I can't wait. I love Jim Butcher's work.
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Do not forget the snarky talking cats. And given that David "Crazy Six-Legged Alien Cats" Weber apparently has read the book and liked it will probably be great 
Chapter 3 is up.
Talking cats appear!
edited 15th Sep '15 6:39:45 PM by Discar
Absolutely no relation to NLK
Fingers crossed for one of them to disembowel Gwendolyn.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
Could we keep down the "lets hope char X dies" comments until we at least have the full book 
There is such things as Character Development and stuff.
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Alright, alright. But she has her work cut out for her.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
Absolutely no relation to NLK
Book is out. Haven't had time to read it quite yet.
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GIMME GIMME GIMME
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
Okay, most of us should have read the book by now.
So I'll call it now and say this is probably a stealth-sequel to Codex Alera, and that The Enemy will turn out to be the Vord.
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Two thirds! Gimme a couple days!
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
Absolutely no relation to NLK
Finished it! Liked it pretty well overall. Good characters, great setting, excellent action scenes, rather weak plot. Jim Butcher First Book Syndrome, in a nutshell. Out of the characters, Grimm was likeable but felt a bit like a stock character, Gwynn grew on me slowly, Benedict didn't have much of a personality and Bridget felt refreshingly like a real person rather than some archetype. I do think they need a book or two more to develop, though. Also, liked the etherealists a lot, and their semi-deconstruction of the scatterbrained, slightly insane mage. And the asshole cats, can't forget about those (like they'd let you). There was a fine line to walk making them arrogant and, well, cat-like, without making them dislikeable, but it was walked well.
Like I said, great setting. I do love me some magitechnobabble, and the airship scenes were written out extremely well. The lore gave enough unexplained hints to leave me wanting more, and overall was consistent and interesting. (Had a bit of trouble picturing a couple things — the airship's design and web, for instance, and I was surprised to learn that the spires were wider than they are tall.)
The plot, however, was pretty directionless. Even at the end of the book, we barely got a glimpse to what the villain's aims were, or what the bigger conflict is, which I felt weakened the story, making it very in-the-moment reactive and kinda aimless in the bigger picture. Less hints and more revelations would've been good — not that Butcher's books have ever been very good about letting the reader know the details of the myth arc early on (what with Codex Alera switching focus some three times, and the Dresden Files just now starting to get into the meat of it fifteen books in), but I wanted more big picture, less the-bad-guys-are-here-let's-deal-with-them-now.
Overall, pretty good, looking forward to the next one.
Not me. I'll join in the discussion as soon as I get a chance to read it. (Gotta finish the last half of Memory of Light first.) I would be upset about not getting to read it as soon as it came out, but you know Memory of Light
edited 17th Oct '15 10:54:34 PM by 32ndfreeze
"But if that happened, Melia might actually be happy. We can't have that." - Handsome Rob
O.K I have finally finished Windlass.
Captain Grimm and Bridget are the best characters in the novel. imo at least.
I need to re-check it out from the library. *sigh* I was sick and barely got through the beginning chapter. I think I'd better buy this one, it looks juicy.
I love Butcher's work, so I'm looking forward to digging into this.
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Is fun.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
Neutral Good
I have a theory about this series. I'll post it here, so you can all tell me how wrong I am. 
The surface animals are a red herring; they aren't the true threat. Instead, it's something very different.
A rogue AI, with killer machines under its control, the remnant of a brutal world war, wanting to fulfill its directive and kill all humans, once and for all.
Ethereal energy? A planet wide broadcasted energy field/communications grid, so the Enemy can communicate with any machine anywhere in the world. A few humans can tap into it and use it for a variety of effects, but that kind of thing puts a huge strain on them, hence all their oddities that help hold their minds together.
The spires? Towers to broadcast the energy, only later used as shelters for humans.
The warriorborn humans and intelligent cats? Results of a past effort to create fighters and scouts to battle against the machines. In a war like that, cybernetics and powered armor would be highly distrusted, so humans chose genetic engineering instead. This might also explain the hostile surface creatures: they may have been modified to fight, but the Enemy somehow managed to gain control over them.
The book of names that Madame Cavendish was after? Codes and passwords that will enable the enemy to unlock more capabilities and hidden/locked weapons.
I'm probably very wrong, but I think it hangs together pretty well. I'm definitely looking forward to more of the series.
You wouldn't care what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.
Interesting theory. I disagree, as I'm pretty sure this is a post-apocalyptic Dresden Files verse, but we'll see.
Oh, by the way, something I've been wondering about for a while. I recall it being mentioned that each Spire is two miles wide and ten thousand feet tall. But... that's not really a spire. It's kind of a squat cylinder, slightly wider than it is tall. Did I miss something somewhere? Or did Butcher just mess up the numbers a little?
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
Or its simply human nature being inaccurate about that stuff
Those are the dimensions of the living areas, I think. It's on top of a spire that's much, much higher.
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No, I mentioned that up there. Two miles wide, ten thousand feet tall. I think the idea came first and the feasibility of the measurements came later.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
Well, you gotta admit, at least it would be stable against earthquakes.
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Meh, I'm Chilean. We earthwuake-proof our stuff and they can still look like this
◊.
Neutral Good
@Discar: Oh, I'm quite sure that I'm very wrong, but I'm looking forward to seeing how I'm wrong.
I do think my theory hangs together pretty well though. Definitely some holes and inconsistencies, but it's workable.
You wouldn't care what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.
A new series by Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files.
The surface of the world is choked with mist, and humanity survives in towers, supplied and supported by fleets of airships.
That's about all we know right now, even considering that the prologue is out.
There's a bit more about crystals and rumors of ships spotting an Archangel, but not much.
The first book comes out September 29th.