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roobadger 's review for:
The Gutter Prayer
by Gareth Hanrahan
Rating: 4 stars
Who would I recommend this for?: fantasy lovers who are a little sick of the usual tropes, people who like exploring the dirty and grimy portions of the world, but don't quite want grimdark.
Oh dear Lord, this book. I love it - it's weird and creepy and every layer that was peeled back made me more fascinated. This is a book that drops you into its story and setting, and lets you either swim with the premise or fall to the wayside. Sometimes, that sink or swim aspect of the writing was hard to work with. I remember reading the prologue twice, because the first time I couldn't figure out what point of view I was in, and I remember stopping and pausing when the first description of Tallowman to try and comprehend it. But once I had adjusted my way of reading, I was able to swim along with the story and get immersed in it. I liked walking into the story and being exposed to such strange things, utterly outside the usual fantasy conventions of elves, orcs and dwarves. If you can let yourself get pulled into the story and not caught up in the questions in your mind, or have the patience to give some paragraphs an extra long read to try and understand what Hanrahan is trying to tell you, then the book feels so rewarding for your imagination.
Added to this, I will say that sometimes Hanrahan uses words that feel needlessly complicated for what he's trying to convey. Does it somewhat feel like someone with a PhD in English wrote a story? Yes, because there were words in this book like "ersatz" and "perspicacity", which could have been far more easily understood if words like "substitute" and "shrewdness" were used instead. Once I'd gotten the gist that my gut instinct of what the word meant was either right, or close enough, I stopped getting so caught up on the different words used, but the fact remains - these are not common words to find when reading. And while I don't mind expanding my vocabulary, it does say something about the ease of reading in this book. It does complicate the experience, so if you're new to reading, coming across these things - along with the "sink or swim" type worldbuilding, and the sometimes confusing POV or sentence structure - can make this a very intimidating read.
But if you can get through that, I feel like this book is a little dark gem. The basic premise is simple - three thieves, a Stone Man, a newcomer to the city and a ghoul, go on a heist that goes spectacularly wrong and unwittingly find themselves caught up in a city wide conspiracy that could change the entire city, if not the world. If you're looking for a heist book, unfortunately this is not that, but don't let that put you off.
We spend the vast majority of the time in the gutters and underbelly of a city that has grown corrupt. It's realised the profitable nature of neutrality in a world gone mad with war, and sells all manner of weapons to the armies across the seas, while also being the sole safe haven from a Godswar (which is exactly as you'd picture it). This world is not light and whimsical - Hanrahan doesn't shy away from illustrating the grimy nature of this world he's created. In this world, divinity, miracles and magic are all consumption, mostly the consumption of the soul, and there are various different factions that all compete for the delicious remnants of it, obtained through eating your brain or perhaps your liver or even your fingers. The things that have this power are outside of humanity, where gaining this power takes and takes from you until whatever is human is broken. Alchemy, the scientific magic if you will, is nearly always described in ways that render it completely alien and unnatural, and the two powers vie for control of the city Guerdon. In far off countries, Gods have gone to war, and in their war, they decimate the land. The miracles are used to attack, and their saints are forcibly changed, used up and exhausted by being possessed by gods that are either mad, angry or afraid. One of the standout chapters for me was an interlude where the point of view is of a saint of a god who is fighting the Godswar. The God that we see and their actions are both utterly true to the domain, but also completely disregard human consideration. The way Hanrahan uses gods is such a breath of fresh air and fascinates me. There's a disease that slowly petrifies and calcifies its unfortunate victims - and we are very close to the internal thoughts of one of those victims, who is contemplating how much longer before he loses his sight, his speech, maybe even his stomach, until his death comes from slow suffocation or starvation. The world we're in, the city of Guerdon, is patrolled by Tallowmen - lit and animated candles that are shaped in the mould and skin of people who have been melted down to create them. This is not a pleasant world - and yet it's entrancing.
I wouldn't necessarily say that it is grimdark - I haven't read a huge amount of the genre to say for certain in either direction - but there does feel like an undercurrent of hope runs throughout the book. Despite all the darkness that surrounds the characters, I always had hope for them, if not because of their drive to create a better world, but even just for the bond they had with each other. For the main characters, I liked the main trio, and there was never a moment reading that I was wishing for a different point of view. I even really enjoyed the points of view we received when the cast of characters expanded out, even if some of those characters started out in direct opposition to the original main trio. One of them, I was even very upset when their story came to its end within the novel.
The story rocks along, and seemingly disjointed things all come together by the back half - or even back third - to give you the full picture. Note that when I say disjointed, I don't mean things that feel hastily tacked on; I mean short interludes, like the standout saint chapter I mentioned above, or scenes from other POV characters that feel unconnected in the moment to the greater plot, but later you realise are completely connected. Aside from some technical issues with the writing that I noted above, the only thing that I felt like perhaps didn't form as cohesively with the rest of the story was the end villain. It felt a little out of nowhere, in that I didn't quite understand the motivations, but in a world of mad gods and endless greed, perhaps that's kind of to be expected. In a world of bountiful power and people who can take it, maybe some people will just decide to take it.
I believe I likened it once to a macabre little fairy tale, and though this is no fairy tale, the feeling remains. This is a dark little gem with a fascinating world that I can't wait to delve further into.
Who would I recommend this for?: fantasy lovers who are a little sick of the usual tropes, people who like exploring the dirty and grimy portions of the world, but don't quite want grimdark.
Oh dear Lord, this book. I love it - it's weird and creepy and every layer that was peeled back made me more fascinated. This is a book that drops you into its story and setting, and lets you either swim with the premise or fall to the wayside. Sometimes, that sink or swim aspect of the writing was hard to work with. I remember reading the prologue twice, because the first time I couldn't figure out what point of view I was in, and I remember stopping and pausing when the first description of Tallowman to try and comprehend it. But once I had adjusted my way of reading, I was able to swim along with the story and get immersed in it. I liked walking into the story and being exposed to such strange things, utterly outside the usual fantasy conventions of elves, orcs and dwarves. If you can let yourself get pulled into the story and not caught up in the questions in your mind, or have the patience to give some paragraphs an extra long read to try and understand what Hanrahan is trying to tell you, then the book feels so rewarding for your imagination.
Added to this, I will say that sometimes Hanrahan uses words that feel needlessly complicated for what he's trying to convey. Does it somewhat feel like someone with a PhD in English wrote a story? Yes, because there were words in this book like "ersatz" and "perspicacity", which could have been far more easily understood if words like "substitute" and "shrewdness" were used instead. Once I'd gotten the gist that my gut instinct of what the word meant was either right, or close enough, I stopped getting so caught up on the different words used, but the fact remains - these are not common words to find when reading. And while I don't mind expanding my vocabulary, it does say something about the ease of reading in this book. It does complicate the experience, so if you're new to reading, coming across these things - along with the "sink or swim" type worldbuilding, and the sometimes confusing POV or sentence structure - can make this a very intimidating read.
But if you can get through that, I feel like this book is a little dark gem. The basic premise is simple - three thieves, a Stone Man, a newcomer to the city and a ghoul, go on a heist that goes spectacularly wrong and unwittingly find themselves caught up in a city wide conspiracy that could change the entire city, if not the world. If you're looking for a heist book, unfortunately this is not that, but don't let that put you off.
We spend the vast majority of the time in the gutters and underbelly of a city that has grown corrupt. It's realised the profitable nature of neutrality in a world gone mad with war, and sells all manner of weapons to the armies across the seas, while also being the sole safe haven from a Godswar (which is exactly as you'd picture it). This world is not light and whimsical - Hanrahan doesn't shy away from illustrating the grimy nature of this world he's created. In this world, divinity, miracles and magic are all consumption, mostly the consumption of the soul, and there are various different factions that all compete for the delicious remnants of it, obtained through eating your brain or perhaps your liver or even your fingers. The things that have this power are outside of humanity, where gaining this power takes and takes from you until whatever is human is broken. Alchemy, the scientific magic if you will, is nearly always described in ways that render it completely alien and unnatural, and the two powers vie for control of the city Guerdon. In far off countries, Gods have gone to war, and in their war, they decimate the land. The miracles are used to attack, and their saints are forcibly changed, used up and exhausted by being possessed by gods that are either mad, angry or afraid. One of the standout chapters for me was an interlude where the point of view is of a saint of a god who is fighting the Godswar. The God that we see and their actions are both utterly true to the domain, but also completely disregard human consideration. The way Hanrahan uses gods is such a breath of fresh air and fascinates me. There's a disease that slowly petrifies and calcifies its unfortunate victims - and we are very close to the internal thoughts of one of those victims, who is contemplating how much longer before he loses his sight, his speech, maybe even his stomach, until his death comes from slow suffocation or starvation. The world we're in, the city of Guerdon, is patrolled by Tallowmen - lit and animated candles that are shaped in the mould and skin of people who have been melted down to create them. This is not a pleasant world - and yet it's entrancing.
I wouldn't necessarily say that it is grimdark - I haven't read a huge amount of the genre to say for certain in either direction - but there does feel like an undercurrent of hope runs throughout the book. Despite all the darkness that surrounds the characters, I always had hope for them, if not because of their drive to create a better world, but even just for the bond they had with each other. For the main characters, I liked the main trio, and there was never a moment reading that I was wishing for a different point of view. I even really enjoyed the points of view we received when the cast of characters expanded out, even if some of those characters started out in direct opposition to the original main trio. One of them, I was even very upset when their story came to its end within the novel.
The story rocks along, and seemingly disjointed things all come together by the back half - or even back third - to give you the full picture. Note that when I say disjointed, I don't mean things that feel hastily tacked on; I mean short interludes, like the standout saint chapter I mentioned above, or scenes from other POV characters that feel unconnected in the moment to the greater plot, but later you realise are completely connected. Aside from some technical issues with the writing that I noted above, the only thing that I felt like perhaps didn't form as cohesively with the rest of the story was the end villain. It felt a little out of nowhere, in that I didn't quite understand the motivations, but in a world of mad gods and endless greed, perhaps that's kind of to be expected. In a world of bountiful power and people who can take it, maybe some people will just decide to take it.
I believe I likened it once to a macabre little fairy tale, and though this is no fairy tale, the feeling remains. This is a dark little gem with a fascinating world that I can't wait to delve further into.