Winds of Aerathiea

Rating: 2.5 Stars

Age Recommendation: Young Adult

Warnings: Would’ve been ranked as a Lower YA or even Middle Grade, but there is too much cursing for either

Genre(s): Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, Action and Adventure

“Liam and Red squatted in the shadows and peered up at the sight from behind an upturned car and a downed power pole. They began to see the full expanse of the vessel hovering over them. Liam had never seen anything like it. He would have said it was as big as any ship on the ocean, but this one gave you the impression it was much more at home in the sky.”

Liam Waite is a boy, only fifteen, who is living the dangerous life of a survivor after a series of terrible natural disasters, and is now trying to make it despite a lack of supplies and food. One day, however, an airship comes down, looking for his father. He hasn’t seen his parents in months, but almost inadvertently joins the hunt, and ends up on a whirlwind of an adventure in order to do so. Along the way, he learns exciting things about his father, comes face to face with dragons, and creates bonds with a number of interesting characters. Winds of Aerathiea, by T. E. Adams, is the first in the Chronicles of Aerathiea and was released in October of last year.

Winds of Aerathiea has an action-packed start, some well-thought out descriptions and a back story that is offered up to the reader very well. It is entirely likely that the first two chapters will hook whoever decides to pick it up. Unfortunately, I personally had issues with the text.

On the whole, the plot is not what I had trouble with. Some things were a little repetitive, but the concept itself was interesting. The epilogue is a perfect set-up for a sequel, and I thought it was creative. However, I had issues with the way Winds of Aerathiea was written. I received an EPUB in exchange for an honest review on this site, and I found numerous mistakes in the copy (that is to say, the way in which the words were written on the document), as well as grammatical issues and problems with word choice.

While reading, I came to the conclusion that it might simply be intended for younger readers, and thus the narration would be offered as through the eyes of the fifteen-year-old main character. I’m not entirely sure that that is the case, though, because there is a fair amount of cursing throughout. Also, are sections of the novel which are italicized and which give the characters further information, and there were issues there as well, grammatically, so I think that it may just be a series of mistakes.

I found it difficult to focus on Winds of Aerathiea when the main character made misogynistic comments, quotation marks or commas were missing, things like that. I do think, however, that many readers might find the concept of a post-apocalyptic world interesting. Not that they should pick up the views of the main character, of course, but that’s entirely different.

While some of the characters did not feel very fleshed out or easy to relate to, others did. While the text itself might benefit from an editor taking another look, fans of fantasy may appreciate the fantasy elements and things like magical creatures. It could very well be someone’s introduction to reading and enjoying fiction, provided the grammar and other things do not affect their ability to dive into the text, and I genuinely hope that it is.

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