I know of no other book where the quality of the work is so grossly out of proportion to the fame of the book. This is an excellent book and I dearly wish more people knew about it.



Summary: Pseudo-Victorian Crime Procedural with a heavy dose of China Mieville and H. P. Lovecraft.



Why I Like It Reason #1: The setting is a gem. The city of Trowth may be best described as a kind of twisted reflection of Victorian London, but that doesn't do it justice. It's a multilayered metropolis with freakish we

I know of no other book where the quality of the work is so grossly out of proportion to the fame of the book. This is an excellent book and I dearly wish more people knew about it.



Summary: Pseudo-Victorian Crime Procedural with a heavy dose of China Mieville and H. P. Lovecraft.



Why I Like It Reason #1: The setting is a gem. The city of Trowth may be best described as a kind of twisted reflection of Victorian London, but that doesn't do it justice. It's a multilayered metropolis with freakish weather (Psychestorms, anyone), an Architecture War, and several genuinely novel species (the Sharpsies, the Indiges, the Trolljarn), along with a byzantine government, dueling law enforcement agencies, a major war with spider-ish Ettercaps, and Thirteen Forbidden Sciences deemed heresy by the Church Royal.



What I particularly like about Braak's work is that he actually explains the weirdness of Trowth in such a way that serves to develop the setting and explain the situation, but somehow never makes it less strange. The Architecture War may be the best example of this. One prominent family started it by putting up an ugly building in front of another aristocratic clan's home. The latter responded by raising a tower in their own style. Pretty soon, the Esteemed Families started one upping each other and turned Trowth into a German Expressionist's dream, building things on top of each other, finding ever new places to stick things on.



It's a weird and unusual concept. But it's also realistic in a sense. Which might be what I really like about the setting. It's weird and unusual and very creative, but it's also got a deep sense of realism to it that a lot of New Weird is missing -- I suspect because Braak always grounds his weirdness in very human frailties.



Why I Like It Reason #2: The characters are also a lot of fun. There are three protagonists. Valentine is amusing, the aristocratic ne'er-do-well, but also the least interesting. Skinner is better, a peculiar kind of supra-human investigator who's trick consists entirely of what might be considered human echolocation coupled with effective blindness. She's a strong, active female character without going the usual route of being a brawler (she's not as helpless as she looks, but still, the book never lets you forget that she's blind and this is an issue).



But Beckett... Beckett I adore. He's a sick, drug-addicted, old-fashioned, grumpy old man who keeps forging ahead by sheer duty. He is not your typical crime story protagonist. He is not handsome, charming, or eloquent. Nor is he a misfit genius in the Sherlock Holmes mold. He's simply a man driven by duty, with great virtues and yet very human foibles.



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What else to say... the plot is solid. Not astonishingly creative or unique, but well-handled and genuinely creepy in places. The antagonists are suitably unpleasant or terrifying to make you loathe or fear them, but without going overboard into parody. The language is clear and crisp, not terribly poetic but with a certain tongue-in-cheek humor to it.



Possible flaws, hmm. Well, there is a *great* deal of exposition in the book. The narration has a certain Victor Hugo or Charles Dickens vibe to it in that the book regularly pauses in order to give you a couple of pages of world-building. I feel that this works because first, the world-building is always interesting and relevant, and second, because it tends to be pretty brief. But I can imagine that not everyone would like it quite so much. The plot is also a bit sparse. This is not a long book, and after you take out the extensive world-building and the characterization, it's a pretty quick and straightforward plot. I think it does what it should do, but this isn't the sort of complex web that you'd find in a Brandon Sanderson book, say. And the book deals heavily with themes of race, and I would say more than race with themes of imperialism/colonialism (for all that the action is always in Trowth). I think it's handled fairly well (Braak goes into these themes with eyes open and with set intention), but it can be a mine field.



I will also note that there's a trio of short-stories at the end of the book. They're pretty good, if not as impressive as the novel itself. One deals with Beckett and company and a minor case, the other two deal with a part of Trowth's colonial empire and contain some very nifty pieces of world-building.



Ultimately, if you are a fan of Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Max Gladstone, or Scott Lynch, you ought to try The Translated Man.