"Hmm," Skiver said when Alaeron finished speaking. "Not bad, but next time you tell it, make it so you and Zernebeth were in love. Makes a better story, and there's a whole added bit of heartstring-pulling when she dies that way. Makes you more mysterious and all scarred by loss and such too. Makes you seem more deep. People love that." ( )

Pathfinder Tales have been shockingly reliable for an RPG fantasy franchise. They regularly recruit high quality writers, and have done so again with Tim Pratt's City of the Fallen Sky.

An alchemist on the run, an ancient ruin, a greasy cutthroat and a beautiful rogue. Sound fun? It is.

Pratt does a very good job in this book of incorporating his (and Paizo's) world-building into the narrative in a very smooth and natural way. I never felt like the narrative was pausing to unleash an avalanche of information on me for the sake of context. It all slots into the plot and characterisation very deftly.

And the characterisation is good. Pratt is smart enough to not give up everything about his characters (except the main one), and I was really happy to see a gay character, where the... gaiety was just another aspect of the character rather than a Big Deal - which is often the case when books like this attempt it, and really end up with a wan kind of tokenism.

The action (of which there is plenty) is also well-written. It's very clear what's going on and doesn't descend into action move pyrotechnics.

On the whole, this was one of my favourite Pathfinder books so far, and I do hope Pratt is up for a sequel. ( )