Unfortunately this one didn't work for me. I know I am very much in the minority here, and that's okay, I'm so pleased that so many people are loving it. The characters are unique and interesting and along with the plot, very compelling. However I could not get on with the narrative. The changes in tense and perspectives was too jarring for me and I found it largely frustrating. So much so, it made me want to stop reading even though I did want to find out what happened. Maybe I'll try again in the future, but for now, I'm putting it down. Please know that the one star does not reflect the story, but I can't in good conscience give a book more than 1 star if I can't finish it myself.

[Review to be published on January 17th at http://pagesbelowvaultedsky.wordpress.com/]

There has been a great buzz about The Gutter Prayer and the slew of blurbs from well-respected authors and reviewers praising its name should tell you that this is, in many ways, a pretty damn great debut.

And I can tell you the same thing...with some caveats.

Let's talk about the worldbuilding first, because that's hands-down the book's biggest strength.

I wrote in my notes that the way that Hanrahan presents his world--like the origin of the Ghouls and Stone Plague--reminds me a lot of video games. As in, they're presented in succinct and easily digestible chunks while still being interesting and attention-grabbing (and later I found out that the author writes gaming books, so that was an "Aha" moment). This has the downside of being a little info-dumpy in places, but considering how interesting the world is, I didn't really mind it.

Comparisons to China Mieville has been made and for good reason. He's one of the best when it comes to city building and transforming locations into living, breathing characters. And The Gutter Prayer has that in spades.

But I think this world is a little more...Lovecraftian than Mieville's work (and not just because of the tentacles). And for that reason, it really, really reminds me of the Gothic browser game known as Fallen London.

And you have no idea how ecstatic that makes me.

I won't get into the details of the game (that's for another day), but one of the million things I adore about Fallen London (and its spinoffs) is its total embrace of the weird, the foreign, and the terrifying. Various creatures roam the streets and underbellies of its city and while some might see you as their noonday snack, others just want to go about their lives in peace. There's something new and exciting waiting for you around every corner and the city is just begging you to explore it all.

The same thing applies here. We have the Tallowmen, humanoid wax creations made from the remnants of condemned criminals that are now used as hunting dogs for criminals (and yes, they have a wick running through them--that's how they come "alive"); worm-colonies that hire themselves out as sorcerer mercenaries; and on and on.

And we get all these different, colourful districts and their rich history and colourful inhabitants--some friendly, others distinctly murdery, and nearly all of them strange and fascinating.

I fucking adore the imagination of it all.

As for the plot, the main one takes a while to materialize (which can be frustrating) but when it does, it begins to resemble the best of Robert Bennett Jackson's Divine Cities trilogy--warring gods, trapped gods, and mortals who would kill or free them to further their own agenda.

Now, here comes the caveats. My problem with loud and rich worldbuilding is when the characters aren't quite as loud and rich enough, so the former ends up drowning them out. This is fine in the early stages of a story--everything is new and shiny and we're gawking at everything like overexcited tourists--but after a certain point it starts to resemble a lonely stroll through an art museum.

This isn't to say the characters aren't interesting--quite the opposite, really!

There are three main characters the story revolves around:

Spar is the leader of the trio and the son of the man who's founded the Brotherhood--a group of thieves who were meant to be the Robin Hoods of the city, a beacon of hope for the common folk--and also a victim of the Stone Plague, an incurable disease that slowly turns the infected into stone. And he just happens to be my favourite ("The idealistic character with an unbending sense of loyalty who's also tragically dying is your favourite? Why am I not surprised?")

Rat is a young ghoul who feeds on the carcasses of the dead.

Cari is the only human/non-infected of the group. She's left Guerdon many years ago and never looked back. But now she is back and some...disconcerting things are happening with her.

So these are characters with diverse backstories and I enjoyed getting to know them and the lore they bring with them, but I feel like they never developed beyond the surface-level of interesting. Spar in particular never quite reached the potential that I think he has.

And I think the following two points contribute to that:

The three characters spend half of the story separated from each other (and Spar spends a good chunk of that stuck alone in a cell), so we never really get a good sense of their dynamic.
Hanrahan doesn't have the same knack for emotional character-driven scenes as he does with city building. There are moments, especially near the end of the story, that could have been rousing and vindicating but are curiously glossed over. Tragedies come and go in a blink, leaving you feeling detached and going, "Wait, what?"

All in all, though, Guerdon is a joy to experience and the problems with meandering plot and characters are things that can definitely be ironed out in the sequel. Gareth Hanrahan has stormed into the genre with a deceptively complex debut that's chock full of imagination, and it sets up a strong foundation for what I hope will be an equally strong trilogy.

~
Review copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Wow! I rarely gush about a book, but this absolutely blew me away. It is a beautifully woven, complex tale that moves at a slick pace, and the compelling world Hanrahan has created is realistic and believable. His characters are strong and well-developed; I found myself becoming quite attached to them. It's a tale full of twists and turns that shock and surprise, and just when you think you have everything figured out the author blind side's you with another shocker! There is such attention paid to even the smallest details that you soon realise that this author is a master of his trade.

The Gutter Prayer is a richly-imagined, spectacular gem in the vein of Robert Jackson Bennett and China Mieville, and I honestly didn't want it to end. I am so glad this is the first in what looks to be a fantastic, epic series; I simply cannot wait for the next instalment. I strongly recommend this if you're a fantasy fan as this is one of the very best I've ever read. Bloody amazing!

Many thanks to Orbit for an ARC.

I'm writing this review in a slight haze, after being up past midnight finishing this superb book ("The city hasn't slept. It staggers, drunktired, into the new day...") so please forgive me if I drift off into incoherent praise... gripping, imaginative, real... My message for you is simple - just BUY THIS BOOK.

If you're fantasy inclined, you NEED IT, you really do.

If you're equivocal about fantasy - as I am - then, you STILL need it.

Indeed I would say that coming from a position myself of slight fantasy scepticism, it did all the right things for me - a recognisably alt-modern setting (no furs, snowstorms, dragons or timbered halls) that is all the more weird for liking like our reality, only distorted*. That's not to say this book, and its world, are unaware of fantasy conventions, indeed Hanrahan has some fun with them - for example when a character dimly remembers fusty old tales the language switches to parody fantasy just as we see faux King James Bible or Shakespeare used as shortcut i the present day: "The bane sword... he tries to recall - the bane swords were forged in lo the year something because verily a dread thing arose. Demons. Something something."**

The city presented here is dealing with refugees from a distant war. Its alchemical industries are gross polluters, causing illness and poverty. Many of the products of those industries are weapons, sold to all sides in the war (a moral question that hangs over the book: "She's seen the weapons of war the alchemists can make... - fires that never stop burning, animals warped into huge monsters, knife-smoke, ice contagions.") There are political tensions between the Church, modernisers in Parliament and the industrial lobby.

This is the city of Guerdon, ancient, destroyed and rebuilt countless times, home to many races, religions and peoples, from the ghouls who live in deep tunnels and caverns, to Crawling Ones - collectives of worms in human form, to various gods including some who embody themselves in human saints. (I loved sweary Aleena ('Are you the fuckwit that scared of all the bloody ghouls?" she asks') saint of the kept Gods, who's 50% cynicism and 50% sheer, naked violence).

It's here that three low-level thieves stage a daring heist, and come to grief. There's Rat, a young ghoul who's trying to stay on the surface and avoid the stage of ferality that plagues kind. Spar, a young man who is infected with a deadly disease, slowly turning him to stone. And Cari (Carillon) Thay, temple dancer, adventuress, rogue and wanderer whose family were murdered and who has recently returned to Guerdon. Together, they set out to burgle (appropriately) the House of Law.

Rat, Cari and Spar soon come up against thief-taker and steam-punky Sherlock-Holmes alike investigator Jere who's been tasked by a political boss to take down the Thieves' Guild. Much of the first part of the book is taken up with the question of how things went wrong in the House of Law and who might seize some advantage from it - Spar has ambitions for leadership of the Guild, in the footsteps of his father - while at the same time, various nasties begin to emerge (check out the Raveller...)

Between worries about the possibility of the city being drawn into the apocalyptic Godswar, the machinations of the Kept Gods' priests and Jere's attempts to bring Heinreil, head of the Guild, there is a lot going on but Hanrahan deftly keeps it all moving - this is a book that seldom lags - and has a real ability to make the weird seem everyday; one accepts his explanations for the co-exitensce of a kind of alchemical science, of sorcery, of real gods which are a kind of emergent phenomenon because they're grounded in the goings on of ordinary seeming people in believable institutions (University, Parliament, industry). Granted alchemical technology, there would obviously be a shadow market in stolen and illicit traded products. Granted active gods, issues of religious tolerance become very real and urgent. Granted a plague that can turn people to stone, there would be issues of disease control, prejudice and access to medication. Hanrahan borrows just enough from our world and experience to make his background plausible, while retaining a cheeky sense of the fantastic at the same time.

The characters here are also terrific. I've already mentioned Aleela, who may be a reluctant saint but is never short of a quip, but Cari is pretty awesome too, both making her way in a pitiless world and remaining loyal to her friends. And I should also mention Cari's cousin Eladora who starts out as a mousy scholar, loses everything - home, mentor, money - and changes, developing a swagger and a menace and managing to uncover the key information that shows what's really going on while struggling several times with Nameless Horrors and Ancient Evils.

(A warning, though: don't become too attached to anyone, Hanrahan is brutal with his characters.)

Those horrors and evils signpost the story, I think, as having a bit of a Lovecraftian vibe, indeed if you wanted a label for it you might call it "steampunk Lovecraft" although that doesn't really do the book credit. Yes, Hanrahan weaves what is in many respects a superficially modern world menaced by horrors from the past, but actually Guerdon is of a part with that past, which isn't really the past at all, just the way the world is. We have ex-mercenaries here reliving the horrors of bombardment in the Godswar, still raging overseas and displacing refugees. We have food shortages causes by the war. So it's not that a "civilised", "modern" world is imperilled by atavistic, "dark" "savage" forces (we all know what HPL was getting at there, don't we) it's that terrible extremes coexist in one world, in one city, in the same people (sassy Aleela's a case in point: she's committed slaughter for her gods - the civilised, "decent" gods that supposedly protect Guerdon) and somehow those extremes will have to resolve themselves.

There is simply so much in this book too think about, it's such a bewildering, exhilarating, head-hammering banger of a book, that if you have any interest in or curiosity about the best recent fantasy, YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK.

For more information about the book, see the Orbit website here.

*Reading this book made a point clear to me that I hadn't spotted before: the fantasy I have most enjoyed recently has all been of that recognisably modern-but-but-weird type - for example, Fonda Lee's Jade City and Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy have something of the same balance to them.

**Not the only way in which Hanrahan has fun with broad modern source material - I spotted references to Stranger Things, to The Italian Job, and many more besides (and I'm sure I missed a lot too).

This is quite easily the best book I’ve read in the last several years. This was a PHENOMENAL story. I’ve never experienced a written tale that becomes its own being quite like this did. It is deliciously complex, with rampant twists and turns that just when you think you have everything figured out, something new emerges and turns everything on its head. The setting really drives the story, you can practically feel Guerdon living and breathing from the first page. This was masterfully done, I can’t wait to see what magic this author weaves in future works! Thank you so very much for the opportunity to review this spectacular jewel!

A truly extraordinary debut, The Gutter Prayer strikes an intense chord with its powerful worldbuilding, vivid imagery and evocative prose.

Two things about this book caught my attention. Firstly, the blurb which indicated that the main characters comprise three thieves (I have such a weakness for stories with thieves). And then, my coblogger's review which raved about the dark worldbuilding. Alright! I'll admit that the gorgeous cover also played some part in this.

It has been quite a while since I've read fantasy which employed such dark elements reminiscent of horror stories. I'll just give you these three terms - Tallowmen, Raveller and Crawling Ones. You might form an idea what these might be, but I can tell you for a fact that they are much worse than what they sound like. A world where divine powers and alchemical advancement co-exist on an uneasy balance, the history behind the creations and eldritch horrors is dark, twisted and perversely captivating. My advice to readers is to avoid reading this book while you're eating.

The main characters themselves are also... uncommon. Rat is a ghoul, a carrion-eating race and the original inhabitants of the city. The deep layers of history, bloodier and darker than one can possibly imagine, pushed these transformed people and their dwelling into the depths of the city. Spar is a Stone Man, cursed by an incurable plague, which slowly calcifies all living tissue until it kills. Cari has a mysterious past - a legacy - which may spell the doom of the city.

As far as I am concerned, the star of the story is the city of Guerdon itself. Hanharan wrote the city like it is a living, breathing organism that has seen generations of the good, the bad and the ugly. To describe the writing as immersive, vivid and evocative is like saying that sugar is sweet. Guerdon is a scary place to live in, and the author made sure that I feel so through every alleyway, street corner, tunnel, stairway and tower.

While the narrative can be considered to be fast-paced, the plot itself took some time to materialise cohesively. The story, written in present tense third person, is told from the perspectives of the main characters, who are pulled in myriad directions (and misdirections) following a disastrous thieving attempt at the start of the book. The mystery behind the disaster was so obfuscated that I simply had no clue what was happening until almost midway into the book. In fact, I was initially a bit concerned. In spite of the stupendous worldbuilding, I did not find myself eager to get back to reading the book after putting it down. I chalk this down to the characterisation which I found less compelling than the rest of the story. Don't get me wrong, the characters are not badly written at all. They could have been overshadowed by the worldbuilding and the drawing out of the plot. I just didn't care for them as much as what crazy thing is going to happen next.

Notwithstanding, the intensity really took off in the second half of the book. When the building blocks of the subplots finally came together, the pace became relentless and the narrative more engrossing. As the truths were revealed, events escalated from catastrophic to apocalyptic. I will describe the climactic sequence simply as breathtaking. Whatever prior reservations I had about this novel was alleviated by its denouement. I needed emotional resonance for a read to be amazing for me, and that was what I found lacking for a large part of this book. That is, until the final chapters and that poignant ending which was superbly satisfying.

Lastly, I have to commend the author for his writing skills. There are flashes of brilliance in his prose and occasional mitigated streams of consciousness (the Irish influence perhaps) from the characters' POVs. Altogether Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan has developed a unique voice with his unconventional style and created something extraordinary in the realm of modern dark fantasy.

Please see below the full text of my review. It can be found on my blog, aperturereads.wordpress.com, and will be posted on reddit and Goodreads in the coming days.

I received an ARC of this novel via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

544 pages| Orbit| Fantasy/ Dark Fantasy/ Speculative Fiction

Release date: January 17th 2019.



The digest: I cannot recommend this book highly enough to fantasy lovers. It’s an immersive, highly detailed, excellent story with almost everything you could want. It is deeply thought-provoking, it is brutal, it is violent, and it is bloody good.



Absolutely no surprises here if you follow me on Twitter, I was completely enthralled in The Gutter Prayer and the pages just flew by.



From the book’s Goodreads page:

“A group of three young thieves are pulled into a centuries old magical war between ancient beings, mages, and humanity in this wildly original debut epic fantasy.

The city has always been. The city must finally end.

When three thieves – an orphan, a ghoul, and a cursed man – are betrayed by the master of the thieves guild, their quest for revenge uncovers dark truths about their city and exposes a dangerous conspiracy, the seeds of which were sown long before they were born.Cari is a drifter whose past and future are darker than she can know.

Rat is a Ghoul, whose people haunt the city’s underworld.

Spar is a Stone Man, subject to a terrible disease that is slowly petrifying his flesh.

Chance has brought them together, but their friendship could be all that stands in the way of total armageddon.”



No book, however, is flawless so look below if you want to know exactly what I did and did not enjoy about The Gutter Prayer. I’ll get the negatives out of the way first.



What didn’t I like?

Very minor point no. 1: the vast majority of the novel is so polished that when on the rare occasion that there is a grammatical issue/repetition of an unusual word, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Very minor point no. 2: I’m not a fan of sex scenes in most books, especially when they are a bit insta-lovey or cringe-worthy, and this is exactly what happens here. There is some explanation (much) after the fact but I just wasn’t too keen. I must stress that this is a personal preference so I haven’t deducted any points for this.
The pacing of the plot is insanely good in my opinion… right up until the last three chapters, which just feel massively too rushed. Part of me feels like this must have been a stylistic choice on the part of Hanrahan, but even if so, I didn’t like it. With 500+ pages all contributing to such a climactic ending, it’s a shame to see the finale come and go so swiftly.
Character deaths (not really a spoiler, I can’t remember the last fantasy book I read without someone dying) don’t seem to leave a terribly lasting effect. While this again could be a style choice, it didn’t quite sit right with me. I want more than just one saying ‘and then character XXX died’, I want to experience the loss as characters feel it.
The plot is one of the most interesting and engaging that I have read… ever. BUT I saw a few things coming from the off and I don’t know if that speaks to the predictability of the story or the fact that I spend too much time in the genre. Either way, I wasn’t particularly disappointed so again, I have deducted no points for this.


What did I like?

The Gutter Prayer has one of the most interesting and entertaining stories I have seen in quite some time. At no point was I bored or confused – I just sat there enthralled as different aspects of the storyworld’s reality unfolded, waiting with bated breath for what would come next. Hanrahan has struck gold with his fantasy debut. The plot follows a handful of characters as they try to find out exactly what is going on in Guerdon, with their self-interested motivations eventually growing to be a much wider concern for their fellow citizens. There are fights between supernatural entities, sorcerers of a variety of species, literal gods and extremist cults, along with an alchemist guild which is getting a bit too big for its boots.
The characters are incredibly well developed, with each of the three main thieves we start off with being explored in detail by the end of the novel. I can genuinely empathise with the main trio as well as a couple of the side characters on occasion, with is something I find to be rare in fantasy books, let alone debut novels. We learn what makes them tick, what they are afraid of, and what their dreams are. I haven’t seen many examples of better character development than what we are presented with here.
This, of course, is excepted by the above remark about character deaths, where in some instances I struggle to actually feel their grief. I understand that they must be hurting from the loss, but I don’t actually feel it.
There are multiple kickass female protagonists. They aren’t traditionally ‘girly girls’, they aren’t masculine men who happen to be female, and they aren’t about to be pushed about by anybody. It’s refreshing to see a male author create a believable female lead character, and even more exciting to see consistently high-quality females characters throughout the novel.
The worldbuilding is, quite frankly, amazing. Hanrahan seems to have thought of everything, be it supplying weapons to the warring neighbours, salvaging goods to be re-used, disease, market workers, the City Watch etc. But the main show here really is the combination of Guerdon’s history and the fact that gods are very much alive and kicking, selecting human vessels to act as Saints or divine warriors. Spoiler: highlight the text after the colon to see my favourite aspect here: This aspect of the worldbuilding was my favourite, as we see how different gods work with their worshippers differently, and see what powers they bestow upon their saints. Do they even remain human? Do they have to adhere to the normal physical laws of reality? I honestly can’t explain how well planned out and effective this aspect of the storytelling was. I would happily read a book just about the gods in all honesty.
In keeping with the worldbuilding, there is a solid mixture of humans and non-humans alike. In The Gutter Prayer, we learn which factions tolerate each other and why, as well as some of the almost forgotten histories as to why they exist in the first place. This information is revealed piece by piece, and at no point did I feel overwhelmed.
The action scenes are well-written, and the different abilities of different characters/species is never lost.
Chapters focus on a rotation of characters, allowing us to believe in their autonomy when we aren’t with them. We can believe that ghouls spend their time in subterranean levels of Guerdon, that the humans are trying to avoid the Stone Men, and indeed that the Stone Men themselves suffer in physical agony and mental anguish. The autonomy of the citizens of the city supports the development of the immersion of the novel and I am in awe that Hanrahan’s debut fantasy novel does this so well.
The pacing is almost perfect. Almost. Barring the exception discussed above, I have got to say that The Gutter Prayer is one of the most well-balanced narratives in the genre I have ever read. There are no infodumps at all, with information either being revealed as the characters themselves come across the information in real time, or indeed through discussion regarding many of the wider issues contemplated here.
The pacing is helped in no small part by the aforementioned rotation of characters. By spending a bit of time with a handful of characters we are able to see the reaction to events as they unfold not only in one character’s little bubble, but the full effects for the city of Guerdon.
The Gutter Prayer is also (perhaps surprisingly) eloquent in its exploration of wider themes. Politics and economics feature (though they are by no means the central focus), as do regressive or progressive societies, and larger moral questions of protection of the state versus becoming Big Brother. By no means is this novel a sophisticated thesis on the human condition, but it is more nuanced and engaged with big questions than most other fantasy novels.
That last page… please mean what I think it means for the next book in The Black Iron legacy book.


4.75/5 (rounded to 5/5 where required). As much as I enjoyed reading The Gutter Prayer, I can’t justify giving it a full 5/5 for the reasons mentioned in the first section of this review. I urge you to add this to your TBR and preferably get around to it ASAP so you can take part in the current hype – I can’t really imagine anyone not enjoying this. It’s fun, thought-provoking, and definitely one that will not be forgotten.

Epic in every sense of the word. I loved the richly detailed, exquisitely painted world of this novel and diverse beautifully written characters that populate it. There are some excellent wholly original and imaginative creatures and characters and the book is also well-paced and cleverly plotted. Epic fantasy for grown-ups with healthy doses of violence of profanity, this book sucks you in and provides escapism at its finest!

I honestly don’t know where to start. I don’t think my review will do justice to what a truly amazing book this was, but I am going to give it a dam good go.

That Prologue

This was unlike any prologue I have ever read. You are given a great snippet of the city in which the story takes place, however, it all seems to be told from the buildings point of view. I was instantly intrigued.
From that point on you are hurled head first into one of the most gripping tales I have ever read. A word of caution here. There is a lot going on, you may feel you lose your way in the early part of the book. Hold with it, you’ll soon find your way round the story and characters.

The Characters

We meet Rat, Spar and Cari right at the beginning. An unlikely threesome, bonded it seems through Cari. Members of The Brotherhood, a band of thieves. They are thrown headfirst into the chaos that is about to hit the city of Guerdon. They are fabulous characters, with so many facets to their personalities. I was never quite sure which way the story would go because you couldn’t second guess their intentions.

They are by no means the only characters. You meet a rich array of the residents of Guerdon. Some are fleeting glances, others fundamental to the plot, but all brilliantly written. I have to say one of my favourite characters was Aleena, a human saint to the Keeper Gods. A woman after my own heart, she has a fiery temper, stands no nonsense and says f@#k a lot. Not at all what you would imagine a saint to be.

Add to this the Gods, Tallowmen, the priests, the Alchemists, the thief-taker, Gullheads, the ever so creepy worms; the list goes on. Hanrahan’s imagination is endless.

We can’t not mention the city itself here. It felt like a character, it positively seethes beneath the surface Built on such history and hiding secrets in ever corner. Safe from the Gods Wars threating other cities, it has become a place of refuge for many.

World Building

Most of the action takes place in Guerdon itself. Built over centuries, it’s dirty and gritty. Full of narrow streets, secret tunnels and dead ends. Hanrahan has written in such a way that you get to become part of the city. Fully invested and fully immersed. Although we rarely leave the city, we learn about other places, mostly affected by the Gods War. Literally wars between God’s. Make no mistake this a richly draw world.

Final Thoughts

The writing in this book is incredible, it’s hard to believe this a debut novel. Hanrahan is already a master of the genre. The way he writes pulled me in, some passages were so well written I actually felt repulsed at what was going on. Every sense is used to build the picture, I felt like I was going through everything with them. This is a story of resilience, courage and bravery against a seemingly impossible foe. It’s fast paced and made my heart pound with adrenaline.
I’m not one for giving ratings, but this is easily a five star read. Honestly this book is stunning. I would go so far as to say it is one of the best books I have ever read. Every fantasy fan needs to put this on their TBR pile right now. You can thank me later.

2.5/3 stars.

I found the idea of having all these different creatures & gods (and not all good ones), living in one place, quite interesting as that type of concept does not come up very often.
Furthermore, even though the book started out quite slowly, the pacing eventually sped up & stayed such until the very end.

However, even though there were 3 main characters mentioned in the blurb, I found only Cari to the only true main character, as she was very often somewhere where the two others weren't, even though when there was the possibility & plausibility of them being at the same place as her. Therefore, I found that the other two almost took up secondary roles, which was a bit disappointing. Because of this, I rated it slightly less since I had expected it to be mostly equal roles.

In conclusion, I found the book to be quite interesting in terms of the world & pacing, however liked less the situation with the characters.
Definitely recommended

More detailed review to be found on Goodreads with the link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2635661420

The Gutter Prayer is a debut fantasy novel from Gareth Hanrahan. Hanrahan has also written more than a couple of tabletop RPG sourcebooks, some of which I’ve read and enjoyed, so this isn’t his first rodeo. That may help explain the technical excellence – the high quality of the prose, the tight plotting. It does less to explain the sheer imagination on display, the clever ideas it picks up and shows off, and the sense of high paced, high stakes adventure. Put that all together, and you’ve got a fantasy novel that you’re going to pick up and have great difficulty putting down again.

The story starts as it means to go on, with a bang. Our protagonists are thieves in a heist gone wrong, left scrambling to evade the very long arm of the law. But even as they struggle to survive the consequences, other events are preparing to make things far, far more complicated.

I need to talk about the trio that are the centrepiece of this book. They’re a wonderful found family, existing in part with affection and connection, and in part out of necessity. And they’re also a complex people in their own right. I mean, let’s talk about Carillon first. Leaving aside that she has a great name, she’s…complicated. Always edgy. Always looking for the next angle. Always a little suspicious of when the dice let things go her way. Sneaky, intelligent, and willing to do the right thing if she has to. Carillon is a young woman with principles (although those principles may involve the acquisition of things which may not, strictly speaking, belong to her), who is more than willing to back those principles up by sticking a shiv in someone and then running away really, really quickly. I like her sense of realism, I like that she’s willing to compromise on a lot of things, but won’t let her friends down, I like the way she’s driven toward her goals, and isn’t overly willing to take crap from anyone. There’s also the sense that there’s a past to her, something which the text explores as it proceeds, giving us a flawed, determinedly human character. Short version: She kicks arse, and comes across vividly to the reader.

The same can be said of Spar. Spar is chronically ill, a Stone Man. His disease is slowly calcifying him, from the outside in. On the plus side, this means he can be immensely strong, immensely durable. On the downside, any damage is an opportunity to see more of himself lost to the stone. Spar is perhaps more methodical than Carillon, but just as lost. The son of a famous father, trying to live up to that expectation, live out from under the shadow of another man, whilst also bearing a fatal, contagious disease – well, it’s a weight to bear. And we can see Spar struggle with it, trying to be the person he wants to be, rather than one of the ones he’s expected to become. It feels like Spar is the most introspective of the three, one willing to slow down and think things through; though sometimes you just want Carillon to give him a kick in the arse to get him moving, once he uis, he won’t stop.
I love Spar and the way he moves from placidity to obdurate action. I love that the story wants to examine fatal illness and coping mechanisms, and does so with nuance and grace. I love that Spar can act as a mobile siege platform, and break down doors with his pinkie. I also want to take a moment and say that the disease that is slowly turning Spar into a statue is as well realised as he is, a core facet of his identity, and an imaginative and repulsive one – people recoil in the street, there’s a sense of fear and wonder and anger and despair about Spar and the other Stone Men. It’s a masterful portrayal of human, visceral reactions and really helps establish his character (even as Spar deliberately doesn’t let his illness define that character!).

Then there’s Rat. Rat’s a ghoul. Ghouls, well, they see in the dark. They run fast. Sometimes they do a bit of magic. They have trouble with surfaces, and with people. Also, sometimes they eat people. The story has more revelations about ghouls, so I won’t spoil them here, but I’ll say this: the society that is constructed for Rat to come from is dark, and potentially brutal. There’s a lot of inky darkness, sheer strangeness, and more than a little blood. The ghouls are the underbelly of the city, but they’re also people. Well, some of them. But they’re always slightly off kilter. Rat’s voice is a quietly but focused one, which carries a very distinct perspective – one of movement, scents and magic, with moments of loyalty. Ghouls are strange, hungry, deadly – but Rat’s also willing to help out his friends. There’s a common thread there, between the three, of hope and decency and trust, and that helps give us characters which we give a crap about, and which feel like they have their own experiences, and which feel alive.

If that’s a lot to take in – well, they live in a city with a lot more going on. Guerdon is a metropolis of layers, geographical as well as historical. Sometimes they intersect. There’s a sense of age here, of history, of things lost and long forgotten in the catacombs beneath the streets. There are stories of mad old gods in centuries past, and there are stories of how the religious leaders of a more enlightened time were forced to accept trade and religious liberalisation. This is a world where Saints are real, and will be more than happy to take your arm off with a flaming sword after they’ve had a stiff drink and lost at a hand of cards. Where crazed deities shift reality to suit themselves, and where everyone else tries to stay out of the way. This is a city of gold and blood, where alchemy has provided guardsmen made of wax, who run and fight faster than anything you’ve seen, but whose life is measured in the wick they’re burning down. It’s a city of hidden sorcery, and politics in both the halls and in the streets. Guerdon lives and breathes, and while doing so, it showcases some seriously impressive worldbuilding – the city is darkly scintillating, a feast for the imagination found in its blood-clogged gutters.

Which is a long way of saying, the stage on which our characters find themselves is a very well constructed one; it’s a richly imagined, precision-crafted world of its own.

The plot? Well, no spoilers, as ever. But I’ll say this. What starts out as a less than simple robbery very quickly takes a turn and becomes something more. There’s magic. There’s conspiracy. There’s eldritch forces moving underfoot, and everything. As our intrepid gang try to get out of all the trouble they accidentally fell into, they end up in very deep waters indeed. Part of this narrative is an adventure story – with chases, with explosive magic, with strange terrors and unexpected wonders on each page. Part of it is a personal, family story – how far someone will go to protect their interests, or those of their friends, or their city. And the price they’ll pay as they do so. I do the narrative a disservice in description – it’s a complex, multi-layered, living breathing thing, and the pieces come together over the course of the book like well-machined clockwork. It’s a big story, about gods and the fate of cities. But it’s also personal, about our three friends and their relationships with each other and with the world. Yes, it’s an adventure. Yes, it’s a character piece. Yes, it’s epic. Yes, it’s deeply, bitingly, a story of individuals.

What it mostly is, is an absolutely cracking story – one you’ll want to tell your friends about. So pick it up, and give it a read. It’s a heck of a journey.

I'll start off by saying how much i love this cover. Thats what first drew me to the book, and im so glad it did. Having finished the book, i can also say how...right... the cover is. It perfectly encapsulates the tone and ambiance of the novel.

So, to the review. Wow. What a book. This one blew me away. I was initially unsure whether to give it a go, because the praise from other authors was pretty amazing, and i find with such praise the story can fall short. This didnt. Its brilliant.

I cant describe what a refreshing feeling it is to read some epic fantasy that feels so... refreshing, and also so alive. The city feels so real and alive. Its teeming with amazing characters and streets and guilds and religions and architecture. I can honestly say i felt myself walking down these dark streets, running my fingers along the stained brickwork as i watched Tallowmen race by.

The cast of characters is brilliant. Can i say the Aleena was an absolute joy to read. I need more of her.

Cali is a brilliant main character, shes flawed, but not in a 'oh look at me i'm a grey character struggling to be good'. Shes a thief and a shit, and it just works. Shes brilliantly complimented by Spar and Rat.

The dialogue is brilliant, the prose just flows beautifully. I could wax lyrically all day about how good this book is. But instead, just do yourselves a favor and go buy it, read it and love it.

Bring on book 2.

I'm not sure if everyone would agree with me, but I would call this 'setting driven fantasy'. What do I mean by that? I mean that I didn't find myself connecting with the characters or learning too much about their lives and personalities, but I was utterly swept up by the setting and aspects of the world that Hanrahan creates in this book. I've picked out some of my favourite elements to talk about here.

The Tallowmen. If you're a condemned criminal in this city, you're taken to the alchemists and through a rather gruesome procedure you are turned into a 'Tallowman', lovingly referred to by our main characters as 'candle fuckers'. Tallowmen are, as the name suggests, men made out of candle wax, they burn a wick made from their old spinal cord and if they go out they sort of stop? It's hard to describe their role within the story, they are kind of guards, kind of thugs, kind of terrifying general horror for our characters to encounter. In my imagination, they are truly horrifying and I found them to be a great alternative to the generic 'unnamed guard' problem you sometimes find in fantasy. They're made all the more terrifying because of the threat that you might one day become one, a threat that looms over almost every one of our characters at some point or another.

The Stone Plague. This isn't something entirely unique to this story, there are variations on the 'disease that makes you turn to stone' in quite a few books but this one felt particularly awful. In essence, if someone with the stone plague (known as stone men) stops moving then they will continue to calcify, eventually ending up starving to death or suffocating because too much of them have turned to stone, only the hard to find chemical/medicine alkahest can help them. This could easily have been a throwaway detail in this world - some people have the stone plague how sad - but instead, Hanrahan challenges himself by having one of the three main characters be a stone man, afflicted with the plague. This makes the disease hit so much closer to home for the reader, you live through the horror of a life being gradually taken over by stone in intimate detail. It was truly troubling and was probably the character arc with which I most connected in this story. Of the three thieves, Spar is probably my favourite character, and you know that when I root for the male character over the spunky female protagonist that it has to be good.

Magic. This is a setting where magic is pretty prevalent. It had been a while since I last read a book in which having magic wasn't a privilege or something forbidden. It isn't that everyone has magic but it is a setting where magical things are not abnormal. I thought that the development of one particular character's experience of something a bit more supernatural was very interesting and a clever way of exploring religion within a fantasy setting. I can't say too much more or I'll spoil it, but it is clever and interesting and I wish I had written it.

This book is creepy and creative and detailed and I was amazed by how much I enjoyed it. I'm such a character-driven person, if I don't like or connect with the characters then I tend to switch off. I can't say that I liked these characters particularly, or that I connected with them in any great way, but the story and the setting were both so interesting that I got truly swept up in the narrative and finished the book desperate to find out what happens next. Tragically, I will have to wait a while for the next book in The Black Iron Legacy but it will certainly be going onto my preorder list as soon as possible.

If you like epic fantasy and you're looking for a truly weird and wonderful world which is quite dark then I would certainly suggest you read this. Give it some time to build and to get to the meat of the plot, but once you're swept up I'm certain you'll have a good time!

My rating: 4/5 stars

I received a free digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Before I talk about the book itself, can we just take a moment to appreciate the beauty of this cover? It's seriously a work of art and I'm going to shamelessly say that the cover was the reason this book caught my eye in the first place. Done admiring the cover? Great! Now let's talk about how amazing the actual book is because damn this book was phenomenal.

For me, what stood out the most was the unique, biopunk horror-esque world. A common complaint I see with fantasy readers is the overuse of standard Tolkein races (elves, dwarves, dragons, hobbits/halflings, etc) and the lack of 'new' races. If this describes you, then this book is definitely for you. Between the Tallowmen, creatures of candle wax created by Alchemy, the Crawling Ones, large collections of sapient worms in a trenchcoat, ghouls with their twisted path of evolution, and Stone Men, humans who are slowly calcifying to living statues, Hanrahan brings to life some of the most imaginative and grotesque creatures I have ever read.

Hanrahan also does a fantastic job bringing the city of Guerdon alive with it's rich and much-buried history. Much like a city develops layers of history over time, I felt like I was unraveling those layers as I read and as our main characters dug deeper to find answers to their questions. Central to this story are gods. Gods worshipped and forgotten, brought to the city by waves of immigrants and discarded over time as new beliefs come in. It's hard to say more without giving away plot points and The Gutter Prayer is definitely a book you want to go in blind.

Character-wise, I thought the book did very well. Each of the three main characters, Cari, Rat, and Spar, are quicky introduced through a failed heist and we watch the three deal with unintended consequences in their own ways. Each of them face their own struggles and work with their own factions, and through the three of them, we get to explore so much of the depth of Guerdon. The cast of secondary characters, a badass old woman employed by the Church of the Keepers, a gruff detective who suffers PTSD from a previous war, the entire thieves guild and their political struggle,s and more are all fantastic and very well fleshed out as well

As I mentioned earlier, you probably want to go into this book blind. Plot-wise, it's definitely one of those books whose plot isn't quite apparent from the get-go. That's not to say there's not plot happening, but it definitely takes a while for all the big reveals to occur and for the characters to discover exactly what they're supposed to be doing. The prose and the writing style Hanrahan uses is equal parts beautifully descriptive and incredibly eerie. That being said, this book definitely deserves warnings for body horror and viscerally descriptive language. For those of you who are squeamish, proceed with caution.

As I read, one thing I noticed was the lack of sex and sexually derogative language, especially towards women. It's something I've become accustomed to reading in fantasy novels, especially ones with this kind of dark gritty setting. I think I was about halfway, where I felt like something seemed off, but in a good way, that I noticed I hadn't seen a single character make a passing comment about a women's breasts or see reference to prostitutes or a brothel. And, it was nice?? Like, I've gotten so used to reading this language that a lack thereof was odd. But in a good way??? All the kudos to the author for making this choice. On the other hand, the complete lack of anything remotely sexual does make the two brief sex scenes seem a little out of place.

Overall, I rate this book a 5/5. This book is highly recommended to anyone looking for a unique dark fantasy novel with fantastic worldbuilding and characters. The Gutter Prayer is an amazing debut novel and I can't wait to see what else the author has in store.

/r/Fantasy Bingo 2018 Squares

Novel Featuring a God as a Character

I’m usually sceptical when a book gets so many advance rave reviews across the board but in this case it’s entirely justified. From the very first chapter (which is a mindbender in itself) I was hooked. In fact even though I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on in the first chapter the writing is so good and the intrigue so strong that I was compelled to keep reading through sheer enjoyment. There are plenty of books that turn out to be pretty good but you do have to plough through many chapters before it really gets going. The Gutter Prayer is not one of those books, it hooks you from the start and refuses to let you go. The last time I felt such a compulsion to keep reading was Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy, which was my introduction to solid fantasy, so it’s awesome to have that feeling again. The characters are truly original as is the city of Guerdon which is effectively a character in its own right wth layer after layer of reveal. The great thing is this isn’t a standalone book but sequel/s will follow. As a side note the cover art (which matters to book nerds like me!) is superb! One of the pleasures of life is discovering a new author who writes books to love and live in so that you want to invest time in it. Gareth Hanrahan has written such a such book. The Gutter prayer will surely win multiple awards in 2019, or at least should. Highly recommended, should become a classic of fantasy literature. I will buy a copy even though I’ve read it as it’s one of those you want in your collection.

It's worth noting that while Amazon (UK) has this book listed as available in Paperback, Kindle and Audiobook formats, there is a limited edition numbered and signed copy available (at time of writing this) from Goldsboro Books website. For those who like me like that kind of thing!

Thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown Books (Orbit) for ARC.

I received an ARC of The Gutter Prayer in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank Gareth Hanrahan and Orbit Books for the opportunity.

The Gutter Prayer is something very rare. It is a fantasy book treading new ground, forging its own path.

From the first page, the writing lets you know that this is something very different. Not only is the narration very unusual (don’t even ask me what this narrative voice is called), Hanrahan’s voice is so unique, it is truly hard to believe that this is a debut effort. Unpublished writers beware! Judging by the talent on display here, every aspiring writer should up their game.

The main plot has us following three thieves with a mission, only for everything to go spectacularly wrong. What starts out as a simple little heist quickly unravels, and I mean very quickly, into a rabbit warren of mystery, magic, dark secrets and horrific truths. I will not even begin to try and explain the plot further than that, as it is dark delight best left unspoiled.

This is a world conjured up by some mad genius in possession of mind boggling creativity. Layer upon layer of rich, detailed elements, fascinating history, vivid imagery and unique characters cements this as an original world that I absolutely, unequivocally, emphatically, would never want to live in. It is scary as hell. The creativity on display here would warrant a read of this book all by itself, if not for the masterful crescendo of tension weaved into the story, making for a real page turner and culminating in a unputdownable finale.
Gareth Hanrahan topples your expectations and perceptions like dominoes, page by page, until you are left with nothing but pure, unadulterated awe.

All right then. High praise aside, I did have an issue with the book that killed any chance it had of becoming a favourite of mine.

The truth is, I did not care for the characters much. They were well written, and interesting, but somewhere along the lines, the magic that writers do to make you feel for the characters just did not happen for me. There were one or two instances where I started to get the barest inkling that I was starting to care for a character when they were summarily killed off. Maybe that was part of the problem. Main characters met sudden deaths and were gone from the story just like that. Or maybe it was just a timing thing on my part. Gone before I could care and those still present were not as much to my liking. It is a small thing, but it can have a huge influence. I still liked reading about what they were up to, but just did not care about them like I should have. It says a lot though that I still rate this as highly. Either way, I suspect that this won’t be a problem for the majority of readers, so once again it’s more a case of it’s me, not you. 🙂

To finish off with I need to reiterate. This is a very special book my friends. The Gutter Prayer is an absolutely phenomenal debut and with this first attempt Gareth Hanrahan has proven himself exceptionally talented. If the authors mantelpiece (I hope you have one Mr Hanrahan) is not stacked with awards by the end of 2019 I will be shocked and dismayed, as this effort deserves it. Yep, it’s that good. This book will undoubtedly be one of the best fantasy books you will read in 2019 and heralds the start of something absurdly promising. While I had my issues with it, I do not hesitate to call it fantastic and a must read for all who love fantasy. Be sure to mark the release date on your calendar.

PS: There is a gorgeous hardcover of this book available from Goldsboro already. It has beautiful blue edges and to top it all is signed by the author. YES PLEASE!

How do I even describe it? Was it just insane or insanely good?

Enter Guerdon. Mad deities and divinely powered saints fight, Lovecraftian horrors awake and crawl out from below. Shape-shifting Ravellers, servants of the ancient and evil Black Iron Gods, bring mayhem to the streets for the first time in decades and it can only mean one thing - Doomsday approaches.

Meanwhile, a new member of the Thieves’ Brotherhood, Carillon Thay, experiences unnerving visions that place her in the centre of the conflict between mad deities. She navigates the city in the company of Rat, a corpse-eating ghoul, and Spar, a Stoneman, whose flesh is slowly calcifying into rock.

Rules mean nothing to Hanrahan - he plays with the language, world-building, and usual genre’s tropes. He twists them and offers something fresh and new. Examples? Gutter Prayer opens with a prologue written in the second person pro-noun, a thing considered a huge no-no. And yet, it works. Hanrahan’s lyrical prose contains a lot of archaisms and rare words, it yells for a reader's attention and yet it only makes the experience more immersive. His visual and visceral style blew my mind. I usually dislike detailed world-building, but his world, with all its minutiae, immersed me.

A note to aspiring writers - don’t read this book; it‘ll make you loathe your unimaginative, bland phrases.

The setting lives from the very first pages. It feels real, and dynamic. It changes and affects the characters in the story. It‘s a prime example of a powerfully portrayed city that seems to have a life of its own. I sincerely hope I’ll never visit Guerdom, though. I still have a long TBR list and things to do in life and I wouldn’t last five minutes there. Check this description of one of the city’s hidden places (it gives a good example of the setting and Hanrahan’s prose):

Pipes hiss and gurgle like the intestines of a flayed man. The air is hot and thick with fumes. Through portholes lined with green-tinted glass, she can spy on the things growing inside the vats - embryonic Gullheads, raptequines, disembodied organs. A thing that might be the heart and circulatory system of a man swims past one viewport, like a ghastly jellyfish that squirts blood with every spasm of its artery limbs.


All characters feel realised and three dimensional. Carillon is impulsive, and she acts too fast regularly getting into trouble. Her emotionally charged chapters contrast slightly with other POV’s. although each POV character faces traumatic situations. Take Spar, a Stoneman. He’s dying. His disease will win in the end - there’s no cure. He’ll turn into a stone, but not before he experiences all his joints and organs calcify slowly and painfully. Then we have Rat - a young ghoul who experiences extreme, nauseating transformation.

Secondary characters shine as well. A lovely mentor who’s secretly a manipulative monster, a teleporting boy with insane speed and agility, tallowmen whose minds are a flickering candle flames, burning within the waxy hollow of their skulls captured my imagination. That said, the character I liked most was Aleena - a brutally honest saint who swears like a trooper in an angelic voice (literally - angels speak through her). Hanrahan’s saints don’t remind our saints. They’re deeply traumatised embodiments of divine madness.

I’m sure people will speak about Gutter Prayer in years to come. I suspect it’ll divide the audience a bit. A casual fantasy reader may feel lost in the plot for a significant part of the book. Hanrahan’s distinct, rich writing style won’t appeal to everyone. But it did work for me. A brilliant, imaginative debut. Absolutely worth the read and insanely good.

I am really enjoying being brave with inserting new genres into my reading mix. This is my first proper foray into the world of fantasy and boy, if this is an example of what I have been missing, then I feel quite ashamed as I had a brilliant time reading it.
We follow three thieves as they execute a heist. Carillon (Cari) is an orphan who has lost her way in the word due to a family tragedy, Rat is a ghoul, a strange creature whose people populate the underworld, and Spar who is suffering from a leprosy-type disease which is slowly turning him to stone, his only saving grace coming from regular injections which slow the process and constant movement keeping him going. Brought together through circumstance, they have become friends and rely on each other. But during the heist something strange happens and they get caught in something bad. One manages to flee but the other two are captured. And so begins a fantastic tale of good and bad, dark and light as there are those who want to bring evil back into the world. Can our threesome reunite to fight the good fight and will Cari figure out her destiny in time to save what is left of humanity?
This book is jam packed full of what, to me anyway, are some brilliantly imagined characters, good, evil and somewhere in between. I especially loved the tallowmen and worm creatures, but I will leave you to experience them first hand rather than trying to describe them. Having not read much fantasy in the past, and definitely not anything like this book, I was stunned by the world that the author has created and indeed populated. It really didn't take me any time at all to fully immerse myself into both the world and what was going on therein. The author did take weird to the extreme with everything he kept throwing at me and I couldn't help but savour every single morsel. I am simply stunned at the imagination that went into crafting all the magic, mayhem and mysticism that went into the relatively complex but easy to follow plot.
It helped, I guess, that I really took to the three heroes right from the off. Cari has a bit of a past but is trying to get on in the world in which she finds herself. She is a bit complex but a very well crafted characters that I found easy to get to know and like. Oh how I felt for Spar every step of the way with what he was going through personally without all the rest of the shenanigans that were subsequently thrown at him. And Rat, well, Rat is just Rat. A ghoul who lives a life unlike any other I have ever come across, parts of which had me squirming but is just how it is.
The action came thick and fast as I was introduced to more strange and enticing characters to get to grips with. The story weaving its way around these characters with all playing their parts to perfection along the way until it finally reaches what I can only assume is just the end of part one with more to follow. You'd think a relative newbie to the genre like me would have been overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of magical, fantastical, and, quite frankly, bonkers things that happen in the book but, even considering the high page count, I never at any point felt overwhelmed or bogged down by it all. On the contrary, I loved every single moment of it. So much so that I really do need the follow up book now please!
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

ARC provided by the publisher—Orbit— in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t think it’s too soon for me to say that The Gutter Prayer will be the best fantasy debut of 2019.

I have been anticipating this book ever since I first laid my eyes upon the gorgeous cover art by Richard Anderson. You see, I have this perception that any fantasy book with Richard Anderson’s art gracing its cover will most likely reflect that beauty with amazing content inside; once again I was proven right. In my opinion, Orbit is one of the best modern fantasy publishers these days. This is even more evident if we’re speaking about debuts released over the past two years, such as Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames and Age of Assassins by R.J. Barker. The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s has strengthened that notion.

I haven’t read a dark fantasy novel as original and riveting as The Gutter Prayer since Michael Fletcher’s Manifest Delusions. I’m serious, this is a must read for every dark fantasy enthusiast. The only other form of escapism I can think of that’s similar to this triumphant book is the critically acclaimed video game, Bloodborne. The main plot of the book revolves around a group of three young thieves as they are involuntarily caught in an ancient magical war between gods, monsters, ghouls, worm-men, Tallowmen, and sorcerers. As you can probably guess from terms like worm-man and Tallowman, this book was freaking bizarre, twisted, and insane in fantastic ways. Hanrahan’s imagination is a sacred blessing for the fantasy genre and I demand more fantasy books as original as this one. The prologue was immediately intriguing, and from there the book relentlessly elevates itself to a phenomenal level of quality by making sure every element for a great fantasy was offered within each new chapter.

“Change is simultaneously a fast and a slow process. The great forces of history are slow-moving and unnoticed by those surrounded by them, visible only in hindsight where they appear inevitable.”

Unpredictable and incredibly well-told story aside, the characters were fascinatingly original. The main characters, Carillon, Rat the Ghoul, and Spar the Stone Man, have a dynamic and interesting friendship going on between them. Like many great SFF authors, Hanrahan imbued life into the naming of the characters. It did take me more or less 100 pages to fully warm up to the characters, as there was a bit of a learning curve in the beginning; readers were immediately put into a chaotic situation and had to make sense of things along the way. If you find yourself a bit confused, I strongly suggest being patient. This book is superbly rewarding and totally worth finishing. Once I made it through the first 100 pages, I realized that I had become invested in both the main and side characters, and was genuinely curious about their fates; the three young thieves in particular really stole my heart.

As much as I loved the characters, IF I had to choose one favorite aspect from this book I would personally choose the world-building, which is something rare for me because I usually prioritize characterizations over everything else, but this novel is a special case. I loved how efficiently, intricately, and effectively the world-building was presented. However, it was the sheer originality regarding the creation of the world in this book that completely awed me. Gods, catastrophic alchemical weaponry, divine and terrifying monstrosities, saints, humans, ghouls, and eldritch horrors filled these pages exceptionally. Plus, the rich history and lore of the city of Guerdon made the world feel fully realized and vividly constructed. The City of Guerdon was not just a simple setting, but was almost as an additional and crucial character around which every great factor of the book revolved. There’s still so much I want to talk about regarding the world-building but I really have to stop. Trust me, it will be exponentially better for you to read Hanrahan’s terrific vision without knowing anything about it, as I did.

“But there are moments when things can change, when the forces balance and it’s possible for people – individual people – to make a big difference. To – realign things. Remake the world.”

You don’t have to worry about the book having a weak conclusion. Satisfying and rewarding ending aside, the blasting final action scenes were an absolute masterwork that cemented the novel into 5-star territory with finesse. Both world-building and pulse-pounding action worked harmoniously to create unputdownable, cataclysmic scenes in the last 100 pages of the book. There was so much chaos going on and yet they were miraculously easy to follow. It was during this final section that I started thinking of the author as a mad genius. Hanrahan painted breathtaking scenes of Armageddon with a blazing lance that pierced through my fortress of empathy. I also felt that the voices in my reality were muted by the descending avatar of God's wrath that inflicted devastating calamity with palpable tensions. Honestly speaking, the final brutal action sequences of this book could’ve even worked as the final battle of the series itself if the author had chosen. I have no doubt that the explosive hurricane of malevolence and the conflagration of light in the city of Guerdon will give readers a wild and unforgettable experience.

This was all possible because Hanrahan is an immensely gifted writer. The book was told in multi third-person perspective in the present tense and his prose absolutely didn’t feel like something produced by a debut author; it was rich in quality and extremely well-written. Seriously, most of the passages and sentences he came up with were simplistically written and yet conjured impactful, evocative, and vivid imagery. Here’s a little passage from the first page of the novel so you can get a tiny glimpse of what I’m talking about:

“From here, you see the heart of the old city, its palaces and churches and towers reaching up like the hands of a man drowning, trying to break free of the warren of alley ways and hovels that surrounds them.”

How awesome is that? I’ve never read any author described a skyscraper as the hands of a man drowning and I thought it conveyed a clear image and vision of what kind of book readers are getting into right from the start. If you’re experiencing fantasy fatigue because you feel like most books in the genre is starting to feel too familiar, this book shall be your ambrosia. It was perpetually earth-shattering and it provided a healthy injection of escapist euphoria when I needed a full dose.

I’m going to close my review here by saying that The Gutter Prayer is mind-blowingly stellar in every respect; full of seductive creativity, marvelously intelligent, innovative, and frankly revolutionary. This dark and enchanting debut contained no shortage of alluring madness and wondrous imagination that manifests itself gloriously within the pages. Fantasy readers, be wise and buy this book, because there’s simply nothing like it. It worked incredibly well as a standalone, but anyone who’ve read it will know that THIS IS NOT THE LAST installment and I absolutely can’t wait for the sequel. With this superlative debut, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan has established himself as the newest virtuoso to enter the pantheon of fantasy greats. I envision that The Gutter Prayer will not only win many readers’ hearts but also win multiple fantasy awards in the near future. Yes, it was THAT good. Read it. Thank me later.