Tom Pollock (1)Críticas

Not for me but I think other reader's would enjoy the story more especially if you a fan of Neil Gaiman add a couple of stars if you are.

This was an impulse grab from the library and I am so glad I picked it up. A fast paced, intriguing and shocking YA novel, that leaves you guessing up to and including the very last sentence.

A fantasticly twisted read. just when you think you've figured out what's happening, you learn something that changes your perspective on what you thought had happened.

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I previously read the first book of this series, The City’s Son, back in April and I really enjoyed it. It reminded me of a YA version of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. So, when I was approached to review the sequel, I was extremely excited! I wanted to know how the story continued for Beth without Fil, and how Pen was able to piece her life back together. Let me tell you, The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock completely BLOWS the first book out of the water. It was such an exciting read that really added so much depth to a character that wasn’t really looked into that much in the first book of the trilogy. We get to look at a new facet of this amazing world Pollock has created and the story itself is wonderful!

When we ended The City’s Son, Fil had been reborn as a pavement priest with no memory of his past life, or of Beth, who had seemingly taken his place as the child of Mater Viae. Beth’s best friend Pen, meanwhile, was recovering from her horrific barbed wire and brainwashing attack, as well as her sexual assault. In The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock, the story switches its focus away from the recently fought war, and away from Beth (mostly), to focus on Pen. This was such a brave act by Pollock as having to go write about Pen’s PTSD is something extremely difficult, yet he managed to do so quite well. Her reaction to what she endured seemed real, and her desire to cling to her mirror-sister Parva, while at the same time keeping her best friend Beth at arm’s length, all make perfect sense for someone who endured what she did. So, when Pen decides to travel to London-Under-Glass on her own to investigate her mirror-sister’s disappearance, it comes as no surprise. She needs to prove to herself she can do it on her own. And mostly, she does. What I especially loved was that my hunch on her sexual preferences from the first novel were seemingly confirmed here in the second (yay!)

The pacing, which was an issue in the first novel, was flawless in this novel. It read quickly, and every single chapter and passage held purpose. Pollock continued to build upon the world he created in the first novel, but does it through the story this time, which worked extremely well. Beth’s tiny side story is great and leaves me excited for the final story of the trilogy, Our Lady of the Streets. The ending this time was well deserved and yet, still had me frustrated because I WANTED IT TO CONTINUE! I didn’t want to stop reading, which is a great thing to say of a book.

If you’ve read The City’s Son and enjoyed it, then you definitely need to pick up The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock. It takes what was introduced in the first novel and just builds so beautifully upon it without breaking pace or story. Cannot wait for the last book of the trilogy!

// I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this title. //

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Three and a half stars

Starting with a strong burst of excitement, The City's Son by Tom Pollock immediately places the reader in Filius Viae's London -- a dirty, yet fantastical London where nothing is as it seems. The characters each feel individual, Beth is as different as Pen is as different as Electra is as different as Petris etc. Pollock excels at creating unique, fleshed out characters and cultures, if you will. The main story is solid, a war brewing between old and new London, if you will; between the growing need for industry and the nostalgia for simpler, more organic times.

The various groups of Viae's London are all pretty distinct. The eternally punished gravestones are bitter of all that aren't encased in stone, and for good reason. Their fated eternity of torture keeps their brotherhood tight and their outlook on life bleak. Even still, they take comfort with one another. Then there's the mirrorstocracy, snooty blue bloods that focus solely on appearances, which makes sense as they are living reflections.
Something really great that Pollock does is create a strong female-female relationship with BFFs Pen and Beth. There's no female jealousy or competition. Both accept the other as they are. Both have their own strengths, their own minds. It's amazing to see that in a YA book. Especially since Pen is of Pakistani descent with what seem to be traditional parents. It's great to see a bit of representation and have that representation not be the sole defining feature of a character.

Where The City's Son falters, however, is in its pacing and attempt to do too much too fast. There are various points in the book where you might just find yourself bored. Then, there are times when there is so much action or story building that you have to take a breath. There isn't a balance. This might have to do with Pollock trying to introduce too much, as though he wasn't confident enough in the main story to focus on that. Instead, we have the side story of Pen and her professor, Beth and her father, Filius/Electra/Beth, etc. If this were a longer book, perhaps all of these stories would have mattered, but as it stands, we didn't need them to further the story. In fact, they served as a distraction to the main conflict instead of building momentum towards the climax.

Then, we get to the end, and I must say, I was really surprised! What Pollock did was pretty brave and I half expected a last minute "miracle" to change things up. When that didn't happen, and a major secret was revealed, I felt shocked, a little happy, and a bit cheated. Happy because Pollock seemed to stand by his decision, shocked because the ending came out of nowhere, cheated because the ending seemed unearned. There had been nothing in the novel that would lead you to reach the conclusion we ended at.
The City's Son by Tom Pollock, through all of its faults and merits, is a good, fun YA book that feels like a solid start to an interesting series reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

// I received this title for free in exchange for an honest review //

A fresh fantasy sent in London. Brimming with new ideas and a few twists.

There were a few ways this book just didn't quite work for me (that possibly say more about me than the book). It's clearly YA, despite its occasional spates of filthy language - all its protagonists are teenagers, and though it does sliiiiightly better than a teen movie at having the adults either absent or evil, it's still pretty notable. It's constructed in a pretty simplistic manner, a linear plot following two protags with frills of ancillary stuff. And its anthropomorphising of various urban elements are fairly straightforward - things talk and think. It's a little like dancing teapots or fairies at the bottom of the alleyway, urban style.

It's very readable, fairly nicely phrased, with characters who go through good challenges and growth, but I just found myself nigh constantly wishing for more depth, more complexity, more exploration of the ancillary stuff, more transcendentally creative concepts in bringing London to eerie, gritty life. Basically, I spent most of this book wanting to re-read Kate Griffin's Madness of Angels, which is unfortunate and probably not in any way Mr Pollock's fault.

So, I received this book from NetGalley for review without realizing that this was a sequel. Nonetheless, despite being a bit confused in the beginning, I was fascinated by this world that Pollock has created. It's different than anything that I've read before, and it's inclusive in a way that many books in this genre aren't.

"Pen" Khan is used to holding secrets, especially since she and her best friend Beth discovered the secret monsters that inhabited London. The only person who truly understands is Pen's mirror-sister Parva, who inhabits the world on the other side of the mirror, London-Under-Glass. When her sister mysteriously disappears, Pen goes into London-Under-Glass to find her, but there are people there who would do anything to keep Pen from finding her mirror-sister and ruining their fragile power.

Where do I even start with this book. Not only was I amazed and fascinated by the world that Pollock creates, a world that is the reflection of the real world (and includes intricate details I wouldn't even think about), but Pollock also created characters that are absolutely unforgettable. I may not have had the backstory necessary to completely understand what was going on, but I was still drawn to Pen's story, so much so that I definitely want to find the first book and figure out how she got all of her scars.

The other thing that is absolutely amazing about this book is its inclusion of diversity. Pen is a practicing Muslim (as least, that's what I gathered), but it's not all that defines her. For this genre, that is almost unheard of. If you're interested in a detailed, intricate urban fantasy, you definitely found it in Tom Pollock's book.

Peter and Bel are twins, yet as different as can be. Peter, a math genius, suffers from panic attacks, and Bel, his protector, is bold. When his neurobiologist mother is attacked at an awards dinner, Peter finds out about her secret life as part of a spy agency and realizes that he and his sister are more than what he thought, and that they are in danger themselves. Unfortunately, Peter is not a reliable narrator and must overcome his own nature and illusions to survive.

Goodreads Synopsis:

A YA thriller described as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time meets John le Carré, about a teen math prodigy with an extreme anxiety disorder who finds himself caught in a web of lies and conspiracies after an assassination attempt on his mother.

Seventeen-year-old Peter Blankman is a math genius who suffers from an extreme anxiety disorder, one that subjects him to intense panic attacks. He only manages to get through his daily life with the constant help of his scientist mom and his beloved twin sister, Bel. But when their mother is nearly assassinated in front of their eyes--during a major awards ceremony in her honor--Pete finds himself separated from Bel, alone, and on the run.

Dragged into a strange world where state and family secrets intertwine, Pete has to use his extraordinary analytical skills to find his missing sister, uncover the mystery of his mother's life's work, and track down the people who attacked her--all the while fighting to keep a grip on the fear response that threatens to overwhelm him. Weaving back and forth between his past and present, the novel is an extraodinary testimonial from a protagonist who is brilliant, broken, and trying to be brave.

My Review:

In all honesty, I was expecting to really enjoy reading this book. I liked the cover, and the description made it sound exciting and thrilling.

Check out the rest of my review here!

https://radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com/2018/08/07/this-story-is-a-lie-by-t...

I wanted to love this, but it was a struggle. The first chapter was jarring, it was frustrating to follow, and from the beginning I couldn't get into it. Nearly halfway through the book, there didn't seem to be any driving force behind the story beyond the hazy "assassination" twist and "I have severe anxiety/paranoid delusions/who knows wtf else." It felt like a concept for a story being forced into becoming an entire plot. There wasn't any real character development, no opportunity to connect to anyone in the story, and the assassination attempt and ensuing drama felt forced.

I know it's a psychological thriller, and it may have been by design that it was never clear what was going on--after all, that's how the main character feels a lot of the time, so why not put your readers in his shoes. I can appreciate the attempt, but I'm not a fan of spending an entire book in the dark like that. Then there was the inclusion of his father as a looming threat, even after it became clear the dad had nothing to do with what was happening. At first I wondered whether he might crop up, but it seemed in the end to be nothing more than a way to incorporate punishing domestic violence perpetrators into the story, I guess so Bel could be a monster but not that much of a monster. Again, it felt forced. Ultimately, while I find the concept for this story intriguing, the execution was a bit too hazy for my tastes.

Ok. Decent story line and interesting characters. The story is fast-paced and you really do want to see what's going to happen next. I will read the next book in the series so it was good enough to hold my interest!

It's a good end to the series. Beth is being drawn into the centre of the city, where the focus of the changes to the city are, where things are colliding and where the end of the battles are going to happen, Pen is still trying to save her and still trying to find a space for herself and to make sense of the world, everything these two girls do will change London and possibly the world, a possibly the mirror universe too.

Interesting but it was a while ago that I read it and details aren't clear.½

Starting with a strong burst of excitement, The City’s Son by Tom Pollock immediately places the reader in Filius Viae’s London — a dirty, yet fantastical London where nothing is as it seems. The characters each feel individual, Beth is as different as Pen is as different as Electra is as different as Petris etc. Pollock excels at creating unique, fleshed out characters and cultures, if you will. The main story is solid, a war brewing between old and new London, if you will; between the growing need for industry and the nostalgia for simpler, more organic times.

The various groups of Viae’s London are all pretty distinct. The eternally punished gravestones are bitter of all that aren’t encased in stone, and for good reason. Their fated eternity of torture keeps their brotherhood tight and their outlook on life bleak. Even still, they take comfort with one another. Then there’s the mirrorstocracy, snooty blue bloods that focus solely on appearances, which makes sense as they are living reflections.

Something really great that Pollock does is create a strong female-female relationship with BFFs Pen and Beth. There’s no female jealousy or competition. Both accept the other as they are. Both have their own strengths, their own minds. It’s amazing to see that in a YA book. Especially since Pen is of Pakistani descent with what seem to be traditional parents. It’s great to see a bit of representation and have that representation not be the sole defining feature of a character.

Where The City’s Son falters, however, is in its pacing and attempt to do too much too fast. There are various points in the book where you might just find yourself bored. Then, there are times when there is so much action or story building that you have to take a breath. There isn’t a balance. This might have to do with Pollock trying to introduce too much, as though he wasn’t confident enough in the main story to focus on that. Instead, we have the side story of Pen and her professor, Beth and her father, Filius/Electra/Beth, etc. If this were a longer book, perhaps all of these stories would have mattered, but as it stands, we didn’t need them to further the story. In fact, they served as a distraction to the main conflict instead of building momentum towards the climax.

Then, we get to the end, and I must say, I was really surprised! What Pollock did was pretty brave and I half expected a last minute “miracle” to change things up. When that didn’t happen, and a major secret was revealed, I felt shocked, a little happy, and a bit cheated. Happy because Pollock seemed to stand by his decision, shocked because the ending came out of nowhere, cheated because the ending seemed unearned. There had been nothing in the novel that would lead you to reach the conclusion we ended at.

The City’s Son by Tom Pollock, through all of its faults and merits, is a good, fun YA book that feels like a solid start to an interesting series reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.

// I received this title for free in exchange for an honest review //

After Beth is kicked out of school for tagging, she runs away--only to save the life of the prince of the London streets, Filius. Filius is the child and presumed heir of the goddess of London, who mysteriously disappeared seventeen years ago and hasn't been seen or heard from since. He is in the midst of a battle with Reach, the Crane King, for control of London. Excited by the magic of the streets, and with nothing else to do, Beth declares herself his ally. But will her bravery and his powers be enough to defeat a being with an insatiable hunger for destruction?

I wasn't convinced by the fantasy worldbuilding here--I liked some of it, but the light beings just didn't work for me, and overall the descriptions of the various magical tribes of London felt a bit too tangled. I couldn't figure out how all these beings interacted and worked; I wanted there to be more of a sense of the ecosystem of magical London, I guess. The pacing and focus of this book felt off as well, as though the author flung every single issue he wanted to address (grief! betrayal! friendship! molestation! abandonment! loyalty! art! loneliness!) into the book but wasn't thoughtful about how much emphasis to give each part, or how to incorporate it into the overall narrative. I did enjoy parts of this, most particularly Beth's bravery and eventual powers, and her relationship with Pen. And the explanation for the goddess's absence was a great one that I frankly did not see coming. But the battles just didn't work for me as action sequences, and the ending is like fifteen epilogues all crammed one after another.

4.5/5
Egalley thanks to Flux Books
It looks like I'm really rooting for British YA authors these days, doesn't it?

Tom Pollock has a sick and brilliant mind. The City's Son is an overpowering, overwhelming cascade of strong emotions and harsh images, urban jungle and beauty in completely unexpected settings.

I'm in absolute awe the more I'm thinking about this book. So very clever...

The author has taken an old idea - hidden fae court, heir reclaiming his legacy, a common enemy bent on destruction, and outsider tipping the balance... and urbanised it to the max.

Filius is a gray skinned, almost indestructible street urchin who is looked after by his old nanny Gutterglass who constantly assembles himself/herself out of pieces of rubbish, and Pavement priests cursed by the Goddess to keep dying and being reborn within stone statues of London. He dances with street light fae Blankeits and Sodiumites, despises aristocratic fae hidden in glass surfaces of modern buildings and makes dangerous deals with Chemical Synod... all in weak attempts to stop Reach, the king of Cranes from destroying his city, but when he saves Beth, a runaway graffiti artist, from Railway Wrath, everything changes.

Beth takes his battle to heart and inspires him, urges him and his people to fight Reach and his Wire Mistress. But what happens when Beth's best friend, Pen, and Beth's father who try to find the girl get caught up in this war, and Pen is snatched as a host by Wire Mistress?

This book is harsh, gritty, brutal and beautiful at the same time. This is war, and its mindless violence and sudden kills are not whitewashed in any way. People and fae die badly, characters you get used to and sympathise with disappear. It's heart wrenching and bitter, but this bitterness is what makes this all so real.

Excellent characterisation for both main and secondary characters. Filius, Beth, Pen, a wonderfully crazy Russian homeless guy, Victor, - they are all flawed, human, afraid and ready to back down any moment. But despite their weaknesses they all make huge sacrifices to help the cause, and that's why this book is so emotional.

Don't expect a happy ending, instead there is a reassessment of personal strengths and weaknesses, necessity to go on and important lessons learnt.

I'm very much looking forward to the next instalment in the series. Highly recommended.

Didn't quite catch me like the previous one but interesting all the same, you could see where things were being set up for the next story in the sequence. This story is mostly about Pen and her mirror self Parva who goes missing in the mirror world and Pen goes to investigate, which costs her and her family. In the mirror world she finds that the politics is complicated and messy. Meanwhile Beth is trying to come to terms with the changes to herself and her image of herself.

It's a middle book, good, setting up things to come but didn't quite grasp me like the first one did.½

Railwraiths, lightbulb militia, punishment priests, and scaffolding wolves!

Tom Pollock did something marvelous with The City’s Son. He created a populace of people that inhabit a city and yet are made of the city itself! The story has a quick enough pace to have you sitting up and paying attention as the action flings you through the pages.

The details are rich and often disturbing. Pollock has a great descriptive writing style that wasn’t over the top for me. I could visualize the creatures and people of the city but wasn’t so bogged down by flowery details that often annoy me in the way some other authors write. In fact I loved how this was a YA book and yet it was still intense and gritty. Then unexpectedly I would be surprised by a random bit of poetry.

“…you might be the puzzle-piece of me, I’ve never seen.” 3% on the Kindle app

I also have to include this quote below because I found it so romantic in the quirkiest way. It made my heart bleed.

“Do I scare you witless enough to make you brave?” 92% on the Kindle app

The story of The City’s Son sucked me right in and the mystery of it all kept me there. I was immediately taken with Beth and her tough yet vulnerable personality. However, there was a small downside to having so much action – such that shortly after Beth and Filius met I felt like I didn’t get to know Filius as well as I should have. There were quite a few different POV’s that were present, which I always love if done well, and it certainly was!

Absolutely looking forward to the next book!


Review: The City’s Son by Tom Pollock

Posted by Pabkins on Sep 14, 2012 in 4 stars, book review, Pabkin's Reviews, Uncategorized, young adult | 2 comments
The City’s Son (The Skyscraper Throne #1)



The City's Son by Tom Pollock

Running from her traitorous best friend and her estranged father, graffiti artist Beth Bradley is looking for sanctuary. What she finds is Urchin, the ragged and cocky crown prince of London’s mystical underworld. Urchin opens Beth’s eyes to the city she’s never truly seen-where vast spiders crawl telephone wires seeking voices to steal, railwraiths escape their tethers, and statues conceal an ancient priesthood robed in bronze.

But it all teeters on the brink of destruction. Amid rumors that Urchin’s goddess mother will soon return from her 15-year exile, Reach, a malign god of urban decay, wants the young prince dead. Helping Urchin raise an alleyway army to reclaim his skyscraper throne, Beth soon forgets her old life. But when her best friend is captured, Beth must choose between this wondrous existence and the life she left behind.

Railwraiths, lightbulb militia, punishment priests, and scaffolding wolves!

Tom Pollock did something marvelous with The City’s Son. He created a populace of people that inhabit a city and yet are made of the city itself! The story has a quick enough pace to have you sitting up and paying attention as the action flings you through the pages.

The details are rich and often disturbing. Pollock has a great descriptive writing style that wasn’t over the top for me. I could visualize the creatures and people of the city but wasn’t so bogged down by flowery details that often annoy me in the way some other authors write. In fact I loved how this was a YA book and yet it was still intense and gritty. Then unexpectedly I would be surprised by a random bit of poetry.

“…you might be the puzzle-piece of me, I’ve never seen.” 3% on the Kindle app

I also have to include this quote below because I found it so romantic in the quirkiest way. It made my heart bleed.

“Do I scare you witless enough to make you brave?” 92% on the Kindle app

The story of The City’s Son sucked me right in and the mystery of it all kept me there. I was immediately taken with Beth and her tough yet vulnerable personality. However, there was a small downside to having so much action – such that shortly after Beth and Filius met I felt like I didn’t get to know Filius as well as I should have. There were quite a few different POV’s that were present, which I always love if done well, and it certainly was!

Absolutely looking forward to the next book!

*Review Copy provided by Publisher for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
*Quoted text was taken from an advanced reader version and may not be accurate in the final published version.

Umm... the concept of story here is so bizarre that I honestly can't wrap my mind around it. I'm sorry, but I can't go on reading it.

This one took me by surprise in a good way. I was expecting a more mundane story than this one, a story that shares some roots with Neverwhere but then takes some different threads from other stories and makes it it's own.

This is the story of two girls, graffiti artist Beth Bradley, whose father has lost himself in grief over her mother, to the degree that he barely acknowledges her existence. She finds Filius Viae who is the son of the city, with strange skin and a mission to fight against an ancient enemy. He's the crown prince of London and there are stories of the queen but no-one has seen her for ages.

Into the story is also Pen, who is Beth's friend who gets drawn into the story in intersting ways, what starts as a mission to help turns into her being drawn into the whole fight, whether she wants to or not.

I liked the story, interesting and I did like how the friends fell out and refound their friendship, how monetary payment isn't always what's wanted and how a city survives with it's spirit intact. I thought it was going to be a different story, but I didn't realise how different and how satisfying. It came close to being 4 star but it just didn't quite get ther, I'm looking forward to the sequels.½

E-ARC from NetGalley via Flux Books.

Amazing! Brilliant! And incredibly original. This is seriously one of the best YA fantasy books I've read in a long time.

Full review to come closer to release date.

So, on my ongoing quest to read more original and offbeat Young Adult titles, my journey has led me to The City's Son by Tom Pollock. I'd heard great things about this book, along with some descriptions of it that are just way in the realm of the bizarre and uncanny. In other words, it sounded right up my alley.

The novel follows Beth Bradley, a young graffiti artist seeking escape after being sold out by her best friend in an incident that suspends her from school. Her father hasn't been the same ever since Beth's mother died, and hardly even notices what goes on in her life anymore. But just when you think this will be yet another story about an angsty teenager running away from her troubles, this book turns everything on its head.

The fun begins when Beth meets up with the mysterious "Urchin", the cocky pavement-slate-skinned boy who introduces himself as Filius Viae, prince of London's streets and the city's son -- for he claims that the goddess of the city is his mother. What follows next is pure wildness as a whole new world is opened to Beth, one filled with living statues, voice-stealing spiders that crawl along telephone wires, runaway railwraith trains, and beings that live inside streetlamps. As rumors surrounding the goddess' impending return continue to mount, Beth helps Filius rally the troops against Reach, the urban god of decay who is preparing his own return to the city in order to see her new friend dead.

The result of this is a novel that's gritty yet sometimes beautiful, with ideas in here ranging from pure whimsical to just downright terrifying. It's also, to put it mildly, all very strange. At the end of the book, Tom Pollock acknowledges authors like Neil Gaiman and China Mieville as influences, and I can absolutely see that here. Consider Gutterglass, Filius' caretaker who has raised him in his goddess mother's absensce, who sometimes manifests as a pile of city garbage, with egg shells for eyes or discarded pens for fingers, all held together by dirt, bugs and worms. Like I said, whimsical and terrifying.

In the past year, I've read several books that feature the setting so strongly that they may as well have been love letters to their respective cities. But still, there's bringing your city to life and then there's bringing your city to life. Sometimes the world-building is done so well and described so richly that the setting ends up becoming like a character in and of itself, but this book takes personification of urban features to a whole new level. Tom Pollock presents London in a way that will completely blow your mind. I read things in this book I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams. Just the sheer amount of creativity at work here is astounding; I have never read a book like The City's Son.

If anything, the world was so fantastically well done that it ended up taking center stage in my mind, making the characters pale in comparison. Don't get me wrong, both Beth and Fil were great, but they almost felt like the supporting cast in light of my love for this incredible re-imagined version of London. I enjoyed the characters immensely but still didn't feel much for their relationship whenever they were together despite their witty dialogue and banter, because ultimately it was the city along with its many strange denizens that made this book so great in my eyes.

The City's Son was exactly the kind of book I was looking for -- a unique and unconventional YA novel that made me see things in a whole different light. Interestingly, this was also my first experience with a Young Adult title from Jo Fletcher books, and based on their penchant for publishing novels with innovative and just plain cool ideas, I'm honestly not surprised that I enjoyed this as much as I did.

See my review of this book, and many more, at Tales from the Great East Road.


Parva “Pen” Khan has survived a brutal attack from a living mass of barbed wire. Well, if you can call this surviving. Covered in scars all over her body, with a face that people recoil from, Pen is trying to get her normal life back. But it’s not easy: with her best friend Beth turned into a living embodiment of the city of itself, pressure from her fellow classmates to tell them what happened, feeling that her face is no longer her own, and the guilt of causing her parents pain. The only person who understands Pen is Parva, her mirror sister who lives in the reflected city of London-Under-Glass.

But when Parva is kidnapped, Pen knows that she must find her, whatever it takes. Striking a deal with the Chemical Synod, Pen trades her parents’ memories of her for entrance to London-Uner-Glass, where looks are currency and her sister is considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Posing as Parva, Pen is caught in a world of politics and terrorists, where beauty is everything.

The Skyscraper Throne is a series that takes the genre Urban Fantasy to a new level – the city of London literally comes alive in these books. Descriptions of living street lights who communicate by flashing light, Pavement Priests who are trapped in stone, creepy men covered in oil who collect and experiment with human emotions and memories (to name a few), are all fascinating and original, building a truly unique picture of the modern world. The new society of London-Under-Glass introduced in The Glass Republic mirrors and distorts the idea of beauty being connected to self worth that is so prominent in our culture, much like the way the river Themes reflects the city itself. The use of half-faces and the terrorists know as the Faceless are both creepy but sympathetic, showing the flaws in both worlds and our obsession as people with looks. But as great as the world build is, it is nothing when compared to the characters, especially the protagonist Pen.

It’s great to see the return of Beth, the hero of the first book The City’s Son, who is still just as brilliant. Her change into a daughter of the streets continues and her struggles with this transition, and the sacrifices made by Fil, the boy she loved, are realistic and moving. There is the introduction of another great character, Espel, a steeplejill with half a true face and half a mirror. She is in many ways Pen’s opposite, a beautiful girl who braves the hights of the skyscrapers in London-Under-Glass to clear it of raining brick and concrete in an almost reckless way, but she shares a lot of the same fears and self doubts as Pen. Then there is Pen herself – a character so raw with pain, anger, and fear, but so willing to throw her own safety to the wind to save the people she loves. Her struggles made me want to cry: watching her fight for a normal life any way she can whilst living with a ruined face, bullying from her schoolmates, and knowing that the teacher who abused her may be going free. All this doesn’t stop her, as she just keeps telling herself that “It’s still all you, Pen” – and it is. Pen is a truly amazing character, who does gain back part of her control over her body after her trauma. I love Pen with a passion.

The reason I’ve rated The Glass Republic 4.5 and not 5 stars? The cliffhanger ending was completely unexpected and shocked me, as I didn’t realise this series was in fact a trilogy. Waiting for the next book may actually kill me! What else can I say but read it, and read it now.

4.5 stars.

I love stories about the underbelly of London--not a criminal underbelly but the weird side, the supernatural side, the dark and hidden secret things and places that exist parallel our known world. (I would love stories about the underbellies of other cities too, but somehow it's usually London.) This one is very reminiscent of Miéville, though a little less weird and with its own distinctive voice (in some places more than others).

There's something about it that didn't quite sweep me along, and I didn't always buy the character interactions, but at the same time there were a lot of compelling moments and I was really captured by the ending. So definitely a win overall.

Tom Pollock’s The City’s Son is a delight. Nominally aimed at the young adult market, I think all you have to be is young at heart to appreciate this beautifully written, cleverly constructed tale of a city whose very fabric is alive and vital – a city of sodium-light dancers and tower-crane demons and the ghosts of trains, a city where the Pavement Priests are made of stone and bronze and the Mirrorstocracy are, quite literally, no more than reflections of former glory. Into it stumbles graffiti artist Beth Bradley, fleeing tragedy at home and trouble at school, only to find herself in the company of Filius Viae, abandoned son of the city’s absent Goddess. Together Fil and Beth must find a way to save their city from his mother’s ancient enemy, Reach, the King of the Cranes. And that’s as much of the story as you’re getting from me. All I’ll say is that the outcome isn’t obvious; Pollock, like Mieville, has a fondness for turning tropes on their head. That’s not all he’s got going for him; his characters jump off the page at you, fully realised and recognisable in the space of a few words (not unlike Gaiman, and believe me when I tell you, coming from me that’s very high praise). And like Aaronovitch, the story is full of snarky humour and a palpable love of London.

Are there flaws? Of course there are, but they are few and forgivable. The speed with which Beth’s dad and best friend accept the altered reality in which they find themselves seems a bit unlikely under the circumstances. The friend, Pen, is subjected to horrific ordeals in both Londons but the one in the ‘real’ world, although an inciting event for much that happens later, is pretty much glossed over. And I found myself wondering how the cataclysmic events in the ‘other’ London were perceived and explained in ours, and why the police didn’t seem to be involved in the hunt for two missing teenage girls. In a lesser book these would have been real problems; here they are quibbles. Pollock’s prose flows so beautifully it would disguise far greater sins.

See the rest of this review at: http://stephaniesaulter.com/2012/09/07/the-citys-son-shines/