The Sky Lords

Oh, The Sky Lords. You are a silly silly book. Not on purpose mind you. Indeed, The Sky Lords takes itself very seriously.  But all the same it is jam packed with fun concepts like talking panthers, post-apocalyptic amazonian societies, and insane killer cyborgs.  With all that and more, of course I enjoyed reading The Sky Lords.  But I would caution that it is not some sort of hidden gem. It's a dour and flat read.

The Sky Lords is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which genetic engineering run amok has all but ended human civilization. Most of the wilderness has been lost to a fungal blight and insane monsters created by science run amok. Those civilizations that remain follow the standard for post-apocalyptic societies- regressed to a brutal medieval level with only a few pieces of technology still understood and maintained.  One by one towns succumb to plague or genetically engineered monsters or warfare. While ground based towns have no way of attacking one another there are marauding zeppelin cities (the titular Sky Lords) that sustain themselves off tribute from the ground dwellers. As you can tell from my description it is jam packed setting. (Although it bears quite a few similarities to the anime Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.)

A Korean trailer for you!

The plot follows the trials and travails of Jan, last of the Amazons. Yeah, this book is cheesy as hell like that. I want to avoid spoilers so I'll avoid getting into details. Suffice to say, Jan spends most of the book simply trying to make the best out of a series of bad situations.  Despite the occasional time jump, the plot is very linear. It follows the pattern of "this happened, then this happened, then this happened." The Sky Lords isn't badly written but there is an artlessness to the prose that makes the whole thing feel rather flat. The book does pick up at times. The only other character of note in the whole book is a mysterious man named Milo. Milo is a complicated, interesting character and the book's best moments generally center around him.

Ultimately, I feel a little frustrated by The Sky Lords. It had the potential to be a really fun book. I mean, the setting alone is golden. But plot is unrelentingly grim and methodical. Although it sounds sappy, I think what The Sky Lords is missing is heart. It is full of toys but refuses to play around. For that reason I reluctantly give The Sky Lords 6.7 out of 10 samurais on gliders.