The Cloud Walker

Despite having seen the cover illustration for this book a great many times during the course of my life, I have never known what the image was from. Recently however, I came across the image again, as the book cover. I immediately resolved to read it, and although expensive on Amazon, I soon found a cheaper copy on e-bay.

Having now read the novel (which being of the older 1970s generation was delightfully short) I can put it on my shelf, happy in the knowledge that I will never read it again. I won't say it was a bad read, only that it would not have been worth the wait had I understood what the image was from.

Set in a distant future, when human technological civilisation has risen and fallen, twice already, humanity has devolved to live in small, feudal socieities, fearful of the devastation they have seen, wrought in the past by machines. All technological development is forbidden by strict religious laws.

Against this world, a young apprenticed artist yearns to learn how to fly, and as can be easily understood by the books cover illustration, he eventually does. There is a bit more to it of course, but essentially that is the whole story.

2/5