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| left Tor USA cover - right Tor UK cover |
Caeli-Amur: an ancient city perched on white cliffs overlooking the sea; a city ruled by three Houses, fighting internecine wars; a city which harbours ancient technology and hidden mysteries. But things are changing in Caeli-Amur. Ancient minotaurs arrive for the traditional Festival of the Sun. The slightly built New-Men bring their technology from their homeland. Wastelanders stream into the city hideously changed by the chemical streams to the north. Strikes break out in the factory district.
In a hideout beneath the city, a small group of seditionists debate ways to overthrow the Houses. How can they rouse the citizens of the city? Should they begin a campaign of terror? Is there a way to uncover the thaumaturgical knowledge that the Houses guard so jealously? As the Houses scramble to maintain their rule, it becomes clear that things will change forever in Caeli-Amur.
Another author that is taking a step to the stage this year with a cracking debut is Rjurik Davidson and his Unwrapped Sky. Rjurik Davidson was the winner of the Ditmar Award as Best New Talent and has also won the Aurealis Award for his short fiction. He works as an columnist and film and literary critic. I learned late last year about Unwrapped Sky and it made it directly onto my to read list. I had read several genre bending and breaking books last year and the mentioning of minotaurs and a technology created a weird but interesting promise to the story. And of course lets not forget thaumaturgy! In Unwrapped Sky, Rjurik Davidson creates a vivid, vibrant world that is constantly in motion. Blending technology with mythology to create the perfect setting. At times the scenes are painted with colorful strokes, but in a split second Rjurik Davidson doesn't hesitate to throw them to the darker side. Perfect and unpredictable. Definitely not to be missed.
The first thing that really gripped me in Unwrapped Sky was the world itself. The book opens with a scene featuring the mythical minotaurs, they sort of go on pilgrimage to the Festival of the Sun. My hopes were directly raised as I was completely immersed into the world that Rujurik Davidson was set out to create. He does a tremendous job on the worldbuilding part of the book that I haven't seen many debuting authors do in this way. This really is a combination of both writing style and the idea's behind the books. The writing style is just excellent, Rjurik Davidson has a way with words and uses them to create the perfect setting for his story. It's on many parts nicely detailed but not in a way that it starts to overtake the story and feels like an information dump. The setting that he managed to create really spoke to my imagnation and more than a few times I found myself daydreaming away in this immensely rich world, thinking about the different places and inhabitant that you read about in Unwrapped Sky. The other part of the combination, the idea's behind the book feel unique and fresh and I have only encountered them two times earlier. In both Perdido Street Station and The Scar by China Mieville, though Unwrapped Sky was for me less towards the dark and gritty side. Unwrapped Sky has a interesting world to say the least. It has on one side a heavy influence of an ancient technology going towards a steampunkish side and on the other some epic fantasy influences such as many different beings like the minotaurs, Elo-Tarn and Xsanthians. Added to this is the influence of thaumaturgy that only the Houses control, Rjurik Davidson creates a dangerous and interesting magic system with this thaumaturgy, that it will keep you wanting read more about it. This worldbuilding is on par with some of the great names in the science fiction fantasy field and was utterly impressed. The world of Unwrapped Sky is a perfect balance delicate beauty and dark and haunting. It grows on you and stays there lingering in the back of your mind!
The story of Unwrapped Sky starts with one of the point-of-view that you follow throughout the book. Kata an philosopher-assassin has been tasked by House Technis with eliminating two of the minotaurs, from which they will be able use different parts in their thaumaturgical experiments. After having eliminated the said minotaurs, though with much hesitation, Kata starts to question herself whether she is on the right track with her actions. While still pondering this she is sent by House Technis to infiltrate the seditionist camp. Soon after the introduction of Kata the other two main perspectives are shown. One of them is Maxmilan, a seditionist, that plans to overthrow the rule of the Houses over Caeli-Amur. Maxmilan plans to overthrow the houses to give Caeli-Amur back to the people, let them make their own decisions. In trying to achieve this Maxmilan and his sedisionists go far, terrorist attacks and the like included. He plans to get to his goal in two ways, the first is to rouse a rebellion amongt the people of Caeli-Amur and the second is to learn more about the power of thaumaturgy itself, which now is only in control of the Houses. There is a wealth of knowledge hidden in the Library of the sunken city of Caeli-Enas. The other is Boris Autec, an ex-tramworker for House Technis who has been steadily proving himself climbing up the ranks of the house, eventually becoming the Director of House Technis. Now that Boris is becoming the big man or rather part of the voice behind House Technis he need to quell the starting rebellion against the Houses. But even with the hard hitting thaumaturgical power this sounds much easier than it is... Boris is in for a challenge.
The great thing about how Rjurik Davidson has set up his story was that each of these three different perspectives start off as individual tracks but soon the start to collide. For example Kata infiltrates the seditionist camp led by Max and she is swayed but believes that are being preached about in the camp. There are many parts where the stories of the individual characters come together creating and even better sense for both the story and the whole dynamic of the world.
The characters that you follow like Kata, Max and Boris are very well developed from the start you see that they all have problems that they are coping with. None of them are really happy about their current situation but don't really know how to make this better. Kata is a very strong female lead, but doesn't know what to do, what is good and what is bad, this duality is shown perfectly in her character, in the beginning she is doing things because she must, but as the story starts to progress she starts to learn that making your own decisions and pursuing what you want is more important. Max is an idealist, he wants to make this world a better place no matter the cost. The best thing in his character for me was that, on one part he asks a lot of his followers but he also tasks himself to the maximum to drive this revolution, he passion for revolution comes to a nice show in the end, especially some revelation that were shown in the Library of Caeli-Enas gave a broadening of the storyline. Boris is a dark and negative character. He view of the current world has been shaped by the hardships that he has had to endure in his past. Loosing his wife and his current addiction to the hot wine. His character is quite troublesome and reading about him casts a definite dark sense over the story of Unwrapped Sky, Boris is one who will go over corpses to get what he wants...
Unwrapped Sky is a terrific debut, this is just the story that will make Rjurik Davidson breakthrough in the genre fiction world. The story is fresh, orignal and exciting. Rjurik Davidson shows an interesting world build from mythical ideas and ancient technology that amplify eachother to create a world in which you will dream away in. It's vibrant and dynamic and the characters that you get to meet a long the way keep the storyline just a exciting to read about. There is no strong devision between the good and the evil with the seditionist and the Houses but they all fight their own believe and existence. The characters are by far the typical flawless ones, they each have their own demons they have to fight and make them that more relatable. The world is brimming with very cool and well thought through ideas. Rjurik Davidson cleverly builds up his world, there is a lot of time invested in showing several mechanisms but he doesn't let this overtake the general flow of the story. Where some authors find it hard to strike a balance, Rjurik Davidson does it perfectly. Make sure you read this book! It's terrific.
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