This book is nothing at all like Kiki’s Delivery Service, but for a novel unlike anything I’ve experienced before, it’s as good a jumping off point as any.

A naïve villager in a big city. A quasi love interest. A lushly realized world. Extreme weather. Talking cats. A tense, airship centric finale.

I’m choosing my words carefully. Queen of Clouds is nothing like Kiki’s Delivery Service. It’s just with a story-world as rich as this, you can slice it any creative way you want.

And it lends itself to being sliced creatively. It’s as layered as the wood of which its sentient puppets are built. There’s an intriguing plot, finely woven around a world fully developed in terms of its characters, politics, magic and geography. And behind all that, there is stuff to think about.

I doubt even Williamson himself has wrapped his head around all that is in here. This book is alive, perhaps possessed by the same ‘motes’ that animate the world it has captured. And it certainly speaks to me.

Available from http://www.newconpress.co.uk/info/book.asp?id=194