An inventive modern fantasy from a promising first time author. Nerdisms like invented languages…especially the invented slang (I tell you authors be wary of its use…hard to ever take seriously). Beautiful elevated language which occasionally clunks but usually is a thick stew that pulls back for intimate characters moments. Intimacy and excess, too much and not enough of something and it stumbled in the initial school sequences. Like the high language as it provides a beautiful feeling of otherness that fantasy requires. Frustrating and uneven with some segments unsettlingly beautiful then crude character dialogue which works maybe better than trying to elevate the dialogue but is tonal shift nonetheless, I guess if it was more artfully handled and the character less distant to me it would work better. Also for an author who creates such superb terms for things why call airships zeppelins? Is there a Count Zeppelin living in this alternate world? These flaws are present but this a work of full-bore imagination and I can’t wait for the next segment (it’s a duology). A mix of new weird, high fantasy, steampunk that is full of wonder and has me impatient for what is next.
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