Yuffie's Book Reviews

Under the Empyrean Sky - by Chuck Wendig

--Published Book--

THE WRITING
I picked up this book because I'm an avid follower of Chuck Wendig's writing advice. His style is so distinct (basically, laden with vulgarities and "that escalated quickly" type lists when he's explaining things).

His book absolutely lived up to expectations. The writing style is SO Chuck Wendig, packed with crude and crass language.

Being a sci-fi, Wendig crammed so much made-up jargon and heavy dialect that the first few chapters I was fully overwhelmed (in a good way). Sometimes the dialect was so thick that I literally paused and thought, "What the heck does that mean?" But I think that was actually a good thing, becuase it makes the experience more immersive and really feel like it's a completely different world.

What's really cool is while I was reading, I kept thinking "The jargon was so heavy starting out, but it sort of died... Did Wendig not stay consistent with it?" But after I finished the book, I went back and skimmed the first couple chapters again, and it was so easy to read! So you definitely get used to the dialect, which I thought was awesome.

His writing style is blunt and gritty and vivid and nauseating, and I think he's one of the most talented wordsmiths in the current business. The one issue I found was the numerous examples of filtering. However, the rest of the narration and dialogue was so fantastic that I could easily overlook the filtering.


THE WORLDBUILDING
Phenomenal! Wendig created a fascinating and vivid world unlike anything I've ever seen before. The basic premise isn't that unique; there are giant "floatillas" flying above the earth, and the rich and priviledged live up there. They're called Empyreans. The earth, or Heartlands, consists of the lowerclass workers who are treated only a little better than slaves by the oppressive Empyrean government.

But this is where the bland stops and Wendig's extreme imagination start to bloom. The Heartlanders are forced to grow only corn, but this is KILLER CORN THAT MOVES AND EATS YOU AND THE LEAVES ARE SHARP AND CUT YOU. The corn isn't edible, instead used as fuel to keep the Empyrean floatillas flying. And it can give you this disease referred to as The Blight, which turns you into a mutant vine corn plant thing.

The Heartlanders are considered savages and trash by the Empyreans, so they're not allowed to grow their own food or anything. As a result, many Heartlanders are severely malnourished, and almost every other person has some kind of severe illness or deformity/disability, which is a huge one-up on the worldbuilding of The Hunger Games, where everyone was magically fit and healthy for some reason...

There are hobos living in the corn, and hover technology is a big reminder that this is a sci-fi. Awesome, awesome worldbuiding!


THE PLOT
The story stars Cael, the 17-year-old captain of a hovership. (So somewhat reminiscent of pirates! :D) He and his crew of three others scavenge the cornfields for abandoned machines to use as spare parts.

They have to deal with a rival scavenging crew headed by the Mayor's son, Boyland Jr. Boyland is one of the main antagonists and he's as much of a douchebag as a 17-year-old can get. He's priviledged and rich and cheats to get his way and always whines to his daddy to fix his problems.

The story starts with Cael and Boyland's ships racing, Boyland cheats and destroys Cael's ship. The story kind of lulls (for me) during this arranged marriage subplot. It was still pretty interesting because it was so well-written. But we get back to the action soon enough.

The plot was actually really straightforward and simple throughout the bulk of the book. It wasn't some big-scale epic adventure with heart-pounding action. It was still a good story, but I was left with this feeling that maybe Wendig could've squeezed a little more out of the plot and situation to make it slightly more action-packed. But this is just a personal preference, not necessarily a criticism of the book itself.

The climax is when things get really crazy and the last few chapters are where the action I crave was at. I zipped through it, which is great.

This is just the first book of a trilogy, but the ending was satisfying without tying up all the loose ends and leaving us with a good segue into Book 2.


THE CHARACTERS
Cael's voice was very well-crafted and unique. Really strong voice. The book did a few scenes in other characters' povs as well, and those were nicely done. Everyone had distinct voices and personalities.

While the characterization was definitely good, it was still a bit thin. I did feel for them, and they were well-rounded, but like with the plot, I felt like the character arcs weren't 100% developed. We didn't see any big change or resolution with Cael, for example. He was proven wrong about one big assumption he made, but I didn't see any monumental character growth. Same with all the others. At the end, they were the same people as they were from the start. There were maybe a few small lessons learned, but there was definitely room for more substance in terms of how they grow and develop as people from the events in the story.

But they were still good characters, each with their own distinct personality. Sometimes I felt like a few of them fell into tropes, but there were a few lines or scenes that kind of started to flesh them out beyond stereotypes. Still, I felt like there could've been a little more growth and development so that I really swoon and laugh and cry along with them.

Overall, this was a fantastic, imaginitive read with an inspired world. Writing and world building was top-notch, while plot and characterization took a backseat, though they were still charming in their own way. A solid piece of storytelling.

4.5/5 stars