The Cloud Roads

Martha Wells
Completed 12/17/2022, Reviewed 12/17/2022
2 stars

This is the first entry in the very popular Raksura series.  After scanning various review sites like Worlds Without End, people really liked it.  I found it tedious and tough to read.  I found the world building to be terrific, but I just couldn’t get into the characters or the plot.  It takes place on a planet with many different races of people, some are groundlings, some are skylings.  And it’s complete with wild flora and fauna.  The imagination that went into creating this world was staggering, reminiscent of the movie “Avatar” in its differences from Earth.  It just never grabbed me as a reader.

Moon is a Raksura, a changeling skyling whose family was murdered by the evil race called the Fell.  He has been hiding among the groundlings living in groundling form, as he doesn’t know any others of his race.  When the current community he lives with discovers he can change into a skyling, they assume he’s a Fell and try to kill him.  He is saved last minute by another Raksura who takes him back to his colony to live with them and be a consort to one of the sister queens.  But what awaits there is nasty politics and war with the Fell.

I never connected with Moon.  The book begins with the recounting of how he is nearly killed by the Cordans, the groundling community he lives with.  I felt no empathy for him despite the dire predicament he was in.   As more Raksura characters are introduced, I found no connection with them either.  The one character I kind of liked was one of the Cordans, Selis.  She was cantankerous and not really likeable until she shows up later in the book.  There we get more background and motivation for her.  I also kind of liked Chime, one of the Raksura.  He was a mentor who was transitioning into a warrior.  He was kind and patient with Moon even when many Raksura were openly hostile toward him for being a “solitary”.  

I didn’t care for the writing.  It never really flowed for me.  Despite Moon being a thirty-five-year-old male, I spent half the book feeling like he was a teenage female.  Something didn’t jive for me, even when he was shirtless in a scene and his chest hair is described.  Upon reflection, there was something juvenile about the whole book, having a YA feel versus adult.  Comparing this book to her Murderbot Diaries series, the writing in the latter is much more mature, culminating in the excellent novel, Network Effect.

I give this book two stars out of five.  This book is a book club read for January and I’m interested in discovering what the rest of the group thought of it.  I may be the unpopular lone voice, but I’ll stick to my guns in my dislike for it.  I’m not going to pursue any more of the books in the series.