Moon is an orphan. A 35-year-old orphan, but nevertheless. Orphans are one type of people this world has in abundance. How strange it is that we are so eager to bring children of our own genes into this world while so many live in horrendous circumstances. We humans aren’t very logical.
Finding your place in the world when you look and act different to the majority seems impossible for a child to do. Like most homeless orphans, Moon goes through some pretty traumatic experiences. Sometimes he thinks he has found his place. Then it turns out the people he lived with were only looking for cheap labor. When such labor was finished, he was tossed out. What would that do to a person? In my case, I would most likely die due to some of my autistic traits. Moon, survives any way he can.
We meet him right after the last group of people he was living with chains him up as bait for a predator. Shapeshifters that might be taken for the group of people called Fell aren’t very popular in Three Worlds.
Since this is fiction, Moon is saved just in the nick of time. When Moon discovers that the person who just saved him is like him he is stunned, angry, suspicious and afraid. Here he thought he was either a monster or all alone in the world. Then he is not. What would that do to a person?
What happens now is that Moon ends up in a society where people are like him. Except they aren’t. After all, Moon has seen a life they could not dream of. Yet again he does not fit into the mold set apart for him. But I think Wells has portrayed him perfectly. Of course, he isn’t thankful for the role these new people want him to play. Why should he be. They weren’t there when he was abused and battered. Instead, they were all learning how to fit into their society and to adhere to the rules created for each class of person. Someone who has had to make on his own isn’t going to be able to play such games. In this inability I recognize myself. But such an inability is bound to create conflict.
Add to that the Fell and Wells has created a world fraught with danger, adventure and plenty of action. Definitely recommended.
Reviews:
The Cloud Roads available at Barnes and Noble, Chapters Indigo, Amazon US, Powell’s, Mysterious Galaxy, The Tattered Cover, Books-a-Million, Book Depository.com, Waterstones UK, Book Depository.uk, Amazon UK, Whitcoulls NZ, IndieBound, Abe Books. Baen Webscription, Audible.com, Audible UK, iTunes
humanitysdarkerside 
This sounds like a really interesting book — a lot of food for thought.
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