Unwrapped Sky

Here's another review book I couldn't finish. It suffered from many of the same symptoms as “The Waking Engine” by David Eddison did, but Rjurik Davidson did give his characters a bit more room to come to life.
While Eddison simply seemed to have added characters in order to show off his fancy world building, Davidson shifts perspective to keep things moving. However, every single chapter starts with a few pages of boring exposition, there is little dialogue and not nearly enough world building set up in order to understand the events that are happening. If I hadn't read the blurb, I would have been rather lost.

But - and this is a big But - this book isn't without merit. I believe that many people will like it a lot more than I did. The style didn't appeal to me and after about a third, I gave up. After all, forcing myself to read 10 pages at a time and then putting the book down annoyed isn't my idea of fun. But if you enjoy the writing and don't mind the exposition, there could be something there for you.

With three protagonists - vastly different in social status and personality - there is a good chance readers will fall in love with at least one of them and follow their story longer than I did. Kata, a former street urchin now employed by House Technis, has to kill two minotaurs in order to pay off her dept. Maximilian is a rebel, collecting people for his cause to overthrow the political status quo. And Boris is trying to better the working conditions for railroad workers.

There are hints of magic and tons of politics - but I didn't get deep enough into them to be hooked. While I believe this book may just kick off eventually, I lack the stamina to push through more than a third of a book to finally get to the parts that are good. I would definitely recommend to read an excerpt and see if it's for you. And if it is, be nice and let me know if I missed something brilliant.