The Clouded World — Jay Amory

A war is coming. And it's being taken to the skies.

Beneath the cloud cover, in the perpetual half-darkness of the shadows cast by immense sky cities looming overhead, toil a race of people known as Groundlings. They have toiled for hundreds of years, farming, hunting and fishing, and sending a tithe from their labours up, in giant elevators, to the sky cities above. It's a sacrifice to the Ascended Ones - made in the belief that when the Groundlings die and are cremated, they go on to a new, Ascended, life above the clouds.

But Ascension is a lie. And while the first rebellion against the Deacons, priests of the Ascended, is over, a new war is about to begin. One which will see Groundlings take to the air in battle against the angel-like Airborn, which will see blood and feathers fly, planes explode, and Airborn cities come crashing to the ground.