Audiobook Review: The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells
Series: Book #1 of The Books of the Raksura
Publisher: Night Shade Books (March 15, 2011)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Tiara’s Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
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Narrator: Christopher Kipiniak | Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins | Audiobook Publisher: Audible Studios | Whispersync Ready: Yes
The Cloud Roads introduces us to Moon, an orphaned shapeshifter who has spent years living among the groundlings (more traditionally humanoid looking races) disguised as one of them. Moon has long given up on finding his real people, and he doesn’t even know the name of his race at the beginning of this book. Instead he’s focused on living in different locales with various races, moving on when they became suspicious of him, forging some semblance of a life as best as he can. Despite Moon’s somewhat detached nature due to his self-reliance, cynicism, and general distrust–learned habits from having to keep on the move–Moon is not a solitary creature by nature and finds comfort living among others, even if he isn’t free to be himself. That all changes one day when he meets another shapeshifter like himself, and Moon begins a life changing journey that may finally provide the answers he feared he’d never find.
Moon presents an interesting conundrum in Raksuran society. He has difficulty with the mores of the society, and while Moon tries to keep his outward feelings neutral, even as he worries he may doing the wrong things, Moon’s survival tactics never quite leave him. Given how he’s lived much of his life wandering, he always looks for weaknesses and escape routes when introduced into unfamiliar situations. I appreciated he didn’t immediately find personal peace or a feeling of belonging among the Raksura, He didn’t find himself suddenly eager to sing the songs of his people. No, having Moon work through issues and learn how he factors into this new society gave his journey substance. Moon also showed that, even though he’s wary by nature, he is a very dedicated, caring, and trustworthy individual, often feeling his own happiness isn’t more important than doing what’s right.
What made me enjoy this book as much as I did was Moon and how he slowly comes to learn about his culture including the complicated court politics of his people. Because neither Moon or the reader know anything about the Raksura, this allows a level of world building that feels almost like we’re taking this journey with Moon. We’re experiencing this strange new place with him, and it gives Wells such freedom of expression with the culture and people. She’s allowed to dwell on her world building, presenting Moon and the readers with this beautifully crafted landscape and culture. She weaves this new information into the story without having to resort to info dumping.
With the world building, Wells did a terrific job of fleshing out her characters and races, making most of them feel like more than just humans with odd colored skin tones and some structural appearances. Some races outside the Raksura can feel fairly typical for the fantasy setting, but the author still manages to give them cultural differences to make them memorable. The Raksura culture is treated with ingenuity and craftiness by Wells. There’s something that feels familiar and human about them, making the reader empathize with them while giving them this unique culture and mannerisms that sets them apart from typical humans or even the groundlings in the story.
The Raksuran culture is largely matriarchal and plays with gender roles in clever ways. However, gender doesn’t play out in such obvious ways to make the characters feel inferior or in ways that makes it seem like a gender war is happening. The genders largely on equal footing with defined roles that are important to their society as a whole. Gender differences aren’t treated as a slight. A female may be stronger than her male counterpart in some cases and it doesn’t cause an inferiority complex due to gender. It’s just treated as part of the culture and makes a interesting, subtle commentary on gender without feeling like it’s crept over into the territory of being angry and preachy. In this same vein, the sexual nature and customs of this world are varied and include various sexual orientations and customs without demonizing them in any way.
Chris Kipiniak was an excellent choice in the reading the series. I especially loved the gravelly voice he used for Stone, which made the character actually sound like his name. I was a little unimpressed with his female voices, but I’m particular about narrators voicing characters opposite their gender in general. He didn’t do a terrible job with their voices, though. I just wasn’t moved by them. Despite that, he was an engaging narrator and added a nice flair to much of the dialogue. I enjoyed his characterization of Moon best and thought he did a superb job with capturing the wry nature of Moon’s personality and Moon’s conflicted nature that knew he should practice selfish self-preservation but ultimately always did what was right.
In this first book, Wells has introduced us to a wildly imaginative world with these fully fleshed out characters and traditions that take the reader on quite a journey. This is one of the more innovative books I’ve read in any genre. There haven’t been many books that make me feel like I’m reading something that’s truly fresh and special, but Wells has managed to make me feel like I’ve stepped into a whole new world with the Raksura while keeping elements that make it feel familiar.
Story: | Performance: | Overall:
More reviews of this series: The Cloud Roads (reviewed by Wendy), Stories of the Raksura (Reviewed by Mogsy)
I keep meaning to read Wells. Maybe this is the place to start
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I was reading another book of hers alongside this one. That one didn’t capture me as much as this one did. This feels like the type of book I’d tell people to read if they’ve never read Wells.
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I’ve read another book by her that didn’t capture me as well as this one, though it was still good. I’d definitely recommend starting with this series.
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For me, it’s The Element of Fire. Not bad, but it feels like she started the story in a placed that can really off putting for the reader. This is definitely the better starting point.
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I have been wanting to read this one, but the book is either really hard to get a hold of…or really expensive
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I have the paperback copy of this I was reading along with audiobook that I can send to you. I think I still have your address on my Amazon account from when I sent Princeless. This copy I had is a library copy I purchased cheap, so I was going to just give it away anyway since it has library markings and I want to buy it brand new and in hardcover after reading it.
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I’ve been hoping for a hardcover set to pop up on Bookcloseouts for a while now. Definitely a series I’d love to have on my shelves. I’ve not read the other books, but at the very least, the cover art is gorgeous.
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At the very least, I’d like to buy a brand new trade like the one I had if I can’t get hardcovers.
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Nice to hear another great review for this. I should make the time to read it some time, perhaps as a Backlist Burndown selection
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I’d highly recommend it. It was an excellent book to me and told it’s story in an ingenious way.
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World building is not an easy task and it’s an area that some authors don’t do very well with. Wells was astounding in this — not just because she built such an incredible world, but because of all the detail she put into each different race as well. I love how inhuman many of them were, while still being completely relatable.
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It also helped she didn’t info dump. She introduced the world much like we were taking a journey, giving us the information as we encountered strange situations with Moon. She made sure it was relevant to what we were reading.
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*looks at shelf* I need it! *buys audio* 😀 I’ve had this on my TBR since it came out, but haven’t found time, so if the audio is pretty good, that’s all I need to know!
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I thought Chris Kipiniak did an excellent job. I wasn’t crazy about his females, but he still made me love everyone. I’ve bought the rest of the books and a book of short stories based in this world, too.
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I loved The Cloud Roads. I’m listening to the third book right now and enjoying it a lot, too. Such a good series.
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I’m glad to hear it continues to be amazing. I loved the world she created so much.
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