primera parte. La novela comienza con dos hilos argumentales distintos que va...more

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Oct 13, 2010 Susanne rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can't finish this. I've been "reading" it for months now, a couple of pages at a time, but now I give up. I don't care about any of the characters - which I'd have thought impossible, seeing as one of the protagonists is an orphan running from her killers - but there you have it. The world building is hasty and haphazard, the story, which is supposed to be thrilling, is boring, and the characters are...meh, as the damn kids today would say. Shame, really. I love steampunk. I wanted to like thi...more

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Dec 31, 2009 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Steam punks and followers of the fantastick

Recommended to Alan by: Its synopsis and cover

Oliver and Molly are orphans, children doomed to menial labor in the familiarly bustling early-industrial nation of Jackals, where unfettered merchants run roughshod over the monarchy, coal smoke befouls the air and the steam-engines race ever faster—or so it appears, at the start of The Court of the Air. But of course there wouldn't be much of a story if that were all there was to these waifs, and it's no spoiler to reveal that both Molly and Oliver turn out to be pivotal to the crises facing t...more Oliver and Molly are orphans, children doomed to menial labor in the familiarly bustling early-industrial nation of Jackals, where unfettered merchants run roughshod over the monarchy, coal smoke befouls the air and the steam-engines race ever faster—or so it appears, at the start of The Court of the Air. But of course there wouldn't be much of a story if that were all there was to these waifs, and it's no spoiler to reveal that both Molly and Oliver turn out to be pivotal to the crises facing this sprawling steampunk alternity (or far futurity; there are hints that this world may be our Earth, such as references to an arcane, incomprehensible jargon called "Usglish").

There are corpses showing up drained of blood, and someone appears to be going to quite a bit of effort to make sure that Molly's one of them. Jackals itself is beset by "communityist" threats both from within and from the terrifying neighboring nation of Quatershift, which is going through a civil convulsion much like that of the Khmer Rouge. And Oliver is wrestling with dreams of the Whisperer, a Fey-twisted creature too dangerous to be seen in public, and with the Special Guard's regular attempts to ferret out any whiff of Faerie in his makeup. Both children are fascinated by penny-dreadful tales of the Royal Aerostatic Navy, and in the background the difference engines of Greenhall keep clattering...

There's a lot going on here. The kitchen-sink nature of Hunt's sidewise Victorian creation may even be a bit off-putting to some—he's done a thorough job of world-building here, and seems to want you to know every detail. The desire to communicate this complexity makes for a rather long book, and occasionally for some awkward prose. And yet, that very elaborate background is like candy to devour, bit by tasty bit. Hunt's headlong tale pulls you along on a lurid ride, past vast underground cities and steam-powered intelligences; world-changing wizards and as-yet-unawakened elder gods; pneumatic buildings, vacuum-driven subways and aerostats... this book sometimes seems a little too much like a by-the-numbers construction, cynically designed to take advantage of the current steampunk craze in all its details, and I'm a little ashamed of myself for liking it as much as I did.

But like it I did, Circle help me, and I'll be checking out the sequel, The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, soon.(less)

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Mar 06, 2013 Smcleish rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally published on my blog here in October 2007.

Iain MacLeod's The Light Ages is one of my favourite fantasy novels of the decade, and one whose influence seems clear in Stephen Hunt's debut. The world here is very like MacLeod's: a pretty unpleasant early industrial landscape with magic. Rather than the nineteenth century slums of the north of England which interested MacLeod, however, Hunt is clearly inspired by the brutalities of the French Revolution.

Two orphans, one from an orphanage i...more Originally published on my blog here in October 2007.

Iain MacLeod's The Light Ages is one of my favourite fantasy novels of the decade, and one whose influence seems clear in Stephen Hunt's debut. The world here is very like MacLeod's: a pretty unpleasant early industrial landscape with magic. Rather than the nineteenth century slums of the north of England which interested MacLeod, however, Hunt is clearly inspired by the brutalities of the French Revolution.

Two orphans, one from an orphanage in the city, the other brought up on his uncle's country estate, suddenly find themselves hunted by ruthless killers: they are obviously special to someone, but they have no idea why. In the first half of the novel only the "bad guys" know what is going on (and even they turn out to be disparate groups all keen to trick each other, to carry out schemes designed to put their group on top). This works very well, and by the half way stage, I was thinking that this would be one of my top fantasy novels of 2007.

But then the story moves into a description of an epic battle, with encounters between many of the characters who have been involved in the story so far. This half of the novel is much more problematic. The battle, with ground, aerial and underground forces, as well as a mystical battle and a multiplicity of factions, is extremely complex, and Hunt never really gives enough of the big picture for it to cohere in the mind. (Admittedly, I was suffering from a fever when I was reading the end of The Court of the Air, so my mind was not at its sharpest.)

So, there are many excellent things in The Court of the Air. There are two that I have not mentioned so far: I like to see fantasy novels that stand alone, that do not have to be read as part of a series. Hunt also excels at a key skill of the fantasy genre author, the invention of names, which are vitally important in the depiction of atmosphere. Even so, it fails to live up to its promise, and left me sufficiently disenchanted that I have not even listed Hunt as an author I should look out for in the future.(less)

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Feb 24, 2013 Wondra Vanian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: steampunk, fiction, fantasy, teen, sci-fi

I laughed when my librarian recommended this book to me because of how excited he got. Now I can see why he was so excited. This book is AWESOME!

The only flaw, if I had to find one, is that it's a slow burner. The first half of the book is good but, by about halfway through, when everything starts clicking into place, it becomes impossible to put down.

I thought, when I started reading it, that the vocabulary would put me off but you soon pick it up. (Now... if I can avoid calling all my friend...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Let's face it: imaginary worlds are the best if they're, well, outlandish. There's a reason that Middle Earth is so much better loved than any of Isaac Asimov's worlds, and that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy boasts millions of fans while other alien books fall flat. In the world of science fiction, anything goes, and the crazier the better. The true magic of fiction is that anything unbelievable can indeed be believed.
Stephen Hunt has created a spectacular, detailed steampunk-style world in T...more Let's face it: imaginary worlds are the best if they're, well, outlandish. There's a reason that Middle Earth is so much better loved than any of Isaac Asimov's worlds, and that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy boasts millions of fans while other alien books fall flat. In the world of science fiction, anything goes, and the crazier the better. The true magic of fiction is that anything unbelievable can indeed be believed.
Stephen Hunt has created a spectacular, detailed steampunk-style world in The Court of the Air, complete with unique races (I've never heard of crustacean people before) and a full, tragic history just as imaginative and convoluted as any in the real world. Jackals, Quatershift, and the Steammen Free State are gritty and vital enough to just be beyond the fingertips. Regrettably (bitterly so) this book is clumsy in every sense of the word.
The novel follows two orphans, the street-smart Molly Templar and reclusive Oliver Brooks, who are both special outcasts in the world. Oliver was abandoned to a dangerous substance called the feymist from the ages of one to five, and as a result is a registered feybreed, targeted by the government to be dragged into service. Molly, on the other hand, has no idea why she is special, and when all of her friends are mysteriously murdered or kidnapped, she runs for her life.
The book is fast-paced, with little time taken aside for thoughts and recollections, which is almost nice for a change. We meet a colorful host of characters-- Harry Stave, the rogue wolftaker (an agent of the Court of the Air); Silas Nickleby, a war criminal who is investigating a series of brutal murders for a newspaper; Commodore Black, who doesn't explain much of his history but is irrepressibly cheerful; Aliquot Coppertracks, a steamman (a sort of living machine) with an incredibly powerful mind; and the Whisperer, a dark presence with incredible power imprisoned in dreams. There are dozens of characters, each with interesting, individual features, and 582 pages don't feel like enough to get to know them very well.
I can't explain how unbelievably creative the world of Jackals is. Imagine crossing the raw creativity of Lewis Carroll with the grit and ingenuity of Philip Pullman, and then shading in more and more details until you have a maddeningly fascinating reality. The history of Jackals is filled with words lifted straight out of Aztec history (Duitzilopochtli Deeps, Chimeca, etc.) and the idea of severing the monarchs' arms to prove their lack of power to Parliament is gory and riveting. I've seen a lot of inventive government systems in fantasy, but never one with the complexity of The Court of the Air.
I might have claimed this book as one of my favorites if it hadn't been so poorly executed.
From the first page, we are absolutely bombarded with terms, jargon, slang, places, names, whatchamacallits, and anything you can imagine. Hunt may have been trying to immerse the readers in his world, but he successfully drowned us with far too many unexplained details. For instance, the very titular Court is never fully explained. Chapter after chapter goes by with allusions to it, and the only details that come out are more complexities. It's absolutely maddening.
Hunt also made a habit throughout the book of latching onto phrases and reusing them again and again. At one point, he refers to Harry as "the disreputable Stave" three or four times on a single page. By that time, we've gotten the message-- Harry is bad news. Hunt may have been trying to be humorous and give him a nickname in Oliver's mind, but there are certainly better ways to do it than that. The intriguing Whisperer is also left annoyingly vague, as are all the characters. According to Stephen Hunt's website, The Court of the Air is only the first in a series of books based in Jackals, so maybe he brings more light on the subjects in the future.
But even if he does, he needs to rectify his organizational skills first. The chapters are really poorly sorted out, mashing together the viewpoints of multiple characters with no markers for place and time at all. We jump from Molly to Oliver to Commodore Black to a random citizen to King Steam to Molly to whatever just make it stop. Some authors can do this gracefully (i.e. Ken Follett), but it's irritating and confusing in this book. Having seventy chapters is not a bad thing-- if it really bothers you, split the book into acts or sections.
To top it all off, the book ends in a fashion similar to dropping an anvil on a bird in flight. The plot has just begun to settle in and all fit together in a big map, and thwack! the end comes and makes no sense. We're given no hint as to what has happened to the rest of the characters, and there's not even a cliffhanger to imply that there will be another book. An extremely minor character who appears maybe two or three times in the entire course of the novel has the last line, and not even in a meaningful way.
The Court of the Air had so much potential. It's the most imaginative book to come into the science fiction/fantasy genre in absolute ages, but because it's so poorly written, the idea is shot down before it has a chance to really prove itself. It's a shame, because the steampunk world needs a real example of quality to set itself a standard.
Five years later, the book is available in libraries (on a side note, I picked it up purely for the cover-- the art is great). You can't buy it from the Kindle store, but you can get it at Barnes and Noble in paperback for $8.99. Amazon has several listings for cheap, but don't buy it if you can just rent it. One read is good enough for this novel. (less)

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Nov 21, 2012 Indrani rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: didn-t-finish

Okay, I'll admit it: I gave up.

To my credit, I made it about 2/3 - 3/4's of the way through before it became too much. Too much of what? Well... too much of everything.

I was attracted by the cover, and the first couple of pages, where we meet Molly (henceforth to be known as "The Plucky Heroine"), an orphan living in a city that loosely resembles Dicken's London. She witnesses a horrid murder, and soon finds herself on the run. She is smart, quick, brave, and has an oddly innate talent with mac...more Okay, I'll admit it: I gave up.

To my credit, I made it about 2/3 - 3/4's of the way through before it became too much. Too much of what? Well... too much of everything.

I was attracted by the cover, and the first couple of pages, where we meet Molly (henceforth to be known as "The Plucky Heroine"), an orphan living in a city that loosely resembles Dicken's London. She witnesses a horrid murder, and soon finds herself on the run. She is smart, quick, brave, and has an oddly innate talent with machines, including the self-aware Steampeople.

We are then introduced to Oliver ("The Sensitive Misfit"), a young orphan lad who has lived with his uncle in a smaller trading town. Our lad stands apart from the crowd because when he was younger, he had disappeared into the Mist, where perhaps faeries live, and came back with mystical powers that no-one is sure of and so everyone is afraid of. He is hiding his powers in an attempt to fit in, but no-one believes him. He too, witnesses a murder, and is on the run, as he was framed for it.

In addition to the sentient Steam-people, and possible faeries, let's not forget the Craynabarians (odd crab-like people who live among the humans), the mutant Special Guard (humans touched by the Mist who developed extraordinary powers and are enslaved by society lest they run rampant), the misshapen or otherwise undesirable mutants who are locked up in the dungeons, the neighbouring country which suffered a rebellion and a war, the Air Ship generals who keep the country safe from harm, the mysterious underground realms, the deposed monarchy who are now bred and kept as prisoners to show off to the populace every now and again to prove they were evil, oh, and the Court of the Air itself - some strange Secret Service who monitor the country from far above the clouds, observing and sending special agents to manipulate the populace to maintain order.

There is a rich history that is constantly referenced in ways that seem to expect that the reader is familiar with it... but the reader has no access to it. I kept checking and re-checking the front and cover of the book: had I accidentally picked up Volume Two of a set? But no... this is the first book.

It truly feels as though Mr. Hunt wasn't ever sure he had enough to sell the book, and so just kept piling on ideas until they took on a life of their own. Halfway through, he seems to realize that his Sensitive Misfit is a complete wimp compared to the Plucky Heroine (and we cannot allow that to happen!), and so overnight, the Sensitive Misfit manifests a Destiny out of nowhere that gives him a pair of magical pistols and kick-ass fighting abilities to go with them.

Throw in a rebellion among the Special Guard, agents who may or may not be acting for the better of their country (and may or may not be agents), and what started out as a nifty "these strange murders may be part of something bigger - let's see" becomes a muddled tempest. As one presses onward, more and more plot elements get added, with jumping around that seems to make little sense (George R.R. Martin is the king of ending a chapter with a cliffhanger, and then moving to a different character, and different part of the world. This book does not do that. Jumps happen mid-chapter, mid-stream, with increasing frequency. This may be the author's attempt to convey the confusion that the main characters are experiencing - I just found it annoying, especially as there was little reference to where you suddenly were, or when.).

By the time I quit, I just didn't care anymore who lived or died. There was little to connect me with the characters, who felt two-dimensional and stereotypical. I'd love to see something set in the backstory of the world, and some sort of history as to how humans, Crab-people, and Steam-people all came to be sharing a society. I think this book was a matter of throwing too much at the wall, and not waiting to see what would stick. (less)

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Jul 30, 2012 Kristen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is a good story in this book, but unfortunately it's buried under a ton of invented stuff that I presume the author threw in there to make this a more clever book. In my opinion, he failed.

There are so many things that are made up [places, items, etc.] and included in the narrative but not really explained as to what they are or why we're being told about them, that it really interfered with my enjoyment of the story about what was happening in the parallel storylines of Oliver and Molly....more

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Jul 08, 2012 Nikki rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: steampunk, fantasy

I've been meaning to pick up The Court of the Air for a long time. Can't remember how Stephen Hunt got on my radar, but he's been sort of hanging around there for a while, so I grabbed this from the library on one of my recent trips there. I'm not entirely sure I want to read the sequel: The Court of the Air has some astonishing ideas, and some really great bits, and even some characters I found interesting, but it got tangled up in itself. The writing is competent enough but the planning leaves...more

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Apr 11, 2012 AuburnAL rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Steampunk fans

Shelves: steampunk, fantasy

This book is the Lord of the Rings of Steampunk. Now simmer down and let me explain.

Before The Lord of the Rings there were a lot of fantasy and proto-fantasy stories and novels out there. However, The Lord of the Rings really brought several of these ideas together and showed that fantasy could be a legitimate genre by telling a story that could only be told in the fantasy genre.

In an age where most of the steampunk books spend an exorbitant amount of time on real world fashion and little on ac...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Joan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Usually I don't bother to rate books that I read more than a couple of years ago, but I make an exception for those that really stood out as dreadful. This book seemed like Hunt looked at the internet, said, "Hm, I guess steampunk's a thing," then took the standard young-orphan-heroes trope and hot glued SteamCraziness all over it. Want steam-powered robots? You got 'em! Want horrible Elder God things? Here you go! Want a magical wall of dangerous/mutating magic that seems like the direct offspr...more

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Nov 14, 2011 Joseph Teller rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: steampunk-futuristic, sf-social, sf-not-my-style

I had had this novel recommended to me a while back, by someone who was giving a list of what they thought were essential steampunk novels.

Well it technically is steam punk. There are steam powered sentient machines 'Steam Men' and there is Dicksonian Class based society that people are rebelling against.... but it turns into a convoluted mess as it installs so many different political and technobabble concepts into its twists and turns that it makes you despair for the main characters as it all...more

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Sep 24, 2011 Ruth rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: spec-fic

c2007. Confused! Not only am I confused, but I think the plot and target market has also been confused. The cover of the hard back from the library is indicative of a YA book but the content certainly isn't. The protagonists are young but what they say, do and think are not consistent with their ages. After the first couple of pages, I did not think I was going to like the book then it started to get really good and then, for me, it kind of went downhill into a maelstrom of ideas, plot lines, ch...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Brett's Books rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel started out engrossingly, introduces many characters, races, settings, with no exposition; which initially draws the reader in. However, the author never quits introducing more and more stuff, with the already introduced items are left undeveloped. I have three other complaints. The author is too preachy, especially about faith, he has some amorphous idea that being subservient to any "idea" be a religious faith, political ideology or cause is BAD; only those cheeky relativistic indep...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Jcd rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This isn't in my usual reading interests but I saw it at the bookstore and thought I'd give it a try.

Loved The Court of the Air. Towards the end it gets pretty bumpy and the action lovers will all appreciate it I'm sure. My favorite part was the world itself. I loved all the steampunk aspects, crystalgrids, slip-thinking steammen (which I wasn't entirely sure about at first, until some of their more aggressive aspects got to shine through), pneumatic buildings, transaction machines, the Gideon's...more

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Apr 25, 2011 Lesley rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't know if I'm disappointed or not by this book. Basically it's a steampunk fantasy set in a world that is recognisably a quasi-Victorian England in conflict with a neighbour which is recognisably a cross between Revolutionary France and Marxist USSR. Throw in some quasi-Aztec evil gods, voodoo steammen and fae magick and you get - well, a hell of a mess really. Some people applaud the wealth of ideas crammed into this novel, but for me there were just too many of them, too scantily develop...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Tony rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

I'm no stranger to long books, fantasy, or science fiction, but this huge mess of ideas grew increasingly tiresome for me the further I got into it. Many of the tropes for a good adventure are there: orphans with curious untapped powers who may be able to save the world, kingdoms in conflict, people who are born with magic powers, an aeronautical navy, the steampunkish computer/robot noble "steammen", assassins, ancient artifacts, elder gods and on and on and on. And that's really the problem wi...more I'm no stranger to long books, fantasy, or science fiction, but this huge mess of ideas grew increasingly tiresome for me the further I got into it. Many of the tropes for a good adventure are there: orphans with curious untapped powers who may be able to save the world, kingdoms in conflict, people who are born with magic powers, an aeronautical navy, the steampunkish computer/robot noble "steammen", assassins, ancient artifacts, elder gods and on and on and on. And that's really the problem with the book -- there's just too much stuff with not enough room to breathe, and it just keeps going on and on and on... Far too many characters flitting in and out with not enough development, a world in chaos that's almost impossible to orient oneself to (my edition lacked a map, and a map would have improved matters a great deal, as would a historical timeline), and relationships between factions that get very hard to keep track of.

The plot seems revolves around a war between a "communityist" nation (presumably inspired by the 18th-century Paris commune revolutionaries) who are seeking to "equalize" everyone, and a nation who seems to be modeled on Victorian England, with it's humble shopkeepers and awesome (air) navy. There's also some stuff about a monarch whose arms are ritually chopped off, a magic mist that rises to give people magic powers, a kind of Inquisition that tracks these people down and enslaves them, the mining of the helium-like substance that keeps the air navy up, the underground cities and ruins of the world that collapsed a thousand years ago, some kind of bear deity.... Sigh, never mind, it's pretty much impossible to explain.

So, on the plus side, lots and lots of interesting ideas. But on the minus side, most of these are very poorly explained on sketched out. The author clearly has an amazing imagination, but not the skills to translate what's in his head to paper. For example, the book never pauses for a paragraph to explain what various particular races look like, leaving you with cartoon ideas of what the lobstermen and locust priests actually look like. In theory, the two teenage hero orphans are supposed to lead the reader through all this, but unfortunately, they're never developed as people, and end up just being plot elements in this confusing mess -- albeit ones that are frequently rescued by one deus ex machina after another. Several of the supporting characters have a great deal more life to them, and they are often able to get off some rather clever and amusing dialogue. I would actually really like to see the author try some kind of very constrained tale about a gang of rogues or pirates or something, because he does rascally banter quite well.

Ultimately, huge ambition and a witches brew of a hundred borrowed ingredients will only get you so far, and in this case, the result is an unpalatable stew. I'm guessing that some readers with more tolerance for sloppiness in their fantasy fiction will get more out of it than me, but I certainly can't recommend spending your time with it. I sure wish I hadn't.(less)

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Nov 28, 2010 Tanabrus rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: steamfantasy, in-inglese

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Steam-fantasy.
Non so se esiste, nè se è la classificazione adatta a questo libro, ma leggendolo è l’unica cosa che mi è venuta in mente.

Perchè The court of the air è un fantasy, su questo non ci piove.
C’è il regno di Jackals, protetto dal resto del mondo da una mortale barriera magica e dalle sue navi volanti che lo rendono imbattibile. Ci sono vecchi templi dedicati a oscure divinità che un tempo proteggevano un impero sanguinario, divinità bandite dal mondo dopo una lunghissima lotta per la so...more

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Jan 05, 2010 trishtrash rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-fiction, steampunk

A steampunk fantasy adventure, full of magic and mechanics and political shenanigans; Hunt introduces a richly layered world and a myriad of characters while swiftly corralling them into a cogent story, making the reader catch up with his pace or flounder; it’s well worth it, too, for this is entertaining and enjoyable reading. Description is given on the hoof, character shown because there’s no time to tell, the adventure builds the world in which it unfolds… the effect is complete immersion an...more

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Oct 13, 2009 Corvidae rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is really nothing I can add to a review about this book that 90% of these reviews don't already say. I am very glad that pretty much everyone else has been as frustrated with this book as I have. I literally have been slogging through it for weeks now, barely reading a page at a time before I get bored. And considering my reading speed is enough to finish the entire Hyperion quartet in about a week and a half, that is bad. Bad bad bad.

In fact, I think reading too fast may be part of the pr...more

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Sep 24, 2009 Jennifer Uhlich rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This would be a 2.5 for me. The end picks up much-needed energy. Overall, though, this felt like a hundred thousand spangles pasted over what is essentially British society. The pieces that were most interesting--the steammen, the strange crablike people, the feymist, the insect gods--all of this was just ground up and shoved into the English model and we were left to our own conceptual devices to understand them. I can't help but feel that there is something missing, some way that the interesti...more

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About Stephen Hunt

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Stephen Hunt is a British writer living in London. His first fantasy novel, For the Crown and the Dragon, was published in 1994, and introduced a young officer, Taliesin, fighting for the Queen of England in a Napoleonic period alternative reality where the wars of Europe we...more

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The Kingdom Beyond the Waves (Jackelian, #2)

The Rise of the Iron Moon (Jackelian, #3)

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“Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” — 82 people liked it

“All I have left is my anger at the foolishness of the world. The unnecessary cruelties, the pomposity and vanity of people who should know better. Most of the time I just want to shake some sense into the world.” — 10 people liked it

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