I Read Books: The Court of the Air
Perhaps I need to calm down for a moment.
The Kingdom of Jackals is very loosely an 18th/19th century fantasy steampunk Britain. Very loosely. It has redcoats and crushers and upland clans with bagpipes and an industrial city with posh districts and a gutter press and orphans and poorhouses.
They had a war between parliament and the king and when parliament won they decided that no king would ever take up arms against his people again. So they surgically remove the king’s arms when he’s crowned. The capital, Middlesteel, is built on top of ruins which include the outlaw city of Grimhope. The ruins are from the time of the ice age when Aztec-themed gods ruled the people. And now they’re back.
This book is filled with stuff, much of it cool, all of it interesting. It all fits together as well, though not neatly, with a few rough edges that haven’t been sanded down. And it is in this way that the stories of Molly Templar and Oliver Brooks, both chosen ones though chosen for different reasons, feel more real than in many fantasies.
It is not for the faint hearted, also there is an extremely bad pun in the name of the miner who becomes a gunsmith.
Read This: For a weird flintlock fantasy that digs deep into the heart of Britishness and out the other side into strange oddities.
Don’t Read This: If you don’t want a fantasy that goes somewhat of the beaten track, but not too far really
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