Spacious Skies, Amber Waves: A High Fantasy Western

I’ll admit, I side-eyed the ‘fantasy western’ label at first—too often that means cowboys with dragon mounts and little else. *Spacious Skies, Amber Waves* shreds that expectation in the first 20 minutes. Webb’s world feels *lived in*, like the magical elements have always been here, as natural as rattlesnakes in the brush. The story follows a ragtag crew of young guns (and one terrifyingly competent sharpshooter with a cursed revolver) as they chase a rumor of gold—or maybe a god—across a landscape where the rules of physics seem to bend at the whim of something older than the stars. The pacing is *brutal* in the best way: long stretches of simmering tension (a poker game where the deck might be rigged by a demon) exploding into violence so visceral you’ll flinch. Castillo’s performance is a masterclass in audiobook narration. Their delivery has this wonderful *leanness*—no over-emoting, just the precise inflection to make a threat land like a knife between ribs. The production is clean, though I’ll dock half a point for a few odd pauses during dialogue transitions that broke the rhythm. My only real critique? The villain’s motives feel slightly undercooked next to the richness of the world; a late-game reveal about their connection to the "Amber Waves" phenomenon lands more as lore dump than gut punch. But when the final showdown hits—a duel atop a floating butte with bullets that rewrite memory—you won’t care. This is the rare sequel that outshines its predecessor, and the audiobook version is the only way to experience it. Just maybe not while driving; I nearly missed my exit during the stampede scene.