Review: Our Lady of the Streets by Tom Pollock

Ever since Beth Bradley found her way into a hidden London, the presence of its ruthless goddess, Mater Viae, has lurked in the background. Now Mater Viae has returned with deadly consequences.

Streets are wracked by convulsions as muscles of wire and pipe go into spasm, bunching the city into a crippled new geography; pavements flare to thousand-degree fevers, incinerating pedestrians; and towers fall, their foundations decayed.

As the city sickens, so does Beth - her essence now part of this secret London. But when it is revealed that Mater Viae's plans for dominion stretch far beyond the borders of the city, Beth must make a choice: flee, or sacrifice her city in order to save it.

Warning: this book could seriously damage your holiday. At least, it very nearly did that to mine. My wife and I recently spent a week in Scotland. Obviously, therefore, it wasn't a beach holiday with plenty of time to lounge around and do nothing but read. We were going to do stuff. And then I made the mistake of starting to read Our Lady of the Streets, one of my most anticipated books of 2014. And instead of travelling from Fort William to Mallaig on the Jacobite steam train (over the Harry Potter viaduct!), I found myself wanting to stay inside and read. Instead of driving up to Loch Ness, I desperately needed to stay in our apartment to continue reading. The small amount of time at night and in the morning before doing stuff just wasn't enough for this book. It demanded more. It demanded uninterrupted, quality time. And so I did something I rarely ever do - I put it aside and read something else. And then when I got back home from Scotland I picked it up and started reading it from the beginning.

I've waxed lyrical about how great the previous two books in this trilogy are in previous reviews, and I had incredibly high hopes for this one. However, in recent months there have been mutterings amongst some of the UK bloggers about how they are becoming fed up with trilogies because so often the all important third book turns out to be a huge disappointment. This is most definitely not the case with Our Lady of the Streets: it is everything I wanted and hoped for from the final book in The Skyscraper Throne trilogy. In short, it is bloody brilliant!

Please do not read on if you haven't read the previous two books as there are likely to be a few spoilers. Pen and Beth have been reunited following Pen's adventures in London-Under-Glass. However, Pen isn't the only 'person' to have come back to our world from the other side of a mirror: Mater Viae's reflected version has also crossed over and she is bitter and out for vengeance. The story picks ups some time after the close of The Glass Republic and London is already cut off from the rest of the country. Fever streets, Blank Streets, claylings, Sewermanders have all combined under the control of Mater Viae to kill and destroy. And Beth feels almost powerless to help as she herself is sick and possibly dying, along with the city that gives her life and power. 

Fortunately Beth has Pen at her aside, a girl who is almost as unrecognisable as Beth, in comparison to the two friends we were introduced to at the beginning of The City's Son. Yet where the changes in Beth are obvious, for Pen, apart from her scars, it is the inside that has changed the most. Although desperately missing Espel, who is still fighting battles in London-Under-Glass, Pen is stronger and braver than ever before, and she almost edges Beth aside to become the main character of this final piece. Over the course of this book and it's predecessor, Pen has very quickly become one of my all-time favourite heroines from literature.

Our Lady of the Streets is at times a pretty brutal read. Tom Pollock, as he has shown previously, is not afraid to make his characters suffer, and sometimes pay the ultimate price, and so when things seem particularly bleak for Beth and her rapidly diminishing band of survivors, we really do not know who will make it through to the end of the book. Our Lady of the Streets is therefore bound to be an emotional rollercoaster of a read for some, and I am sure that there will be more than a few tears shed by readers at times.

This trilogy is a remarkable achievement for Tom Pollock, especially given that The City's Son was his debut. He writes like someone who has mastered the craft over many, many years and although I am deeply saddened that Beth and Pen's story has now come to an end I can't but helkp feeling a little excited about whatever Tom Pollock may deliver next. He is certainly in my personal top 5 favourite YA writers of the moment, and probably of all time.

Our Lady of the Streets was published in hardback on August 7th, and my thanks go to the fab people at Jo Fletcher Books for sending me a copy.

The Skyscraper Throne Re-read: The City’s Son, Week 9

Tom Pollock's The City's Son, the first in his Skyscraper Throne trilogy, was my Book of the Year for 2012. The sequel, The Glass Republic, was even better. It should therefore come as no surprise to you that I am really, really looking forward to reading the final book in the trilogy, Our Lady of the Streets, which is due to be published on 7th August.

In order to celebrate the launch of Our Lady of the Streets, Jo Fletcher Books are hosting a reread of the first two books in the series, and I have been an avid follower of the comments made by other reread participants over the past weeks. However, these have also made me very nervous because:

 a) I'm not particularly good when it comes to analytical writing (I did Maths & Science for A Level, a degree in Civil Engineering and have spent the last nineteen years teaching Design and Technology - the last time I truly analysed a text was my O-Level English Lit back in 1987)

b) I really want to do this book justice, and my words seem less than amateurish in comparison to Tom's

So, deep breath, here goes... and please be warned, the very nature of this project means that there will be spoilers aplenty:

Chapter 33

This chapter is the calm before the storm that will be the final battle between Fil's forces of good, and Reach's forces of 'evil', and as readers we can only fear for the worst given the somewhat ragtag nature of Fil's army. It's a little reminiscent of the Ewoks going up the highly trained and well equipped stormtrooper forces of the Empire. You have the Blankleits (aka Whities) acting like excited children, whilst their arch rivals Sodiumites (Amberglows) take themselves off, away from the gathering army, to practise their "war-waltzes". And whilst the foxes and feral dogs engage in a spot of overenthusiastic play fighting, the Pavement Priests wander through the disparate groups, bestowing their blessings. Hell, this lot make the Ewoks look like a crack team of commandos.

Meanwhile, Beth and Fil are taking a breather from this chaos. Fil outlines his rather sketchy plan of attack (whilst supping on his first ever cup of tea), only for Beth to pick holes in it, and pretty big holes they are too. This is Pollock showing us that even at this critical hour Fil, is still far more of an excited teen than he is a leader of an army. How can he possibly lead an army of amateurs to success? 

And then it's the long-awaited sexy time for Beth and Fil, although like the kiss it is interrupted far too prematurely by the announcement of the arrival of Fleet and the Cats. Again, we see Fil desperately searching the skyline for sign of his mother - he really does not want to shoulder this huge responsibility - but "as they stared together into the darkness of Battersea Park, only the darkness looked back."

Chapter 34

The arrival of the Cats is a major development for Filius and his army, but Pollock keeps us hanging by switching POV and taking us back to Paul Bradley and his desperate search for his daughter. His tracking of Beth's path, using her graffiti art as his only guide, has finally brought him to the abandoned tunnel where she spent so much of her time. It's a very poignant moment, as he sees the face of his beloved Marianne on the walls, amongst her artwork, "over and over again, smudged and pale as a ghost". It's also the moment at which he finds some inner strength, and becomes more determined than ever to find his daughter to apologise for everything, but all we can do as readers is fear for him as we know that his daughter has been changed for good by the Synod's toxic pool.

Chapter 35

The arrival of Fleet and the Cats does not initially seem to have the effect on Filius that Gutterglass desires. Fil is confused, as the Cats have never been known to appear without their Mistress, and this scares him more than anything else. However, Beth digs deep and uses her own experience of losing a mother to snap him out of his confusion and, through his skillful handling of an altercation between rival Lampfolk, for the first time we see Filius the leader. And it's not a moment too soon, as the Scaffwolves are on their way and the battle is about to start.

Chapter 36

This is the big battle scene of the whole story, and the part of the book that had a number of readers questioning why the real world people of London were not asking what the hell was taking place on the bridge and the Embankment. When I first sent my review of The City's Son to Tom Pollock, I mentioned this (it didn't bother me, by the way), and I know from discussing it with Tom that it was something he agonised over whilst writing the book. I'm not going to dwell on the battle scene here, except to say that it is brutal, as there are two other incidents in this chapter that I need to highlight.

The first is Beth coming face-to-face with her best friend Pen, for the first time since they parted under a dark cloud near the beginning of the book. Pen, of course, is now little more than a host for the parasitic barbed wire creature: "Pen's right nostril had been ripped away and her mouth slit was wider: a jagged grin towards her ear". Fil is about to become the creature's next victim, his cries of agony calling for Beth to kill the creature's host. But. This. Is. Pen! For me this is one of my (many) favourite passages in the book - Beth being put in the position where she has to choose between her best friend and her new love. 

And this leads directly on to the second truly memorable moment in the battle. Electra, the Sodiumite who has found herself losing out to Beth as the object of Fil's affections, first helps her rival, and then makes the ultimate sacrifice for Filius, throwing herself into the Thames to tear him from the clutches of the Wire Mistress. Water, as we all know, does not mix well with electricity, but Lec is a spirited and cocky 'girl' and can't depart without one more dig at her rival Blankleits, whispered into Fil's ear as her light goes out for the last time.

Review: The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock (The Skyscraper Throne Book 2)

Pen's life is all about secrets: the secret of the city's spirits, deities and monsters her best friend Beth discovered, living just beyond the notice of modern Londoners; the secret of how she got the intricate scars that disfigure her so cruelly - and the most closely guarded secret of all: Parva, her mirror-sister, forged from her reflections in a school bathroom mirror. Pen's reflected twin is the only girl who really understands her.

Then Parva is abducted and Pen makes a terrible bargain for the means to track her down. In London-Under-Glass, looks are currency, and Pen's scars make her a rare and valuable commodity. But some in the reflected city will do anything to keep Pen from the secret of what happened to the sister who shared her face.

*** Warning: this review will probably contain spoilers for The City's Son, the first book in Tom Pollock's The Skyscraper Throne trilogy ***

Parva Khan (aka Pen) did not have a particularly happy time in The City's Son. Being bound in 'living' barbed wire is never going to be a particularly pleasant experience for anyone, but for a teen girl who is now heavily scarred, both physically and psychologically, it is pretty much social suicide. Yes, she can keep the playground hounds at bay for a while, with wild and imaginative lies about where she was and how her face became damaged, but there will always be a couple of her peers who are not satisfied with her stories, and unfortunately for Pen these ones are the leaders of the pack. 

With her best friend Beth forever changed by magic of Johnny Naphtha and the Chemical Synod, Pen's only escape from the trials of school is the girls' bathroom in a disused part of school. There she spends hours in front of the mirror, not crying over her disfigurement, but conversing with her reflection. Naturally, this being a Tom Pollock book this is no mere mirror-image of Pen, she is instead talking with her mirror-sister in London-Under Glass, known as Parva throughout the story to differentiate her from Pen and avoid confusion. 

However, when Parva is suddenly no longer there on the other side of the mirror, and a pool of blood on the bathroom floor suggesting foul play, Pen decides the only course of action is to somehow find a way into London-Under-Glass. Pen soon discovers that this place, although a reflection of London, is very, very different. It's a place where Pen's imperfect face is celebrated, with young people queuing to have similar scarring added to their own faces. It is a city where corruption and elitism reign supreme and Pen soon finds herself not only trying to track down Parva, assuming she is still alive, but also battling against the twisted society she finds there.

I loved The City's Son and named it my Book of the Year for 2012. I waxed lyrical about it in my review last year and have been recommending it to as many people as possible. If I now told you that The Glass Republic is even better than its predecessor then you might begin to understand why I have been finding it very difficult to write a review for it. I've started this review countless times since I read the book back in August, but every time I find myself struggling to find the words to do it justice. Tom Pollock is such a gifted writer that any words I put down about his work seem amateurish and clunky and books like this really highlight my shortfalls as a reviewer.

As I was reading the book I had one phrase running around my mind, a phrase that I was definitely going to use in my review. However, someone beat me to it. Back in August I posted an extract from The Glass Republic on this blog, and in the comments section someone going by the name of Pocket Knife Planet wrote the following:

The City's Son was on a par with Gaiman. The Glass republic is BETTER than Gaiman.

A bold statement given the god-like status attributed to Neil Gaiman by his legions of fans around the world, but a statement that I was very much in agreement with. Comparisons with Gaiman are hard to avoid for me, especially given that Neverwhere is one of my all time favourite books. In fact, having since read The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and found it very disappointing and way below par (yes, I know that is a risky thing to say as I have seen a few critical reviewers flamed by upset fans) I am even more comfortable with the initial pronouncement of this being better than NG.

After much agonising about this review, and much deleting and rewriting, I have decided to keep my words to a minimum. This book is best read with as little prior information as possible. I started reading this book without having read any other reviews, thinking I knew what I would be getting. After all, The City's Son was so unique that surely this would be more of the same (i.e. stunning prose, mind-blowing imaginative writing, great characters, etc). I soon discovered that I was only part right in this assumption - The Glass Republic is all of this but even more. It is a truly beautiful read, and calling it urban fantasy almost seems to do it a disservice as it is head and shoulders above all YA (and most adult) urban fantasy that I have ever read. It almost demands a genre title of its very own.

Beth was a great character in The City's Son, and Pen was very much in the background, but although this is a sequel to TCS, it is very much Pen's story. Beth does make an occasional appearance, as do a host of characters & 'entities' from the previous book, but this story is all about how Pen interacts with them. She is very, very different from Beth, and will probably become the series favourite for many readers.

This review ends with a word of warning: this is the second book in the trilogy and therefore the ending may upset some readers as it not only doesn't tie up a lot of loose ends, it also finishes on something of a jaw-dropping cliffhanger. 

My thanks go to the lovely people at Jo Fletcher Books for sending me a copy to read.

Extract from The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock

The Book Zone Book of the Year 2012 was Tom Pollock's truly amazing The City's Son. Now the sequel, The Glass Republic, has been published by Jo Fletcher Books and having just finished it I can say with all confidence that it is easily as good if not better than its predecessor. I felt more than a little honoured when Tom approached me asking if I would be interested in hosting an excerpt from the book.

My review will follow soon, but to give you a quick idea about the book, this time the story follows Pen as she tries to come to terms with what happened to her in The City's Son, and as a result does an Alice and travels to London-Under-Glass. This excerpt takes place some time after she has arrived in this alternate and bizarre London. You can read it below or download a pdf from here. Enjoy!