This is a fascinating sort of book, especially having read The Murderbot Diaries first. It’s not entirely the same thing at all–fantasy rather than science fiction, with a world full of floating eyes and many different sapient races rather than aliens and murderbots–but there are some bones that aren’t too dissimilar.

In a nutshell, you have Moon. He’s a Raksura, a being capable of transforming between a more or less human form (although I don’t get the feeling there are any real ‘humans’ in this book) and a much larger stronger winged form. He’s all on his own, not even sure what he is–or where he fits in.

Which of course goes badly when the people he’s staying with think he’s Fell (winged ’evil’ creatures; I’ll come back to that). And much better when another Raksura finds him and brings him back. And worse again when it turns out they don’t want him either. And better again when, of course, he saves the day.

It’s a fun story, particularly around learning about the world. It’s interesting, for such a complicated world and so many different kind of beings, how little we actually learn about anyone that isn’t Raksura. It kind of fits, being able to fly they’re isolated by choice, but it’s still a little weird.

We do get a good bit about the Fell… which is kind of an issue I had with the book. I don’t care for races that are evil for the sake of being evil. And the Fell really don’t feel like they have any redeeming qualities to them. Perhaps we need to see more into their mind, but they really seem to be all about the conquering, raping, and feasting on other sapients.

Other than, that I did enjoy the story. There’s a lot to like about it and I’m really curious to see where it goes next. Onward!