Horizon

Bone Universe, Book 3

By: Fran Wilde

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam, Raviv Ullman

Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

A winged society faces the threat of ultimate extinction in the thrilling finale to Fran Wilde's Bone Universe fantasy series

Unbound Worlds' Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books of September 2017

A city of living bone towers crumbles to the ground, and danger abounds. Kirit Densira has lost everything she loved the most - her mother, her home, and the skies above. Nat Brokenwings - once Kirit's brother long before the rebellion tore them apart - is still trying to save his family in the face of catastrophe. They will need to band together once more to ensure not just their own survival but that of their entire community.

Bone Universe

• Updraft
• Cloudbound
• Horizon

©2017 Fran Wilde (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Good characterization and exploration of power

I enjoyed this series. it has imaginative world building and good characters. And it explores topics that don't often get explored, like the politics of compromise. And letting go of past wrongs to pursue the greater good.

That said, it does require a suspension of disbelief. The cities are just bigger, by far, than a land animal can be. Unless gravity is significantly different, or people are significantly smaller. Still, though, it was worth the time.

This Series is Horrible!!

I finished the first 2 books in the series Updraft & Cloudbound but this one I only made it 6 hours in and skimmed the rest just wanting to be done with it. I honestly thought that after the first book showed so much promise that the series would only get better as they went along but no that's not the case at all, with each book the writing has only gotten worse. Seriously I love fantasy, and I'm OK with stretching the boundaries of what's plausible but this book takes that to a whole new level. The level of ridiculousness will blow your mind, with there being so much to love in the first novel, it makes me angry that this author took her series in this direction, it just doesn't make any freaking sense and having to slog through so much nonsense just to get anywhere is tiring. After over 30 hours of spending time with the same ol' characters I don't know anything about them, their story their background, their likes and dislikes and what the hell is going on with Nat's relationship, is it the 3 of them in the relationship because that's where all the hints point too but see that's another thing, it never says, there are so many things that it just leaves you to guess at. So Much promise wasted... If I was you, I would pass on this novel, its not worth the credit, the time or the read, to many other good novels out there to waste your time reading books that aren't worth it...

But the timeline...

I'm seeing reviews here that this book requires suspension of disbelief when it comes to the physics of the city involved, and I just want to say this book also doesn't make sense when put into context with the previous two volumes. The timeline just does not make sense and the characters do match up between books. I loved the first two books, I feel like they should be taught in schools, but I finally had to delete this one off my ipod and admit to myself I was never going to be able to finish it because it was so annoying.

The first two books each had only one viewpoint character and I think in trying to expand to three viewpoint characters Wilde overdid it. Macall is Nat now. His actions and internal dialogue only make sense if you think of his parts as having been originally planned for Nat. He angsts about his inexperience even though he was on the Council from the beginning and a Magister before that. He's completely dependent on his TEENAGED GIRLFRIEND for guidance in all things even though he's in his thirties.He's deeply invested in the well being of characters he's never actually met before and shouldn't know (mainly Nat's girlfriend and mother). None of his chapters make sense given what we know from the previous two books. Also, I'm going to be generous and assume his partner (who has her personality from the first book completely overwritten with that of Nat's girlfriend, rendering her way less interesting) was actually older than Kirit and is 18 in this book so that her sexual relationship with Macall is merely sketchy and not actively criminal. The knock off effect of this is that when Nat meets up with Macall his behavior and motivations change drastically from chapter to chapter to try to cover up the fact that they're actually the same person. It's real bad.

I wanted to know how things were going to work out for the people of the city, but the execution of this novel was too awful to put up with. I really wish an editor or someone had flagged the problems in this book and sent it back for one more rewrite.