A review by eacolgan
The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt

3.0

steampunk at its best-- this book would make the most badass anime ever. two kids, oliver and molly, end up drawn into a maelstrom of politics, science and black magic, and end up changing the way their world works in the process. this book was fun and wild in a way i love and experience rarely-- joe abercrombie's debut trilogy was a similar romp, an easy read in that i could barely finish a page before turning to the next. the cast of characters is to die for-- a rebel robot with a soul, a sinister assassin count, an eccentric newspaperman and a morose ex-pirate, to name but a few. and there's the perfect atmosphere that (in my opinion) a good steampunk story should have-- the feel of a period drama with the science and magic mixed in perfect complement. gadgets and spells abound; bullets made of glass whose explosion is created by the mixing of two chemicals within, a royal navy of war zeppelins fueled by a special substance worth going to war over, a godlike machine whose coming is foretold by robots who read prophecy in dregs of machine oil, and over everything, the court of the air, who spies on everyone below and tries to pull the strings of the entire world.