Rjurik Davidson

I had been excitedly awaiting the release of this book since the moment I finished Unwrapped Sky. I had never before, in a lifetime of proud book-nerd-ery, become so completely enraptured by any author's creation -- I literally counted down the days until I would be able to return to Caeli-Amur -- to find out what would become of Max and Kata -- to root for the seditionists as they fought to find their way in a world that held so many threats and uncertainties, internal and external, that show more they had never before had to face.

The Stars Askew, though, delivers so much more than what I had been impatiently awaiting. The intricately-designed world in which Unwrapped Sky unfolds is broadened far beyond the borders of Caeli-Amur; characters both familiar and new continually reveal unexpected depths; and instead of the neat, concise answers that readers of Unwrapped Sky might have thought we wanted, we are ultimately left with that same sprawling, beautiful, chaotic uncertainty that kept us thinking and dreaming of Caeli-Amur as we waited for The Stars Askew to bring us home. show less

It's always an unexpected pleasure to discover a new author this good.

Davidson starts this tale with a shocking scene, and keeps the energy going all the way through to the end. As I said in my review of the author's short story, 'Nighttime in Caeli-Amur,' Davidson excels at creating characters who roundly deserve to be condemned for their actions - but still capture the reader's empathy, if not sympathy.

Their home, Caeli-Amur, feels like a real place. It's vivid, teeming with dreams, show more ambition, love and tragedy - and the bitter, grotesque things that all of those can twist lives into.

This is a story of a city on the brink...of a fall, or of revolution. Corrupt officials war with seditionist saboteurs. Here we meet Kata, former street orphan, trained philosopher-assassin (ninja) - a woman who's learned to always have an eye for the main chance. But will her self-interest be her downfall? We also have Maximilian, an idealist and revolutionary whose dreams of studying the dangerous arts of thaumaturgy may not be compatible with the violent revolution some of his compatriots aim for. Then there's Boris, former tramworker, on his way up the bureaucratic ladder to success... but will he be willing to trample over the bodies of his old friends on his way up?

And more... much, much more. This is a complex work exploring multiple layers of power and motivations. I'd say: China Mieville meets Tanith Lee - injected with a full syringe of originality. Recommended for fans of steampunk who are tired of the cliches. Davidson's an author I'll be following from here on out.

Advance review copy provided by NetGalley. Thanks to Netgalley and Tor Books. As always, my opinion is my own. show less

I'm in the middle of reading 'Unwrapped Sky,' Davidson's novel set in his fictional city of Caeli-Amur. I noticed that Tor Books is providing free access to this short story, as a 'teaser,' so thought I'd check it out (since I'm loving the novel.)
Here (even more than in the book), Caeli-Amur puts me in mind of Tanith Lee's Paradis - a complex, teeming metropolis full of beauty and evil, poverty and wealth, human foibles and inexplicable hauntings.
In this story, the city is merely the lush show more and atmospheric backdrop to a very human story. The narrator is a mid-level bureaucrat caught in a mid-life crisis, suffering discontent with his comfortable life and family, feeling the urge to throw away everything that he's achieved on his proper track, and regretting the loss of the carefree life he had as a theater student in his university days.
A finely-crafted character study. Davidson seems to excel at creating characters where the reader has to closely consider whether they are deserving of condemnation, empathy - or both. show less

3.5 / 5
Unwrapped Sky has an amazingly realized fantasy world both beautiful and harsh. The city of Caeli-Amur is a place where thaumaturgical magic and ancient technology are melded together in such a way I haven’t seen before. The citizens are ruled by three Houses that hold ultimate power in the city. If you do not work for one of these Houses then you are likely to be used up and trampled beneath their maneuvering.

Let’s start a revolution
​The city has quite a few interesting fantasy show more races and has a unique yet familiar feel to it. But at its heart, it is a city in turmoil. The general populace are unhappy with the treatment they get from the Houses and how the bulk of thaumaturgical knowledge is hoarded by the Houses. Rather than helping protect the people they employ, by granting them techniques and skills to aid them, the workers are left to flounder risking their lives and sanity using the magic necessary to do their jobs. Rather like working on a radioactive generator without a protective suit. This eventually warps the people’s bodies and minds. That isn’t even the worst the Houses are capable of, they will kill people indiscriminately and have completely enslaved a few other non human races. As Unwrapped Sky is told mostly from 3 points of view we get to see a little bit of everything.

Kata: a philosopher assassin who has crawled her way out of the streets is indebted to House Technis for all that she has. She must commit an act that breaks her heart and also goes undercover to expose a seditionist group that is hiding in the city.

Boris: a House agent who has spent practically his whole life working for House Technis and is reviled by his former friends and even his own daughter. He sympathizes with the plight of the everyday man but ultimately what is he willing to do about it?

Max: A young seditionist (revolutionary) who is also a thaumaturgist that is a member of a the seditionist group hiding within the city. He has big aspirations to free people from the rule of the Houses and believes this can be accomplished through thaumaturgy.

There were points while reading I found myself so captivated and yet I would also feel so disconnected from what I was reading. I really believed this was because of the characters themselves. While I loved the story and found the world building fascinating there simply wasn’t a character that I actually liked. By the time I was 40% into the book I realized I didn’t much care for any of the main characters. Where was the sympathetic character that I could latch on to? While all of them had some tragedy in their past and had good qualities about them, they also had an equal number of things that made it hard to like them. Perhaps because we got to know each character so intimately with all of their fears, desires and overall motivations, that I ended up finding their personalities unpalatable. That in turn made my reading experience unusually slow because I found myself just not caring what happened to them as much as I should have.​ When I think about it – I support I can’t really say I didn’t like the character – because if I truly felt that way I would have stopped reading. But even though I wanted to be sympathetic to them I found myself not. Luckily I did find this changing toward the end of the novel and I believe I will be very interested in what happens to them.

​No happy champagne bubbles for you
I have to admit despite not personally caring for the characters as much as I would have liked, I still really enjoyed the world. For me that is what this book was all about. Learning about this extraordinary city, magic and this worlds mythology. It is a world rife with disastrous magic and cultures that I would love to see more closely. The details and amount of depth that was went into allowed me to see the world itself as a character, which is something I look for in a really good fantasy. Now prepare yourself, there is a lot of bleakness and sad realities to this world that make it a much more somber read than I normally enjoy. But I definitely appreciated how rich and real the world building was. I definitely think based on the way things left off that the next book might take on a different tone which I anticipate seeing. I consider Unwrapped Sky to be one of those ‘thinker’ fantasies. It wasn’t asking me to love it, it wanted me to think about everything it was offering up. Why do people do the things they do, what would have happened if this or that were done differently, what can be done, and who is willing to do it? What would you do? What more can you have, will that one more fulfilled desire give you the happiness you want. That sort of thing. I don’t think of myself as a deep thinking reader. I’m in it for the pleasure of it and because I like to see new worlds – so on that point Unwrapped Sky delivers, not a thrilling roller coaster fantasy but a slow moving scenic train ride. show less