While reading Lady of Mazes, I occasionally stumbled over the word Ventus. I knew by then that it was the title of another of Karl Schroeder‘s books, but I had not read it yet. When I read on Boing Boing that he was giving it for free under Creative Commons, I immediately downloaded it to my PDA. I finished reading it during my vacations, so here is my review of this amazing book.

What starts as a mundane fantasy context ends-up being a science-fiction story of inter-stellar proportions. Gradually through the first portion of the book, SF concepts are introduced so that the reader realizes he’s not in a fantasy story anymore. Don’t worry, this happen very early in the book, so I am not spoiling any big twist here.

We follow a couple of characters along their journey across Ventus. Jordan Mason is definitively what you would call a main character although other characters, like Calendria May and Arminger, take a lot of space. The fate of Ventus rapidly fall into the main characters’ hands and they struggle against one another to tilt the balance of power to suite their plans.

Ventus is a book with both strong characters and an exciting and rich world. It’s original, well written, and you can see the characters evolving as the story moves on. That last point is fundamental to all the characters. They all go through major events that leaves scars and force them to adapt to new, unplanned situations. None of them is left the same by the end of the story.

Although the storylines of the two books are independent, you would probably get more of Karl Schroeder’s world if you read Ventus first, then Lady of Mazes. I’m personally thinking of re-reading Lady of Mazes, just to see if I won’t see things differently from this new point of view.

In Ventus, Karl Shroeder starts exploring concepts he takes forward in Lady of Mazes. The Archipelago, that human meta-world ruled by the government, is glanced upon in Ventus, but described in more details as you read Lady of Mazes.

Ventus is a great science-fiction book, more accessible than Lady of Mazes. I would strongly recommend it if you enjoy science-fiction and fantasy. Actually, if you only like one or the other, this book would still be of interest because of the way it draw from both genres. If you would prefer reading the dead-tree version, support this blog and order Ventus from Amazon.ca.

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Lectures by Alexandre Lemieux