City of Dreams and Nightmare
Ratings1
Average rating4
15
Ratings1
Average rating4
THEY CALL IT "THE CITY OF A HUNDRED ROWS". The ancient city of Thaiburley is a vast, multi-tiered metropolis. The poor live in the City Below and demons are said to dwell in the Upper Heights. Having witnessed a murder in a part of the city he should never have been in, street thief Tom has to run for his life. Down through the vast city he is pursued by sky-borne assassins, sinister Kite Guards, and agents of a darker force intent on destabilising the whole city. His only ally is Kat, a renegade like him, but she has secrets of her own... File Under: Fantasy [ Towering City
Series
3 primary booksCity of a Hundred Rows is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2010 with contributions by Ian Whates.
Reviews with the most likes.
Pros: slow paced, intricate plot, disparate stories draw together into tight conclusion, mystery, enough action to retain interest, nifty characters and history, well told
Cons: hard to picture (purposely sparse details)
Tom, a street-nick from the City Below has illegally climbed to the heights of the City of a Hundred Rows, Thaiburley. There, he witnesses a murder and evades the capture of Kite Guard Tylus.
Tasked with finding the boy, Tylus heads to the lowest level, where trouble is brewing among the street-nicks. Meanwhile, Tom, trying to return to his home turf, is hunted by numerous things.
The city is intricately designed, from each Row having a separate purpose (one for merchants, one for bakers, etc.), to the limited technology employed by the inhabitants and the alien ‘flatheads' (aka: Jeradine) and the caste systems (councillors, Arkademics, swarbs, merchants, street-nicks) and the posturing among the Kite and regular Guards.
Despite the complexity of the city and its players there's no real info dumping. Characters comment on and think about their world in wholly natural ways.
The story unfolds slowly with a mix of action and exploration - as Tylus goes to the City Below for the first time and as Tom travels down the levels and through territory he's never been to before on his own level.
The characters are interesting and complex, drawing you along during those rare quiet moments. And when things with the street-nicks begin to get interesting, all the plot lines tie up well - with a few left open for the sequel.
My only complaint - and I use the word loosely - is that, because you only get descriptions via the characters, it's hard to get an overall picture of Thaiburley. It's huge and carved out of a mountain and I suspect the author left parts of it to the reader's imagination in order to emphasize its strangeness and size.
