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A review by mafiabadgers
Thunder City by Philip Reeve
adventurous
medium-paced
2.0
First read 09/2024
I was really looking forward to this; ultimately I found it a bit disappointing. Compared to older entries in the series, the exciting bits are not as exciting, the funny bits not as funny, the dark bits not as dark, the sad bits not as sad, the themes not as... thematic? I didn't dislike it, but it was distinctly underwhelming.
As the mayor's firstborn, Max Angmering should be the next mayor of Thorbury, but he's not well suited to the heroics of retaking the city. It's doing a bit of a subverted Chosen One thing, but unfortunately it never quite clicks. Miss Torpenhow and Oddington Doom never did anything that didn't feel expected of them (although they played their roles quite charmingly), and Giotto Trubshawe didn't do much. Tamzin Pook was the only character whose arc I really enjoyed (the thing with Eve Vespertine was well done), but it seemed to hit a few too many overfamiliar story beats. It felt to me as though Reeve wanted another Hester Shaw or Threnody Noon, a young woman who could kill brutally and without remorse, except he felt he'd already done that and decided to make her remorseful after all. Unfortunately, the reason he started writing characters like that in the first place is because (particularly in this sort of children's adventure fiction) it's customary for people to get very weepy when they kill someone for the first time. Thus Tamzin Pook ended up feeling a little hackneyed.
The pacing was off, too: everything seemed to happen so quickly that it felt very rushed—and then we'd cut back briefly to Helen Angmering on Thorbury and she'd complain that it had been ten weeks. Which feels appropriate, as far as the internal chronology is concerned, but I really wish that had come through in the rest of it.
But the biggest problem is that in the earlier books, it felt as though Reeve were making something; now he's just moving the old pieces around. When it was first written, the Great Hunting Ground was a lifeless wasteland torn apart by trackmarks because it tied into the themes of environmental destruction that the quartet was exploring. The Stalkers were just one of many pieces of inexplicable ancient technology dredged out of the past, as the books thought about the making of history and what a future people might conclude about us, based on scant leavings. In Thunder City, however, the hunting ground is a muddy mess because that's how it was in the old books, and theStalkers Revenants come in a variety of new shapes and sizes simply to spice things up (even though Reeve already flirted with that idea, and better, in the quartet and trilogy). I'm reminded of the Alien franchise. In the first film, they designed the alien to be both humanoid and phallic, to further the themes of sexual assault. In the later entries, you get the impression someone was scrounging around for ideas and said, 'Well, hey, what if it were a dog?' Thunder City reads as though its only goal is to be a fun adventure story; fine, but it's a hard comedown from the other titles. And on top of that, it's not even as exciting. Compare:
I was really looking forward to this; ultimately I found it a bit disappointing. Compared to older entries in the series, the exciting bits are not as exciting, the funny bits not as funny, the dark bits not as dark, the sad bits not as sad, the themes not as... thematic? I didn't dislike it, but it was distinctly underwhelming.
As the mayor's firstborn, Max Angmering should be the next mayor of Thorbury, but he's not well suited to the heroics of retaking the city. It's doing a bit of a subverted Chosen One thing, but unfortunately it never quite clicks. Miss Torpenhow and Oddington Doom never did anything that didn't feel expected of them (although they played their roles quite charmingly), and Giotto Trubshawe didn't do much. Tamzin Pook was the only character whose arc I really enjoyed (the thing with Eve Vespertine was well done), but it seemed to hit a few too many overfamiliar story beats. It felt to me as though Reeve wanted another Hester Shaw or Threnody Noon, a young woman who could kill brutally and without remorse, except he felt he'd already done that and decided to make her remorseful after all. Unfortunately, the reason he started writing characters like that in the first place is because (particularly in this sort of children's adventure fiction) it's customary for people to get very weepy when they kill someone for the first time. Thus Tamzin Pook ended up feeling a little hackneyed.
The pacing was off, too: everything seemed to happen so quickly that it felt very rushed—and then we'd cut back briefly to Helen Angmering on Thorbury and she'd complain that it had been ten weeks. Which feels appropriate, as far as the internal chronology is concerned, but I really wish that had come through in the rest of it.
But the biggest problem is that in the earlier books, it felt as though Reeve were making something; now he's just moving the old pieces around. When it was first written, the Great Hunting Ground was a lifeless wasteland torn apart by trackmarks because it tied into the themes of environmental destruction that the quartet was exploring. The Stalkers were just one of many pieces of inexplicable ancient technology dredged out of the past, as the books thought about the making of history and what a future people might conclude about us, based on scant leavings. In Thunder City, however, the hunting ground is a muddy mess because that's how it was in the old books, and the
The descent was quite graceful at first, but then it became faster and faster, and with a rush they were in the water, then under it.
Tamzin surfaced, gasping.
Thunder City, p. 182
As the Goshawk powered forward the stresses on its injured wing increased. A supporting strut snapped with a sound like a pistol shot; a loose cable lashed Fever's face, the Goshawk flipped over, and suddenly she was not the pilot of a flying machine any longer, just a frightened girl dropping into the sea in a tangle of ripped paper and splintering wood. The horizon cartwheeled over her. She heard the angels screeching. Then the sea slapped her hard and she was underwater; blue and white and a blizzard of bubbles, some of which were caused by all the air in her lungs rushing out and making for the surface. [There's a bit where she struggles to get her bearings, and then to get out of the harness, before she] fought against the drowning machine for a terrified moment and burst up gasping into the sunlight.
A Web of Air, pp. 251-252
I concede that the latter quote is the last moment of danger Fever is involved in before the book ends, and the former is a particularly egregious example of the almost detached narrative style. But the set pieces are simply not as exciting as they might have been in another book. I wanted to like this book—perhaps wanted too much to like it—but ultimately I feel rather let down. Still, it was fun while it lasted.
I concede that the latter quote is the last moment of danger Fever is involved in before the book ends, and the former is a particularly egregious example of the almost detached narrative style. But the set pieces are simply not as exciting as they might have been in another book. I wanted to like this book—perhaps wanted too much to like it—but ultimately I feel rather let down. Still, it was fun while it lasted.