tHe crooKed WorD

As of April 30, 2014 we will no longer be posting reviews on tHe crooKed WorD. Reading is like breathing for us - and discovering new books and authors has been a wonderful adventure - but the time has come for us to move on. Thank you for your support, for allowing us into your lives, and for letting us influence in some small way the contents of your bookshelves.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Shiewo: A Fantasy Flight to Adventure

Shiewo: A Fantasy Flight to Adventure (Shiewo's Odyssey, #1)
by Ciye Cho


Published June 6, 2011

This book was provided to us by the author, in exchange for an honest review.


The universe of Orberana is a place of great wonder and peril, a dizzying landscape filled with clouds that can talk, clockwork beings that mark their own time, and painted animals that awake in the night.

Shiewo Morose is the captain of a flying ship powered by music. She is also a determined young woman on a mission: a quest to find the Wishing Fish that created Orberana.

Sailing above the clouds, Shiewo and her crew (Erduu the bamboo, Theo the cloud, Livingston the goldfish, and Felix the painter) are headed for worlds of crazed clockwork bureaucrats, tyrannic kings, and tornado children--worlds that will test not only the crew's bravery... but their very understanding of adventure.

Theirs is the odyssey of a lifetime...


* * *

This is one of the most inventive books I've read in a long time. If you don't like using your imagination, don't read it. Or maybe I should say, do read it, and let it remind you how much fun make-believe can be!

The characters are fantastic: a talking cloud, a man made of bamboo, a bass-blasting goldfish, a painter, an engineer who built and captains a ship that is powered by music. They're quirky and fun, and so much themselves that I couldn't imagine them being any other way.


As wonderfully creative as the entire world and story were, I felt the pacing was somewhat off. There were a few parts where my attention wandered, and others where so much was happening. I'd like to shake it all up in a bag and even it out a bit. This is a subjective viewpoint, I'll admit: what's perfect for one person can't be perfect for the next.


Visit the Shiewo website (link on the author's name above) for some great bonuses, including music written by the author for the book!


4/5 stars

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