Thursday, June 13, 2019

The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells


Moon is a shape shifter.  For many years, he has wandered solitary, never finding anyone else like himself.  He has lived with various communities over the years but always ends up sent away as he doesn't fit in.  He can fly and the creatures called The Fell also fly so many communities push away anyone they suspect could be part of that despicable, war-mongering crowd.

As the novel opens, Moon has once again been pushed out of a community.  The woman he lived with saw him shifting shapes one night and poisons him, rendering him unconscious so that the warriors of the tribe can gather and chain him up in the forest.  As he tries to determine what to do, he is suddenly rescued by a large flying creature.  Stone is a shape shifter as well and he is the first creature like Moon that Moon has ever met.  Stone can fill in some of the holes in Moon's understanding of his background and invites him to come with him to his clan.

Moon agrees but when he arrives, is not sure he made the right decision.  He is amazed and pleased to find so many other creatures like him but all is not rosy.  He has arrived just as the colony is facing a threat to their very existence; The Fell have discovered them and will soon try to destroy them as they have so many other communities.  Even within the colony, there are those who welcome Moon and those who adamantly do not; jealous of the attention he is given by the queens of the colony.  What will the future bring for Moon?

This is the first book of the Raksura series by Wells.  She has created a fearsome enemy in The Fell, a tribe that seems to delight in nothing but violence and indiscriminate killing.  Moon is a character clouded in mystery as he lost his family as a youngster and doesn't know his own history or that of his people.  The reader will be inclined to read further to determine what happens in this new world.  This book is recommended for fantasy/sci fi readers.

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