The brilliant narrative

This is a wonderful book if a little too 'wordy" in places. I mainly started listening because of the always fantastic narration by KHS (Rivers of London!!) but thought the story was brilliant. Im off to listen to the NXT book in the series. Thanks Amazon for putting it in your sale.

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amazing reader

found this to be a very entertaining and well preformed story by the reader.

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1 person found this helpful

ok

This book could of been so much better, started off really good but ending was poor.

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OK but more YA than I expected

Excellent voice performance. The book was OK. I mostly felt that it lacked depth and nuance.

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3 people found this helpful

just yes.

Gothic, glorious and bloody brilliant. made even better by possibly the best male narrator ever.

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2 people found this helpful

Gott ist Tot & the Festivals of Atonement

Gothic fantasy and steampunk-flavoured juvenile delinquency in this acclaimed novel from Alex Pheby (the first in his proposed Cities of the Weft trilogy). One line pitch: it's Oliver Twist meets Gormenghast with Anakin Skywalker as the lead. Although not promoted as a YA novel, this feels solidly in that tradition. Set in the mystically-besieged cityport of Mordew, the story follows our 'chosen one' teenage hero, Nathan, on his journey from slum-dwelling child of a penitent ex-warlock to the upper echelons of the Master's keep and the magical lands beyond the sea. Pheby engages in some serious world-building with Mordew, drawing on numerous influences to set his scene, but doing so with a cohesion and conviction that makes the Protean living mud and vertiginous glass road feel of a piece with the sewers, warehouses and palaces of the decadent, diseased city.
However, if Pheby's scene-setting is excellent, his pacing lets him down. The first act of this enormous novel introduces various political intrigues and a Dickensian narrative arc that sees Nathan fall in with a gang of thieving street urchins whilst his father lies dying and his aristocratic mother is forced into prostitution. This all builds nicely and I wish it had been developed further but then the story switches track for the second act: Nathan's nascent magical abilities suddenly turn full-Jedi and the book transitions into arcane symbolism and dreamlike fantasy. Once the confused Nathan has fallen under the Master's dubious patronage the remainder of the novel plays out with ratcheting jeopardy, flipped expectations, passageway chases and plenty of exposition in readiness for the second instalment. Oh, and the corpse of God lies is in the catacombs beneath the castle, but more on that next time. In other words, this does not resolve itself in a particularly satisfactory manner. Still, there was much to enjoy here, and I will certainly check in with part two.
Of course, what this audiobook really has in its favour is Kobna Holdbrook-Smith on narration duties. Holdbrook-Smith still has all the good will in the world from his work on the Peter Grant books and he doesn't drop the ball here, giving an excellent performance up to his usual high standards (even in the scene with the elefanges, which no one is going to like).

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Too long, too messy, some potential.

Kobna kept me going. There is no way I would have bothered finishing this meandering tale if it hadn’t been for the superb narration of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. Yes, it was intelligently written but it just tried to do too much in terms of plot. Yes, it was full of ideas - too full. Alex Pheby definitely has an excellent imagination but, I suspect, it needed a good editor and some self-discipline.

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Kobna magnificent as always

The narration is perfect as always. Kobna does an excellent job.

The story… I found it hard to follow and fairly dull. I read wanted to enjoy it but it’s just so slow and tedious.

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Brilliant narration, avoid spoilers!

Ultimately I finished this and will probably now move on to the sequel so I can't exactly complain. I'm going to complain (a little) though because it didn't quite feel the book I wanted it to be despite the outstanding narration.

Whoever you do, don't read the blurb on the sequel either as it gives a MASSIVE spoiler to this book. I made that mistake and spent the entire book knowing something crucial about the ending and that was just from one accidental glance at a blurb.

As I say, on the one hand I found the whole thing 'not quite' but I also finished it and plan the sequel so it must be okay.

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2 people found this helpful

Dark, desolate, epic

Dark, desolate, epic and beautiful. Twisting turning plot filled with both likeable and vile characters. Detailed descriptions bring the whole map alive, right down to the filth of the living mud.
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is one of my favourite narrators and as always he brings the characters to life.
Mordew is now one of my favourite books.
Looking forward to the sequel.

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3 people found this helpful