Some New Reviews of Unwrapped Sky

There have been a bunch more reviews of Unwrapped Sky. Typically, I haven’t kept on top of them all here, but here are a few:

Jeff Sparrow did one for Readings, which is here. Here’s some of what he says:

Yes, Unwrapped Sky deploys the familiar tropes of heroic fantasy: monsters and sorcery and godlike beings. But don’t let that fool you. This is primarily a novel of ideas: a book deeply invested in twentieth-century social struggles, a heroic fantasy in which the real protagonist is history itself.

Which is not to suggest that Davidson’s book is slow. On the contrary, it contains the requisite amount of treachery, murder, torture and magic. But Kata, Boris and Maximilian, throughout their adventures, constantly grapple an individual’s relationship with broader social forces. They make compromises and are compromised in turn. Or to put it another way, they are changed just as they change their world.

Kirsten Tranter reviews it for the Age and the SMH here. She wasn’t enthralled by the opening but:

This changes, however, around two-thirds of the way through the book, when Maximillian succeeds in his dangerous quest to uncover the secrets buried in the drowned city, with consequences that force him into new, surprising confrontations with others and, more importantly, himself. The question of what sacrifices might be necessary to enable real revolution is renewed, revitalising the story, which moves forward from this point with a new kind of energy and original vision.

Justin Hickey wrote a review for Open Letters Monthly. He wrote:

Unwrapped Sky is a rarer experience still. It’s a reef where genuinely tragic figures dart through dazzling grottoes—but not indefinitely. Not greedily. And yet, even if Davidson does write a sequel or three, and they stink, this volume will still be in the company of brilliant books like Hyperion, by Dan Simmons (which actually does have three mediocre sequels). But there are worse crimes against literature to consider—starting with the fact that millions of people read Martin’s series without knowing who Robert Silverberg, Gene Wolf, and Lord Dunsany are. The ocean that is epic fantasy goes less explored every year.

Finally, I was really thrilled to be reviewed in Africa’s Mail and Guardian by Gwen Ansell:

All Davidson’s characters face dilemmas and do bad things: Boris betrays his working-class roots to rise, and rapes a slave woman he desires; Maximilian struggles with the disciplines of making revolution; Kata kills. And in the community of revolutionaries she infiltrates, Kata also debates with the many other women fighting for change.

The nature of freedom and free choice illuminate the heart of this book, but the politics emerge from gorgeously baroque scenes, complex characters and tense action.