This book had me in the very beginning, lost me in the middle, and then found me again near the end. The writing was very dark and engaging, but for some reason all the middle banter and groups of main characters splitting off, reforming differently, and splitting off again was a little hard to get used to. I also feel like this book suffers from having too many main characters doing too many important things at once. Everyone has some divine importance, and when everybody does, it sort of loses its impact. I'll still likely read the second book, all that said. There was something fun about it that I liked a lot.
Urban fantasy with the usual cast of characters. Kept reminding me of the Amra Thetys books by Michael McClung, but didn't grab me as much. Maybe it was just the weather.
Goodreads says the book is by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan but the cover says Hanrahan, so I'm going with that!
This sprawling fantasy novel tells the story of 3 characters, all lost in their own way. Cari is an orphan, reduced to living in the streets thieving. Spar is afflicted by a terrible disease that gradually turns you to stone. And Rat is a ghoul trying to maintain some semblance of civilization. They are just kind of minding their own business, on the edges of the Brotherhood, a union of thieves (that Spar's father used to head), when events in the sprawling city of Guerdon, which is trying to stay neutral in the massive Gods War being fought just outside the city gates. But things get bad in a hurry and our three heroes are tasked in their own way with saving the city.
So this book began with great promise. I …
Goodreads says the book is by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan but the cover says Hanrahan, so I'm going with that!
This sprawling fantasy novel tells the story of 3 characters, all lost in their own way. Cari is an orphan, reduced to living in the streets thieving. Spar is afflicted by a terrible disease that gradually turns you to stone. And Rat is a ghoul trying to maintain some semblance of civilization. They are just kind of minding their own business, on the edges of the Brotherhood, a union of thieves (that Spar's father used to head), when events in the sprawling city of Guerdon, which is trying to stay neutral in the massive Gods War being fought just outside the city gates. But things get bad in a hurry and our three heroes are tasked in their own way with saving the city.
So this book began with great promise. I picked it up and sped through the first 200 or so pages, enthralled with the big world and interesting city, and really enjoying the three characters trying to find their way in the big world as a close knit trio. The city and the world are nicely introduced, with nary a long dialog describing things in brutally boring details.
But the next 150 pages kind of slogged along. The trio gets split up and it turns out none of them are "just cogs in the machine", but rather major players in what is going on. And for me, that's a real bummer. I have a very short fuse for fantasy and prefer them to just be the story of folks caught up in a unique world, not manifestations of goddesses, leaders of thieves or heads of ghoul-ery.
Then things got really crazy, as things started blowing up and big things were afoot. And, I have to admit, I just gave up. A mere 80 pages short of the end, which, at 512 pages, is no mean feat.
But it is all on me, I admit. Like I said, I like my fantasy in a very narrow field and this jumped the shark pretty early on for me. From no ones trying to solve their own problems, to the very point of saving the city, it just seemed to go on and on and I no longer really cared.
The other thing it did was to use magic to magically (see what I did there?) solve an insolvable problem. I like my fantasy magic off to the side, preferably not done by the main characters. Think the Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch or even Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin. Just smidges of magic and not deus ex machina used to solve difficult plot points.
Not the case here. A big magic production solves a problem in some magic hand wavy way, using the orphan to channel the spell. Ugh.
So, in the end, it's all on me. I'm sure lots of folks will love this book (and given its current rating on Goodreads, I'm not wrong there). If you like your fantasy with gods and goddesses, magic and alchemy happening all around, and your characters leading the way in society, then this book is for you. If you prefer a more subtle kind of fantasy, with regular folks just having adventures in a real interesting setting, this isn't it. Too bad, because the first part of the book promised just that...
