Cloud-Castles
Set on a trading platform floating in the skies above a gas giant, the novel follows an idealistic young man, Augustus, and his sharp-witted guide, Briz, through a roguish adventure. It expands from a humorous opening into a story about the distortions of community and power.
Work Information
In a city above the clouds, kindness is expensive, which makes Briz's quick thinking all the more important.
A full-length English SF novel published in 2022. On the sky-bound trading city of Sybill III, idealistic Augustus is forced to face the realities of a poor community and its streetwise inhabitants.
Review Summaries
-
The light tone of the opening gradually opens into a wider story that balances satire and adventure. The floating-world setting also has enough depth to support the character interactions.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Magic Isle Press
- Published
- 2022-01-19
- Pages
- 350 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.24 x 2.01 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780992549053
- ISBN-10
- 0992549051
- Price
- 2044 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/Adventure
Augustus Thistlewood was an idealist. The youngest scion of a vastly wealthy family, he’d come to help the poor, deprived people of the strange world of Sybill III – a gas-dwarf world with no habitable land. The human population, descendants of a crashed convict transport, lived on a tiny, crowded, alien antigravity plate they called ‘the Big Syd’, drifting through the clouds in the upper atmosphere. It was a few square miles of squalor, in a vast sea of sky, ruled by the degenerate relics of two alien empires. The problem was that the people of the Big Syd wanted to help themselves, first – to his money, his liberty, and even his life. Only two things stood between them and this: the first was his ‘assistant’ Briz, – a ragged urchin he’d picked up as a guide. She reckoned if anyone was going to steal from Augustus, it was going to be her, even if she had to keep him alive so that she could do it. And the second thing was Augustus himself. He didn’t know what ‘giving up’ meant. Actually, he didn’t know what most things meant. As a naïve, wide-eyed innocent blundering through the cess-pit of Sybill III, he was going to have to learn, mostly the hard way. Some of that learning was going to be out in the strange society that existed on the endless drifting clumps of airborne vegetation, and the Cloud-Castles of the aliens who hunted across them. Most of it was learning that philanthropy wasn’t quite what they’d taught him in college.
Reviews
-
A rollicking good time read
Augustus StJohn Thistlewood III, a naive, but highly intelligent young man from the wealthiest family on Azure, comes to uplift the poor of Sybil III. A gas dwarf planet, Sybil is populated by humans and two alien races in the only inhabitable zone high in the clouds. Resource poor with only one solid place in the clouds, a gravity plate built by aliens, Augustus soon finds himself among rival gangs determined to rid themselves of the pest Augustus becomes with the help of a street urchin, Briz. Enslaved and forced to work in a Sky Castle using gravity engines, Augustus meets the outlanders, humans who have found a way to live in the clouds, harvesting plants and animals genetically engineered to float and live in the clouds. I’ve always enjoyed Freer’s writing. His characters are both unique and likable. World building and plot are interesting and above all: fun. An author must be good to collaborate with Eric Flint. David Freer’s Cloud Castle, like everything he writes, is well worth reading. Grab a copy today!
-
A fun variation of the Yankee in King Arthur's Court, crossed with Monkey Island influences!
A fun romp through a well thought out what-if world of humans living in the floating clouds of a gas giant -- and they happened to all be ex-Australian convicts! Expect a lot of Aussie slang, a lot of incredulous laughter at some of the antics, and an emotionally powerful ending. Augustus Thistlewood (totally not related to Guybrush Threepwood I'm sure) arrives on a floating Island and manages to bumble his way into making a lot of people rather upset at him. But he finds a trusty companion who, after robbing him blind, helps him survive and eventually grow up to be the man he was destined to be.
-
Don't plan on doing anything else for a while, once you start reading
Got this book as a recommendation from another author, and glad I did. The plot doesn't so much unfold, as careen unexpectedly from crisis to crisis as the characters fumble their way to a happy ending. I couldn't begin to summarize what happens; just let me say that you are unlikely to want to take a break from reading before you can get to the end.
-
Definitely worth the initial effort
I had difficulty getting interested in this. The first few chapters dragged a bit; then it picked up. Then I thought "Oh, No!" as it seemed to echo Larry Niven's "The Integral Trees", which I read some 40 years ago. If you've read the Niven story, the scale of this environment is smaller and gravity matters (a lot). The Author's Note introduction suggests that he hadn't actually read that story but had a totally different and fifteen years more-recent source of inspiration. After that slow start I could not put the book down, apart from Physical Needs Breaks. Mind you, I do normally re-read books before writing reviews and I had the same difficulty re-starting. The Glossary could stand to be a little bigger. It's as well that I knew the phrase "beyond the black stump" from the Nevil Shute novel of that title. Although the cover blurb gives away the sex of the character Briz: there is an internal inconsistency that Charlie is aware of that on page 86 and then surprised to have it revealed on page 131. Only example of sloppy editing that I noticed. On the other hand: lots of typos. Although I suppose that's easier with alien names; Thrymi often become Thymi, for instance.
-
Not for the faint hearted
Loved the brilliant characters and plot., thickened nicely by oodles of Australian characterisations. Almost died laughing, certainly caught myself snorting unexpectedly. The style is refreshing and in David Freer's story of people are really important. I thoroughly recommend this book for Larrikens over sixteen.