The aeronaut's windlass

Or maybe he's just a dick, I dunno. Certainly the Harry Dresden character reads like a self-insert character and he's a bit of a dick. Anyway, the ups:

Talking cats! Who save the day. And frankly they were written very well. Obviously Butcher knows and loves cats. Could have used more cat action.

Kickass ladies all over the place.

Great airship battle writing. That was fun.

An intriguing setting.

The downs:

The intriguing setting not well-explored or adequately explained. Humanity has been living in spires for at least 2,000 years, and the surface of the planet is basically uninhabitable. Full of strange, dangerous creatures that become maddened by a slight taste of human blood. OK... but why is one spire "Albion" (blegh, read the Book of Koli for why this is barf-worthy) and one spire "Aurora" and why are the clearly stand-ins for the British Empire and the Spanish Empire?

In this vein, the power sources in this book are basically magical crystals that seem to have some kind of consciousness, which means that the airships they power can be thought of as discrete sentient beings, which offers intriguing potential for exploring nonhuman awareness and suchlike things, but all that happens is that a girl learns to talk to a ship and the ship is like "My captain is so cool" and the girl is like "Yeah he is" and that's the extent of it.

A bit too long. Action needs pauses sometimes, and there was rather too much time spent with the antagonists of the story. This could have been OK if there weren't so many overlapping protagonist POV storylines interweaving throughout. Edit! Edit!

I don't FULLY regret the time I spent reading it because it was an audiobook, and the narrator did a great job, and mostly I was doing other things at the same time. But if I'd sat down and read it I'd be annoyed.

I can tell where Butcher is going with the sequels, but I'm not going to follow him there - I don't care enough about the characters.

The Aeronaut's Windlass introduces us to a world of aether and spires. The surface of the world has been taken by vegetation and monsters, and people have been living in huge spires for thousands of years. The Builders constructed them using methods and materials unknown to current populace, so it's no wonder they are revered.

The moving force in the world is ether. People grow crystals that can harness and focus the power of ether flows, and thus accomplish things both mundane and magnificent: illumination, levitation, protective force fields, energy bolts... Ethersilk, made by monstrous silkweavers, can be used as sails for airships to ride etheric currents. Some people, etherealists, are sensitive to etheric energy, and can even see future.

Why exactly that is, is unclear. Ether is central to everything happening in this book, yet there's no discussion about its nature. Maybe its use is just so ingrained into the characters that they take it as self evident, but it would've been nice to have at least some kind of explanation on what it is. Why exactly etheric energy passing through a person makes that person able to see the future. Or why it tears holes into their mind.

Other things could use an explanation as well. Like why all other crystals lose their power when they age, but core crystals become more efficient. And please don't say it's only because otherwise it would be hard to tell what's giving The Predator an edge against just about all the other airships in the world.

Or the cats. Why are there cats? Why did Butcher think it would be a good idea to write chapters from the point of view of a cat? And when he did, why did he decide to write it with the stereotypical superiority complex?

I'm not saying this is a bad book. There's plenty of action, it flows reasonably well, and there's occasionally some funny dialogue. It's also perfect for people who want to know what they are getting: at least in this opening book, the main characters are undeniably good guys - even the purported character flaws are just badmouthing - and the opponents are very obvious bad guys. The bad guys do what they do because they are bad; the motivations aren't really revealed.

If you're into series, there's bound to be continuity - according to an interview, Cinder Spires could be a trilogy or it could be nine books depending on how it's received. If the next book has less cats, I might be interested.