Stories of the Raksura: Volume 2

Having mentioned the first volume in the collect, it's time to procede to the second of Martha Wells' Stories of the Raksura. These don't have to be read in any particular order — I read this volume first — but it helps to have a passing familiarity with the characters and world from the novels.

The Dead City is set before The Cloud Roads and follows Moon as he flees from the Fell meance further east. Arriving at a small caravanserai, Moon is on hand when a group of groundlings called Cedar-Rin arrive and order some of the locals to guide them to a mine in the mountains. The miners, who turn out to be a large aggressive spider, attack the Cedar-Rin, cementing the groundlings' desire to expel the miners from an abandoned city that lies hidden under the mountain.

Mimesis occurs slightly after the events of the third novel and finds Moon and a handful of his fellow raksura investigating the disappearance of another member of their clan. Trading Lesson is another short character piece that shows how bad most raksurans are at judging value, and how Moon's worldly experience helps to befit his clan.

The Almost Last Voyage of the Windship Escarpment is a the only story in the collection not to feature the Raksura directly. Instead it follows the crew of a small windship, most of whom are outcasts, as they deliver a ransom to a group of pirates. And while the story ends with a dramatic bit of action, its principal concern is the relationship between the captain and the navigator; the latter being the son of the man who hired them for the mission and who seems, contrary to the captain's view of the situation, to believe that he might eventually able to reconcile himself to the family who tried to kill him.

The Earth Below is a substantial novella set sometime after Mimesis, which finds Moon and Jade fretting over the birth of their first clutch of offspring. Moon's moping is interrupted by the arrival of a message from the Kek, a group of groundlings living close to the roots of the Raksura's mountain tree. Arriving on the ground, the Raksura learn that a group of Kek botanists have gone missing and promptly offer to help. Finding the missing Kek lying dead close to a mysterious airship full of comatose creatures, the clan set about trying to crack the mystery only to find themselves caught up in a much larger and more dangerous struggle.

All the stories are excellent and remind me just how much I like both the world and its characters — all of whom are yet further fleshed out by this set of stories. The Dead City and The Almost Last Voyage work on their own, but the others benefit from at least a passing familiarity with the events and characters of the three earlier novels in the series — partly because their emotional impact if you already know the characters but also partly because Moon occasionally lets slip various bits of gossip that might just spoil some of the earlier books.

The collection also feels slightly more balanced than the previous volume. Where the first was distorted somewhat by the presence of an initial novella much longer than any of the other pieces, here the various short stories and novellas are similar sizes making it feel a bit more even than the first.