The Olympian Affair by Jim Butcher (Ace, 2023)

Review by Jim Janney: The Olympian Affair is the long-awaited sequel to The Aeronaut’s Windlass, the first book in Jim Butcher’s series The Cinder Spires. The Cinder Spires are set on, or rather above, a planet that may or may not be a far-future Earth, with a large orange sun and a surface covered by enormous trees and teeming with deadly fauna. The life span of an unprotected, unsheltered human on the surface is measured in hours (exile to the surface is a favored method of execution, conveniently eliminating any need to dispose of the bodies). 

Most people live at a relatively safe distance above the surface, in Spires created by the mysterious Builders; trade and travel between Spires is accomplished by means of airships powered by etheric crystals. The society resembles that of England during the Regency: if Temeraire is the Napoleonic wars with dragons, the Cinder Spires are similar but with airships and crystals, mad etherealists who can bend reality itself, and of course, talking cats. Corsets are worn, duels are fought, airships maneuver, cannon are fired in anger, plots are hatched and twisted, the best laid plans of practically everyone go wrong on a regular basis. Women command airships, fight duels, and generally do everything that men do, not necessarily backwards or in heels. The cats have organized tribes of their own while remaining characteristically feline.

The first book details escalating hostilities between two competing Spires, Spire Albion and Spire Aurora. The second begins two years later, with events leading up to a diplomatic conference to be held on Spire Olympia. Without giving too much away, this goes about as peacefully as you might expect in a Jim Butcher story. It is not necessary to have read the first book in order to enjoy the second; The Olympian Affair stands on its own, with information always available before the reader needs it. Both books have large casts and are written in short chapters intercutting between multiple plot threads.

There is not a lot of moral complexity here: one is either OK with mass slaughter or not. We get the satisfaction of seeing some villains come to richly deserved ends, while the heroes are deeply committed to doing the right thing, at least as they see it, even at considerable personal cost. A few characters are genuinely torn between their sworn duty and basic human decency, and the arguably worst person in the series turns out to have information not available to anyone else.  There is much reflection on friendship, loyalty, and the value of not having to face things alone, none of which is particularly original but which always bears repeating.

I remember liking the first book when it came out, and definitely enjoyed this one. The ending makes it plain that further books are in the offing. Here’s hoping for a shorter wait this time around. I received a free watermarked PDF of this book as a review copy. 

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Jim Janney is a mildly cyborged retired computer programmer and former SFF fan. He lives in Salt Lake City, where he enjoys riding trains, skateboarding, ballroom dancing, and catching up on a few decades of missed reading. Where did the time go?