I've read and reviewed an earlier book by Christopher Buehlman, 'The Suicide Motor Club', which was a good book, but it pales into almost insignificance compared to this, which is joyous. I do read fantasy on occasion but I tend to enjoy horror and science fiction more, because of the opportunities those genres bring. A great swathe of fantasy explores the same old ground and brings nothing new to the table, but this is a perfect exception that proves the rule. Quite frankly, this could be used as a textbook on how to worldbuild.

I literally can't remember the last time I read something that felt this deep and immersive this quickly. Tolkien certainly got there but he certainly took his sweet time about it, crafting history and geography very gradually, as if fleshing his world out place by place and race by race as his heroes move through it. This is a quest novel too, but Buehlman takes a much better approach, in my opinion, because we learn about places we haven't got to yet, just through characterful asides. Even before this quest begins, we learn about witness coins and guild gifts and cat catching and every single detail adds something more to this world at large.

It's not a map gradually revealing itself. It's a map we begin with bursting out of the monotones of the gorgeous cover art into glorious colour. We may start in Holt with an indebted thief from Galtia but we're constantly hearing about how things are different in other nations across Manreach, which is the part of this world that's populated primarily by humans. Above and below are the lands of the Kynd, realms for non-humans whose denizens occasionally cross over the borders to interact in some fashion, adding more things that are different.

And those things can manifest through anything. There's a great section where we hear an old story in the context of how it translated into three pub names. Sometimes it's language, sometimes customs or laws or gods or the calendar or royalty or whatever. And every time Buehlman conjures something up, it bears mentioning that he thinks about all the ramifications that his particular new something brings. A great example would be the fact that there are many countries in this world but not all of them fought the goblins when they invaded.

That manifests in all sorts of ways. When an entire generation of men were killed in one disastrous war, the women had to take up arms in the next one, which changed the gender dynamic in those countries who sent their populace to fight. Those who didn't still have their men and their gender imbalance, but also areas of goblins segregated for trade purposes. There's a fantastic death scene that spawns out of this late in the story and quite a distance away from where our heroes started.

Our nominal hero is Kinch na Shannock, a professional thief who's in debt to the Thieves Guild because that's how their structure works. Come to university and learn how to be a really good thief but rack up your debt, so that you're at their bidding until you can steal enough to pay your way into freedom. The average novelist doesn't dig so deep into worldbuilding as to fashion socio-economic incentive cultures but Buehlman has fun with it, covering almost every base without ever getting into the Tolkien mode of lecturing. This is never dry, because it's told in an endearingly irreverent tone.

Kinch is persuaded by the Guild to accompany a lady named Galva on a quest, though his mission is not her mission. He has to steal some specific items of treasure and she's planning to rescue a princess but the jobs need to be done in the same place at the same time, all set against the backdrop of invasion, not of southern goblins this time but giants in the north. Galva appears to be a warrior, a tough Goblin Wars veteran, but she's clearly more than that. She has tattoos instead of breasts and a giant crow for a warbird, at a time when such creatures are deemed illegal. It's fun trying to figure out her secret and I wasn't entirely wrong.

They soon add a third to their company, an equally characterful young lady called Norrigal, who's great-niece and apprentice to the legendary witch called Deadlegs. Buehlman dips deeply into the fairy tales of yore at this point in the story, Deadlegs living in a tower whose only door is at the very top. She gifts them a horse too, albeit a fake one made of wood that will only transform into the real thing for a lone hour of riding. I felt like I was reading a Paul Biegel children's novel in these sections, merely one which has been retold for adults with all due crudity.

The thrust of the story is what you expect, as our two and then three and occasionally kinda sorta more heroes head west to accomplish their various missions. However, there are subplots bubbling under the surface, one fantastic one in particular that I refuse to spoil, and a few side quests here and there. As it might seem, it's very episodic, each chapter or two moving us into another adventure in another place, often another country, a whole slew of them dedicated to a trip across the Gunnish Sea on a whaler that ends horribly for most of the whalers. Eventually, they reach their target and... well, you'll need to pick up the book to find that out.

My biggest problem with the book is that the end, when it comes, comes very quickly. I get that it's not and never was about the destination, always about the journey, but I quite seriously didn't want to stop reading and it didn't feel like I was going to have to until the end whisked by in a flash and suddenly the thing was done. I wanted the journey back to take as long as the journey there and the saving grace is a discovery on Goodreads that this is book one in the Blacktongue series, so I presume we're going to get another one. I truly hope so.

In my review of 'The Suicide Motor Club', I mentioned that Buehlman clearly has a fondness for reveals and that manifests here too but to a lesser degree. I really want to tell you about Bully Boy but I won't because that deserves to be left unspoilt. I will mention Bully Boy though, a blind cat Kinch acquires on his travels, because it's quite obvious that there's more to him than being a blind cat, but the reveal to explain quite what is fantastic.

And I'm going to shut up because it would be easy to indulge in hyperbole. It's probably fair to say that I enjoyed this more than any other book this year. It may be the most immersive book I've ever read and, while I was able to put it down to sleep, I couldn't leave it untouched for long. 'The Suicide Motor Club' was a good book. This is a great one and a sequel could be the solution to its only flaw, that overly quick ending. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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