The Gutter Prayer

The Gutter Prayer

This is a new one on me. I have seen The Gutter Prayer labelled as ‘grimdark meets epic fantasy', but I think that this detracts from the uniqueness of this book.
For me it' s a kind of like Gibsonian in it's outlook and the sprawling metropolis of Guendor, mixed with Neil Gaiman, chuck in a bit of steampunk, add a pinch of Mervyn Peake for spice, blend thoroughly for five minutes and hey presto, you have The Gutter Prayer.
If anyone is coming to this blind like I did, then be prepared for a shock. This is not like any Fantasy book I have read before.
Yes, there are recognisable tropes from the genre, the returning evil that wants to dominate the world, the hero who gains a new power and has to deal with controlling this power and hopefully defeating said bad dude before the whole place goes to shit.
However, in this case, the whole place has gone to shit, what with warring gods who destroy anything in their path, alchemists who transform everything into candle monsters, gullheads or some other insane Frankenstein creation.
This is an interesting book, I have to say. There are some niggles with it. It took me a while to get my head around the use of present tense and, I am not sure if this is anything to do with me reading the electronic version, but there were some jarring editorial slips in Chapter Twelve that made me go,eh?
The writing is very fast paced and instead of patiently holding your hand through the fantasy world building, Hanrahan chucks you in head first and it is a case of sink or swim baby.
The world is vastly different from other fantasy ideas. Gone is the merry clip clopping of horses and welcome to an otherworldly Victorian London.
As I said, I kind of found it very Gibsonian in it's outlook. The city and the writing style reminds me of this very much, and whilst the characters are likeable, at the same time they aren't, which gives them a three dimensional quality rather than your run of the mill fantasy heroes. I loved the character of Aleena, primarily because she reminded me of Neil Gaiman's ‘Angela', which made me adore her.
The main characters were also well rounded, with each of the three characters moving the story along to get where we are going.
Can't wait for the next one.