The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

Review of The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher. An action packed steampunk novel about a culture living in spires and sailing between them in sail drawn airships.

My review from 2015 of The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

Title: The Aeronaut’s Windlass
Author: Jim Butcher
Genre: Steampunk

I enjoyed big parts of The Aeronaut’s Windlass. I enjoyed the characters and the general plot was cool. The world building was rather neat. You can hear there is a but coming right…  But I didn’t like the fight scenes.

The setting: From the blurb

Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity, towering for miles over the mist-shrouded surface of the world. Within their halls, aristocratic houses have ruled for generations, developing scientific marvels, fostering trade alliances, and building fleets of airships to keep the peace.

Too many fight scenes

There were too many, too long and too frequent, and honestly, hard to follow fight scenes. I think up towards a fourth of the book was made up of non-ship-fight scenes. If I had not had the day of, I don’t think I would have finished the book.

It’s a shame because I really liked the story and the worldbuilding is really neat. Unlike the ground battle scenes, the ship battles were really neat, easy to follow, dramatic and well paced. So please more ship-to-ship combat scenes and fewer ground battle scenes please.

If there had been fewer fight scenes it would have been a solid four stars for me, but there was a huge part of the book, that was just action scenes.

I really enjoyed almost any scene that wasn’t a combat scene. I am fascinated by the world so I want to know everything about it – which makes the small scenes just up my ally. And of course the banter is snarky and funny.

““I’m not sure everyone would agree with you. We’re a civilized society, are we not?” Esterbrook blinked.
“Since when, miss? We’re a democracy.””

The cast

I liked most of the “hero” characters. Especially Briget and the cat Rowl. His chapters are laugh out loud funny. I loved that the humans speak cat, not the other way around. The political maneuvering is something that I always enjoy and the monarch is a really enjoyable character. There were too much head hopping for my taste. But I generally dislike reading the antagonist perspective, it doesn’t do anything for me and it slows down the pacing.

Overall review

The characters of The Aeronaut’s Windlass were all interesting and rather cool. A bit shallow – kind of like the first five episodes of a tv-show. The book was a bit too busy with action to take the time to flesh out the characters, but I am sure that will correct itself in the next books. And I will be buying the next book. I do want to know what happens next and I do want to see more of Bridget and Rowl.

The cover

I have to address the cover, which is an awesome looking cover mind you, but it has a man on it – a young white man. I have no idea who that man is!

The protagonist are: a cat, a pretty young noble women, another young noblewoman who is huge and bulky and a middle aged airship captain. There is a young male warrior in the book but he isn’t one of the main point of view characters – and he is part cat. So who is that on the cover? Some random dude? It can’t even be the antagonist because that is another woman. Let’s hope one of the the awesome protagonists will be on the next cover. This is not a criticism of the content of the book, only of the editorial choice of cover art.

The stats: The Aeronaut’s Windlass

Published: 2015 by Roc
Length: 630 pages
Read: September 29 to October 06, 2015

Author: Male, white, USA
The protagonist: Mixed group

This review was originally posted: October 9, 2015. Updated and edited June 29, 2023