Under the Empyrean Sky

I started Chuck Wendig's Under the Empyrean Sky about a month ago. I got it from the library at the time, thinking that as a YA book it would be an easy read. But I couldn't get into it at all. So back to the library it went.

I wanted to try again a few days ago. So I bought it on my Kindle and started reading. To my amazement, I was now into the story and didn't want to put it down!

Under the Empyrean Sky is the tale of Cael McAvoy. Cael is the captain of the Big Sky Scavengers, the second best scavenging crew of Boxelder. Cael's crew flies over the corn fields of the Heartland, looking for anything useful that they can sell to support their families. Cael's tired of being bested in the scavenging game by the mayor's son, the captain of the best scavenging crew in town. But when he spends the crew's ace notes on new panels from his ship just before his ship gets trashed, he's not sure what to do. To make matters worse, he's worried about losing his first mate (and love of his life) when the Empyreans announce their arranged marriages (Obligations) in a few days. And with his mother sick, his sister running off again and his father barely able to scrape by, Cael isn't sure how he'll keep his family afloat. But that's life in the Heartland.

Under the Empyrean Sky was a really interesting book. The world reminded me of The Hunger Games, with the Heartlanders being like the districts, and the Empyrean controlling the world and making the rules from above (quite literally - the Empyrean live on flotillas, flying around above the earth, closing schools and generally making life miserable for the "unenlightened" Heartlanders below them). The Empyrean have outlawed all crops except the corn, which ravages the earth, spreading and killing all other plant life. Their one consolation to the Heartlanders is the Lottery; once a year, a Heartland family is selected to live on the flotillas with the Empyrean.

Cael's crew was pretty great. There's Lane, Cael's helmsman, who lost his family and now lives alone. Lane isn't looking forward to the arranged marriages because he doesn't want to marry any of the girls. The third mate, Rigo, has an abusive father who has sucked the boy's confidence from him. But even though he's afraid, he still manages to find his courage when he really needs to. And Gwennie, the first mate, is the brains of the entire organization. Unfortunately we don't get to see a whole lot of her (spoiler: she's Obligated to the mayor's son; Cael spends a lot of time pining for her or fighting over her, but we don't get to see a whole lot from her perspective). And Cael's dad, Pop, is pretty awesome (another spoiler: he's growing an illegal garden with the help of hobos!)

I guess I was just in the wrong frame of mind when I started reading Under the Empyrean Sky the first time. But I'm super glad I gave it a second chance. And now I can't wait for the second book, Blightborn, which comes out later this month!

Blackbirds

After reading Chuck Wendig's The Blue Blazes, I originally wasn't going to jump in and read another one of his books so soon.  But I've heard a lot of good about his Miriam Black series, and I needed something to recommend for work.  So I took a chance and read the first book in the series, Blackbirds.

Blackbirds is the story of Miriam Black (duh), a girl who sees how you're going to die when she touches you.  But death is also fate, and Miriam cannot change anything.  And so she drifts through life, taking money off of the dead to survive.  But when she touches Louis, she gets quite a shock: he dies a violent death in about a month, and he dies saying her name.

While I had a hard time getting into The Blue Blazes, Blackbirds gave me no such trouble.  Right from the start, I loved Miriam with her strange power and wanted to know how this story would turn out.  It took some rather crazy turns, in much the way that fate does.  All in all, I thought this was a great, if somewhat gritty, urban fantasy.  I'll definitely be looking for the next one (Mockingbird).

The Blue Blazes

I saw Chuck Wendig's The Blue Blazes at work awhile ago.  I thought it sounded interesting, so rather than take it out at the library, I decided to buy it on my Kindle and read it at my leisure.  And after reading the No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, I really wanted to read some fiction; while I have lots to choose from, in the end I decided on the Blue Blazes.

The Blue Blazes is the story of Mookie Pearl, a mountain of a man.  He's part of the New York Organization, the mob that controls, among other things, Cerulean, aka the Blue Blazes.  Cerulean is one of the five pigments rumoured to be in the underworld.  And the underworld is below New York City; years ago the Sandhogs blasted into it while building tunnels, revealing a world of gobbos and the like.  Those in the know struggle to keep the underworld out of our world, all the while grabbing Cerulean for themselves.  You see, Cerulean has some unique properties: it allows you to see the gobbos and other creatures for what they really are; it also allows you to find more Cerulean.

So anyway, Mookie Pearl.  His world falls apart when his Boss announces he's dying of cancer.  To make matters worse, his daughter is stirring up the pot, talking the other gangs into going against the Organization now that the Boss is weak.  And just when things seem bad, all hell breaks loose, leaving Mookie in the middle and unsure where to turn.

A really neat touch is that, at the beginning of each chapter, there are scraps from the journals of John Atticus Oakes, the self-styled Cartographer of the Great Below.  His journal entries tell of his adventures mapping the underworld and searching for the other four pigments.  I thought these were a really neat touch, and I always looked forward to reading them.

But overall I had a really hard time connecting with the story.  I liked a lot of the characters, but something about the book just didn't keep me interested, especially in the first half of it.  I was originally thinking it was the writing style, as this is the first book by Wendig that I've read.  But I came across a review on Amazon where the reviewer said that they liked his other books, but had a hard time connecting with The Blue Blazes.  I also came across an interview with Wendig, where he says the "hardest thing for me was that this book was very, very worldbuildy [...] The trick was to not let the worldbuilding be the story driver."  After having read that, I actually think that was the biggest problem about the book: the story didn't seem to really get going until around halfway through the book, quite possibly because of all the worldbuilding that needed to be crammed in.  But I am glad I actually finished The Blue Blazes, rather than stopping halfway through.  As I said, the characters were all rather interesting (particularly Mookie) and the story took some interesting turns.