Raven's Ladder

Overstreet's ongoing story about the peoples of the Expanse continues in Raven's Ladder. This series definitely hit its stride in Cyndere's Midnight, and Raven's delivers more of the same goodness.

In this one I found the language inventions ("Jiggerspit!", one character exclaims) more like a noisy background, but I guess that's a hazard of world-building. As I get more invested in the story, I start to notice the friction between my initial reading of a word like 'longears' (that's like a rabbit, I guess?) and later references to them being the 'height of a stag,' (Wait, like a huge rabbit?). Small moments like these disrupt the flow of the book, but also contribute to the sense of its Otherness- that this is really a different world. I'm not here to judge.

I found his parallels with the fundamentalist cult of Auralia to be pretty hollow, but I'm trusting that they won't have too large a part in the greater story.

And I am very interested in the continuing developments with the Keeper - the mysterious beast who seems to reveal himself more as the series goes on. As we learned more about him (it?), the contours of this story started to seem familiar - but Overstreet corrects this with a few surprises by the end.

I'm definitely looking forward to #4!

Noted on June 20, 2010

Attention: please note that as Overstreet writes more books, his name gets bigger and bigger on the cover designs. I recognize this is the way things go, but it's fun to see it happen in the Auralia's Thread series.

Noted on May 6, 2010