The Shadow Saint

I loved The Gutter Prayer, the first book of The Black Iron Legacy and when I found out that there was going to be another, I was sooo excited, I bought it immediately when it came out. I put it on my shelf of must reads and finally got around to it. I don't think that I am going to go into the plot that much as there are countless reviews that are going to do that, but I will put some points to the story in, so that there is a point of reference.I have got to say that I found this book a bit hard going initially. I think the constant changes to the perspectives of the different characters made it a bit difficult to get into at first and I found it a bit slow. And then, without me noticing it, the book suddenly ramps up when certain events happen and all of a sudden I was flying through the bookWhen I think of this book I have got mixed feelings about this book. Initially, I was thinking that I simply wasn't enjoying it, but then a weird thing happened and I realised that I was. Is it as good as The Gutter Prayer? Do you know I think it is. I mean, there are loads of things that I like in this book. I really liked the character of Eladora and how she grew with the book. I've got to say, that at the beginning of the book I found her pretty annoying, but I think that she was supposed to be that way. And that is another thing! It is the normal practice for our main character to grow over the series of books, but Garth Hanrahan thinks sod that, I ‘m just going to introduce three new characters and bugger the other lot. They can make an appearance but hey there you go. I do like how he plays with fantasy tropes. I mean there's dragons, the return of the king, gods, mad gods and a magic sword, but not as you have seen them before. And I have got to mention the main character in the story, Guerdon. I think that the world that Hanrahan has built is done extremely well is to set the story in this world. It is something that is quite unique. It kind of mixes Victorian London, with steampunk, something completely weird and some HP Lovecraft. When I read the Gutter Prayer, I said that in some ways this reminds me of William Gibson, and that still holds for me. I mean, I know that he wrote sci fi, but he created fantastical worlds that were different and yet so familiar. For me this happens a lot in these books.Right, I am going to have a major gripe about something else though that is not directed at the author, but at the proof reading level. The ebook that I had was pretty shocking in its lack of proofreading and there were spelling mistakes all over the shop. At one point, I got really confused due to the fact that there were constant changes in the word aethergraph and aetherglyph. This seemed to interchangeable at some poimts.So, did I enjoy the book. Yes, I did [b:The Shadow Saint 40541565 The Shadow Saint (The Black Iron Legacy, #2) Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554889265l/40541565.SY75.jpg 62946618]

Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan continues much where he left off with the Gutter Prayer. The Shadow Saint continues our exploration of the wildly inventive steampunk fantasy that was introduced in The Gutter Prayer. This is a world where modern marvels create dangerous weapons and advanced transportation, but at the same time gods battle each other with their saints walking as avatars of their power across the world.

The Shadow Saint takes us a bit more outside of Guerdon, the main city that was the focus of the first book and introduces the empire of Old Haith (a land of necromancy) into the mix along with bringing the Godswar closer to the shores and even into the city.

The real star of the show here is just the sheer inventiveness of Gareth's mind. He is able to conjure the madness of gods into a world with steampunk sensibilities which creates this phenomenal melting pot of chaos. The addition of Haith, with its staid respect for history (which makes sense for a country where death is not the end), adds new layers to the world.

The Shadow Saint also manages to move us into a whole new set of viewpoints, yet the references to the viewpoints from the first book pervade and give the sense of continuity needed. The action starts up pretty close to the end of the previous book adding to that sense of continuity.

The Gutter Prayer remains one of the best debut novels I have read recently and this follow up is a worthy successor that adds further intrigue to the world.