Stories of the Raksura, Volume 2
Ratings10
Average rating3.9
Nominated for the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Series Moon, Jade, and other favorites from the Indigo Cloud Court return with two new novellas from Martha Wells. Martha Wells continues to enthusiastically ignore genre conventions in her exploration of the fascinating world of the Raksura. Her novellas and short stories contain all the elements fans have come to love from the Raksura books: courtly intrigue and politics, unfolding mysteries that reveal an increasingly strange wider world, and threats both mundane and magical. “The Dead City” is a tale of Moon before he came to the Indigo Court. As Moon is fleeing the ruins of Saraseil, a groundling city destroyed by the Fell, he flies right into another potential disaster when a friendly caravanserai finds itself under attack by a strange force. In “The Dark Earth Below,” Moon and Jade face their biggest adventure yet; their first clutch. But even as Moon tries to prepare for impending fatherhood, members of the Kek village in the colony tree’s roots go missing, and searching for them only leads to more mysteries as the court is stalked by an unknown enemy. Stories of Moon and the shape changers of Raksura have delighted readers for years. This world is a dangerous place full of strange mysteries, where the future can never be taken for granted and must always be fought for with wits and ingenuity, and often tooth and claw. With these two new novellas, Martha Wells shows that the world of the Raksura has many more stories to tell… Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
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Series
Series
2 primary books#2 in Stories of the Raksura
Stories of the Raksura is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2011 with contributions by Martha Wells.
Series
4 primary books8 released books#0.3; 3.4; 3.5; 3.7; 3.8 in The Books of the Raksura
The Books of the Raksura is a 8-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2011 with contributions by Martha Wells.
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The Dead City follows Moon before he meets up with Indigo Cloud. He's recently seen his first Fell and is going through a bit of an identity crises. The world building was interesting enough, as it offers several races we've never seen before and one very interesting culture, but... That's really the only thing I liked about this story because I've never really been a fan of Moon and in this book he was even more...droopy than usual.
In Mimesis, we follow Jade on trip when one of the warriors under her command goes missing. It's interesting, the more I read from Jade's perspective, the more I like her. Seeing her through Moon's eyes...not so much. But this was an interesting little story.Trading Lesson takes place shortly after Mimesis - though it doesn't tie in to it at all which was disappointing - and is about, as it sounds, a trading party arriving at Indigo Cloud. I actually really liked this story, because this has always been my favorite moments in this series: the downtime where people are just talking to each other and learning about stuff.In The Almost Last Voyage of the Wind-ship Escarpment we are sent to another part of the Three Worlds and follow a whole new cast of characters. There are several things I liked about this story: opening up the world even more, the two main characters were well developed and there was a plot that was tied up fairly well even for the short length. However...the three supporting characters were devoid of personality, there was no time setting up who was whom and I kept getting them mixed up because all five characters were introduced at once and you pretty much have to rely on names only to keep them straight, and, the plot was ended rather abruptly. In short, HUGE potential for another book/series, (because I would have loved that) but as a short story, it was just too short and tried doing too much.The Dark Earth Below is...really difficult to explain. It takes place between the third and fourth books and on the one hand is kind of depressing - and I don't do well with depressing - and on the other deals a lot with Jade and Moon's first clutch. ... I don't like babies. I don't like stories with babies, I don't like stories with pregnancies, I don't like children. I don't have a single maternal bone in my body. So, I really wasn't thrilled with the attention paid on that - especially with it being the counterbalance to what was depressing. So...yeah. This story had it's moments when it was interesting, but the incipient babies kind of ruined things.**
I'm actually kind of going between 3 and 4 stars for this collection, but I rounded up because it is Raksura and I think I'm just feeling a little bitter after how much I didn't enjoy the last Wells book I tried reading.
