All the Birds in the Sky

This book is absolutely charming. I think that's the best adjective I can find to describe it. Written by Charlie Jane Anders of io9 fame, it reads with the speed and snark of an io9 article, but it also has a rich sense of both the fantasy and science fiction vault of tropes. Anders plays with these tropes, using them and suberting them to support what is essentially a Romeo & Juliet story if Romeo & Juliet both really loved their families and thought about the consequences of their rash actions and understood that being 13 is really not a time to make lifelong committments.

Basically, it's everything I love.

If I had to make a criticism, it would be that some of the pop culture references feel a little forced and stale already, and given that this book is set in the future, they just don't seem to make a lot of sense and forced me out of the story. It was, however, very easy to slip right back in to Patricia and Laurence's bizarre collision of worldviews, methodologies, and circles of allies. Anders weaves in a unique magic system that draws from folklore around the world as wel as a selection of near future technologies, all of which I want, making the bits between action scenes just as entertaining as the pivotal moments.

It's funny, sweet, heartbreaking, and thoughtful. A wonderful choice for fans of modern speculative fiction.