REVIEW: SMOKE AND STONE, BY MICHAEL R. FLETCHER
SMOKE AND STONE by MICHAEL R. FLETCHER
★★★★★ (4.5 stars)
Michael Fletcher has been on my radar since Beyond Redemption. The idea of the first series I heard of, Manifest Delusions - where the maddest among us have the great capacity for magic - blew me away with its novelty. But I gave the novel the most cursory of tries, and when the first chapter didn’t capture me, I drifted into other books in my TBR pile.
I’m glad I came back around to give him another try.
Smoke and Stone, one of Fletcher’s latest novels, has everything I love - gods, grit, and damned good characters.
Before I continue, the blurb:
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After a cataclysmic war of the gods, the last of humanity huddles in Bastion, a colossal ringed city. Beyond the outermost wall lies endless desert haunted by the souls of all the world’s dead.
Trapped in a rigid caste system, Nuru, a young street sorcerer, lives in the outer ring. She dreams of escape and freedom. When something contacts her from beyond the wall, she risks everything and leaps at the opportunity. Mother Death, a banished god seeking to reclaim her place in Bastion’s patchwork pantheon, has found her way back into the city.
Akachi, born to the wealth and splendour of Bastion’s inner rings, is a priest of Cloud Serpent, Lord of the Hunt. A temple-trained sorcerer, he is tasked with bringing peace to the troublesome outer ring. Drawn into a dark and violent world of assassins, gangs, and street sorcerers, he battles the spreading influence of Mother Death in a desperate attempt to save Bastion.
The gods are once again at war.
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CHARACTERS
Nuru and Akachi made for two fantastic and differing protagonists. In Akachi, we see Bastion, the vast Egyptian-like city in which the novel takes place, as the upper-class does, perfect in its design and purpose - though the cracks are showing. A priest-in-training, he is full of idealism and youthful desire to prove himself, most especially to a disapproving father, a naivety that, of course, does not go unpunished.
Nuru, on the other hand, shows Bastion as it actually is in the furthest part ring of Bastion, the Growers’ Ring. Life is brutal and short for Growers, or “Dirts” as they’re derogatorily called, and completely devoid of hope. All any of them have is each other. But from this hopeless rises an indomitable desperation that compels me to sympathize with her, even with all the blood that stains her and her companions’ hands.
While I enjoyed the journey with the main characters, the cast of side characters also shone, particularly Nuru’s sociopathic companion.
PLOT
While there was a bit of a saggy middle for me, in general, the plot was riveting and pulled me to turn the page again and again. And while I saw the ending coming from a ways away, it still wound up being satisfying.
SETTING
Bastion, the massive city of countless souls, is vividly imagined and fascinating to explore. While we only touch a small part of it, what we see leaves me wanting to know more. What do the other rings look like, and in particular, the center? I’ll be interested to see how it all develops.
Another shining part of the worldbuilding is the use of narcotics in sorcery, which carries exactly the risks and side-effects you’d expect. Yet another idea I wish I’d come up with first!
IN SUM
If you’re into grimdark fantasy, I’d absolutely recommend Smoke and Stone. But if you’re into lighter reads, look elsewhere. This book is unrelenting, and while it stopped short of soul-crushing, it’s certainly no walk in the park! But all good fiction should leave you changed and thinking about it afterward, and that has definitely been the case for me with my first foray into Michael Fletcher’s fiction.