Just finished the latter. Good stuff.
The former has been pegged as 'High Fantasy' - more a marketing manoeuvre than anything else I suspect. I didn't read it as anything so simply defined - there are elements here comparable to Borges and also That Genre/Movement That Everyone Keeps Saying Is 'Dead'. In other words, there are many things about these books that mark them out as something a lot more interesting than straight Fantasy.
'Gears of the City' is also refereshingly different from most of the fare you might find on the Fantasy shelves in Waterstones - gritty, gloomy secondary-world Steampunk with, it seemed to me, also a nod to WWII Britain and The Blitz. At times the pace flags a little, at least in comparison with the first book, but that's really quite a minor quibble - the level of imagination and quality of storytelling here is at times astonishing.
Felix Gilman is definately a writer I'll be following with interest in future.
The former has been pegged as 'High Fantasy' - more a marketing manoeuvre than anything else I suspect. I didn't read it as anything so simply defined - there are elements here comparable to Borges and also That Genre/Movement That Everyone Keeps Saying Is 'Dead'. In other words, there are many things about these books that mark them out as something a lot more interesting than straight Fantasy.
'Gears of the City' is also refereshingly different from most of the fare you might find on the Fantasy shelves in Waterstones - gritty, gloomy secondary-world Steampunk with, it seemed to me, also a nod to WWII Britain and The Blitz. At times the pace flags a little, at least in comparison with the first book, but that's really quite a minor quibble - the level of imagination and quality of storytelling here is at times astonishing.
Felix Gilman is definately a writer I'll be following with interest in future.
Felix is a funny funny man.
ReplyDeleteCheck out his blog if you haven't already.