Fantasy

The Dragonlance books were my gateway drug to fantasy when I was in my early 20's, so Margaret Weis will always have a special place in my heart. Though after reading SHADOW RAIDERS, that place has shrunk considerably.

This book is bloated with unnecessary description, a convoluted storyline that meanders all over the place, and an incredible amount of exposition. I hung in there, hoping it would get better, but it never did. There were glimmers of promise in spots, but they went nowhere. I'm glad I borrowed this book from the library rather than purchasing it for my fantasy collection! ( )

First of a trilogy - and unlike a lot of the trilogies I've read lately, the first book doesn't really stand on its own, but ends in a cliffhanger.

The world is interesting and unique. I think this book nails the upper world of magic floating islands vs. lower word of darkness conflict much better than the Loom Saga did. I wasn't expecting religion to be quite so heavy in this book, but I enjoy religion in fiction far more than I do in real life, so it worked for me.

I feel like I got the gist of the magic system, but wish I understood it better. I still don't really get the differences between the types of magic users. ( )

Good action and plot twists. The absurd and eccentric behavior of the characters grows on you and I actually found myself chuckling later in the book. ( )

Although this is not my normal genre, I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised and genuinely happy with this book. Weiss and Krammes utilize incredible world building and a cast of characters in all walks of society to create a captivating tale of a world made up of islands and continents floating on the Breath, a world of science and magic working together, of ancient secrets returning to seek vengeance, and of an era of dragon riders and the nostalgic captain of the (now disbanded) dragon brigade, Lord Captain Stephano De Guichen.

In a world where the church controls magic (which utilizes God’s Breath) and the technology connected to it, history and fear have made certain aspects of magic taboo. Now a group utilizing contramagic have begun destroying ships, cathedrals, and cities. Worse still, there is no known way to defend against this ‘impossible’ and ‘heretical’ magic. Stephano and his group, the Cadre of the Lost, are pulled into a crisis that will likely forever change (or end) their world. Sailing together on Miri’s Cloud Hopper, the Cadre consists of Rodrigo, a gentleman and a genius who takes umbrage at the idea of putting effort in to something, Gythe, a young magical savant haunted by her past, her Miri, Gythe's older sister and pilot of the Cloud Hopper, and an ex-military man called Dag. They are hired for a mission by Stephano’s Lady mother, to retrieve a journeyman who has created a process to imbue metal with magic (once thought impossible, but done using Rodrigo’s theory which he never bothered to test). As the attacks increase and a series of attacks centuries in the making begin to come to fruition, their mission changes from political counterespionage to a fight for humanity’s survival. ( )