User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
ARC provided by the publisher—Orbit—in exchange for an honest review.A well-written urban fantasy with a wonderful take on the premise of “what happens when magic runs out?”The Last Smile in Sunder City is Luke Arnold’s debut, it’s the first book in an urban fantasy series titled
Fetch Phillips Archives. I think I’m speaking on behalf of many readers that we have come to know the name Luke Arnold from his role as “Long” John Silver in the
Black Sails TV series. Admittedly, I didn’t finish watching the TV series until I saw Orbit’s announcement of Arnold’s debut, which frankly intrigued me. He did an incredible job there on the TV series, but how about his debut as a fantasy author? Well, there’s nothing to worry about, this was a great read, and I think if you know what you’re getting into, you’ll find that there’s plenty of things to love within this short book.
“I like books. They’re quiet, dignified and absolute. A man might falter but his words, once written, will hold.”
The world used to run on magic, but when the magic of the world disappeared, every magical creature suffered from the effects extremely. The story follows Fetch Phillips, a Man for Hire who worked odd jobs to help non-Humans in order to redeem his sin. Fetch’s job in this novel is to find a missing professor, a four hundred years old vampire. This situation seems impossible, the loss of magic should’ve ceased vampires' existence, and so the mystery thickens and Fetch’s investigation begins. We’ve heard of this premise before, many stories have danced their tune upon this premise, but I have to say that Arnold’s writing style and fascinating world-building was able to invoke a refreshing feeling surrounding the concept.
“In my short and sorry life, I’ve seen many people hide a desire for terrible deeds beneath an apparent higher calling. It’s not hard to find a belief system that will support your own selfish needs. The big surprise for me was discovering that it works the other way too. These broken-winged brothers, even without their story, just have naturally decent hearts.”
Almost the entirety of the novel focuses its narrative on two timelines, one being the present which revolves around Fetch’s investigations, and the other one Fetch’s flashback narrative that led to his biggest sin. Please don’t come into this book expecting there will be many action scenes, in total there were probably three small scenes, but the lack of action scenes doesn’t mean that it’s a boring book; not every book need action scenes to shine. Throughout the novel, we follow the first-person narration of Fetch Phillips exclusively, and honestly speaking, there isn’t much to Fetch’s characterizations that made his background or character distinctive. You know how it is, he’s someone who regretted his actions, ended up running to booze, and now he wants one more shot at redemption. It’s a common story, but thankfully, redemption is a theme, when done right, that I enjoy reading, and Arnold nailed the voice of the main character superbly. I do sincerely hope that there will be more prominent side characters in the sequel to add varieties to the narrative because Fetch was the only noteworthy character in this book. However, what’s lacking in the cast of characters department was redeemed by Arnold’s lovely writing style that made the themes of penance, hope, and regrets in the narrative so compelling to read.
“I was only in my thirties but I was old. You don’t measure age in years, you measure it in lessons learned and repeated mistakes and how hard it is to force a little hope into your heart. Old just means jaded and cynical and tired. And boy, was I tired.”
There’s something about Arnold’s prose that I found to be so accessible, melancholic, and lovely to read. The word ‘Smile’ may be in the title of the novel but don’t let this mislead you into thinking this is a hopeful book, focus on the word ‘Sunder’ instead.
The Last Smile in Sunder City is bleak and depressing, the melancholic tone infused into the prose was splendidly done. For example, one of the main themes of the book is how dangerous hope can be. Take a look at these two passages:
“Maybe nobody gets better. Maybe bad people just gets worse. It’s not the bad things that make people bad, though. From what I’ve seen, we all work together in the face of adversity. Join up like brothers and work to overcome whatever big old evil wants to hold us down. The thing that kills is the hope. Give a good man something to protect and you’ll turn him into a killer.”
And this
“But it’s easy to accept your fate when you know you can’t change it. Things get harder when you have a little hope.”
Aren’t they so well-written? I found Arnold’s way of using the juxtaposition of situations to get his point across was incredibly effective to get my attention.
A great actor and also a great writer, Fetch Phillips would most likely say that life isn’t fair. But hey, as an avid consumer of escapism content, I’m happy that I’ve watched
Black Sails, and I’ve read this book.
The Last Smile in Sunder City is an urban fantasy debut with an impressive writing style and intricately immersive world-building. The book certainly ended on a standalone manner, and I have absolutely no idea where the story will go from here. I look forward to what Arnold has next in-store!
“Mostly, these historical legends come in pairs. Nothing allows a man to flourish quite like an adversary of equal strength. On their own, some of these figures might never have been noticed, but face them off against each other in bloody conflict and both names get drilled into the record book. A good man is made through a lifetime of work. Great men are made by their monsters.”
Official release date: 6th February 2020 (UK) and 2nd February 2020 (US)You can pre-order the book from: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository (Free shipping)The quotes in this review were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel NotionsSpecial thanks to my Patrons on Patreon for giving me extra support towards my passion for reading and reviewing!
My Patrons: Alfred, Devin, Hamad, Mike, Miracle, Nicholas.
Rating: really liked it
There is so much to love in Luke Arnold's debut, a dark, urban fantasy noir, it is so well written and positively drips with atmosphere. Then there is the central protagonist, the downbeat, jaded, cynical, tired, and self loathing detective, Fetch Philips. The world building is done with style and imagination, so richly descriptive that you can picture Sunder City, a place that originally grew and built upon the underground fire pit and the blue collar workers who made their living from the giant factory established there. It is a different place now, there was the pre-Coda world and the devastation of the human wrought Coda that brought with it disaster. It used to be a world where magic flourished, a world of magic folk, wizards, goblins, satyrs, elves, and more, and a great river of magic that humans eyed enviously, for they could not do magic and thought they would be able to do so if they took over the river.
However, they got more than they bargained for as they triggered the collapse of the magical world and its creatures, with fatal consequences, body modifications and increased suffering. Fetch bears responsibility for this horror of the post-Coda tragedy, weighed down by his guilt and driving his refusal to work for humans. Work is a scarce commodity for him, so when he is offered an opportunity by Principal Simon Burbage of the Ridgerock Academy, a rare cross-species school, he has no choice but to take it up. One of the Academy's teachers, the elderly vampire, the kindly Albert Rye has disappeared, and the apparently genial Burbage wants Fetch to find him. In a narrative where we learn of Fetch's childhood and personal history, Fetch stumbles over dead bodies, in a case that proves to be more challenging and demanding than he could have ever expected.
Arnold depicts a dangerous and inhospitable city where hate and violence proliferate, with the likes of the religious sect of winged monks helping the burgeoning tribe of homeless. Humans continue to spew forth their hatred against the once magical creatures, and there are nail gangs who deploy brutality against them. I was captivated by so much of this novel, but for me, Arnold needed to move the action and plot a little more quickly than he did. That is not to say that this is not a wonderful read, it is, but my enjoyment was marred by a little too much lingering in the world building part. Otherwise, this is a great debut. Many thanks to Little, Brown for an ARC.
Rating: really liked it
Fetch Phillips has a lot to atone for. More than most people realise, or he’d already be dead. Living at what might euphemistically be called rock bottom, he takes a last minute job investigating the disappearance of a vampire teacher at a local school. It’s this or die. The temptation to throw himself out the Angel door of his office is becoming too hard to resist. But Sunder City hides all manner of things in its shadows and Fetch is about to find himself a problem that might just be too big for him to handle…
The dystopian, post-war, post-magic Sunder City is all kinds of awesome. It’s clear that this is where the author has let his imagination and creativity go to work. What happens when the magic goes away? All kinds of shit. Once immortal creatures dusting away; twisted creatures not quite one thing or another, stuck in grotesque half forms; society, industry, politics, and culture patched back together as the magical races fall and humans become ascendant… Yes, yes, yes, this is a dark and desperate place where
things can happen…
The problem is this: while this achieves its aim for a noir feel, it lacks that ever so important distinctive voice which these types of books need to stand out, regardless of genre. There is absolutely nothing about Fetch to hold on to. Alcoholic, guilt-ridden, lost his love, suicidal, averagely intelligent, limited self-awareness. Blah. He really is the cliche. Character wise, there’s nothing to redeem him, making you wonder why you should care. He only barely seems to want to redeem himself, which doesn’t help either.
What makes it worse is that the plot is slow. S l o w. There are only 3 main action scenes I can recall: one past battle, one major fuck up, and one part of a chucked in thread that seemed to have no bearing on the main plot at all. There's lots of plodding investigation and flashbacks to where it all went wrong for him. It all seemed a little too justificatory to me. I did the worst thing ever…but I was used, I was lied to, this person didn’t love me, this person did (but I didn’t want them to)… You see the problem. Writing this now, I’m starting to realise just how much I didn’t like Fetch Phillips.
If Luke Arnold wants to continue this series, he needs to up his game. The worldbuilding might be top notch, but the characterisation and plot is seriously lacking.
ARC via Netgalley
Rating: really liked it
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Actual Rating: 3.75 stars “Sometimes, the one who looks like a monster turns out to be a monster.”
Thanks for the publisher for providing me with an E-ARC of the book through Netgalley. That does not affect my review of the book.
I know some readers are excited for this one because the author is a good actor. I did not watch the TV series he plays in and I just read this because the synopsis sounded good to me and because the cover is gorgeous and has one of my favorite combos of colors.
The book mixes two things I love very much: Fantasy and investigation. I love those two genres and I read a lot of books that belong to either category but never both. This book combined the two categories and that’s why I was very excited about it. The word Noir kept showing around when I was researching the genre. I have not read “Noir” books before but it looks like this book fits the description.
“A cop was a cop was a cop. Like pieces of fruit; there’s good ones and bad ones but once you smash ’em into jam they’re all the same.”
The book follows Fetch Phillips, the human investigator trying to solve the case of a missing vampire. This is a super short summary of the book because Phillips have a past that he is not so proud of and we get to see that through flashbacks. There were many characters but most of them are not important, I was highlighting names and expecting to see them again but most of them appear only once, they provide an info and we move on, and that can be the case in an investigation story. Phillips is a morally grey character, he keeps reminding us of that too through telling which I thought was not necessary as we are shown it. I just expected a bit more from the characters.
The writing is simple but good, my kindle showed me that it takes less than 4 hours to finish the book and I did finish it in that time. That does not mean it fell short in beautiful quotes because there were plenty of those, I love this description for example:
“The raindrops attacked the street like it was personal and wind pushed the water up at every angle, filling gutters, boots and eyelids.”
The world-building is my favorite part, I liked to see how the world is right now and how was it before, a few mythologies were explained and given the author’s own touch and I live for this kind of stuff, we were introduced to the origin story of Vampires, Sirens, Trolls and Dragons!
Summary: This debut was a good one with simple writing, few characters and great world-building. The plot is interesting although there was less action than expected. I loved how the book ended as a standalone but with the option to expand the story and continue as a series which I think was smart.
You can get more books from Book Depository
Rating: really liked it
“A good man is made through a lifetime of work. Great men are made by their monsters.”The Wolf Among Us meets L.A. Noire in this new urban fantasy. Luke Arnold has delivered a well-written adventure, with an added dose of stylish noire presentation.
Fetch Phillips is a mercenary for hire with a colorful past. Running from one job to another, following whoever rings the bell. Fetch has a character introduction that’s funny, brutal, and mysterious in the best possible ways.
Set in a grimey place called Sunder city where a catastrophic event known as The Coda occurred which lead to all magic to stop. To seize to exist. It lead to a good chunk of the city dead. The people went cold and hungry in their homes. Elves age quicker, vampires die faster, werewolves to become deformed, Dragons to fall from the sky. It's sobering, sad, and tense. Fetch is tasked to search for a missing vampire. Each clue and scenario Fetch is brought up against brings you to a new area of Sunder City. We experience many locations in a short amount of time. The pace is functional, simple, and satisfying.
It’s a story that is constantly moving. What Luke Arnold brings to the table is an injection of actual detective work. There were some slower flashback chapters but they are absolutely necessary for the story to evolve.
If this first book is any indication of the rest of the series, then Fetch’s adventure is set to provide an adventure every bit as memorable as the classic Big Bad Wolf.
Rating: really liked it
I should have loved this. The world Luke Arnold created here (post-magic, well-thought-out, imaginative) is absolutely brilliant. I adore stories that deal with the fall-out of an event that fundamentally alters the laws of the physical world (see N. K. Jemisin's books and Robert Jackson Bennett's The Divine Cities trilogy for excellent examples) and this book does this incredibly - on a world-building level. I got the impression that Arnold's imagination is endless and the way in which he thought out how this sudden disappearence of magic would influence different magical races worked really well for me. I also really like mysteries set in an urban fantasy kind of epic fantasy world. Sunder City is a brilliantly done fantasy city, with flavours of a darker Ankh-Morpork. But there were two big kinds of problems I had with this book - one that I think is a problem with the book itself and one which I have to admit has more to do with my own reading tastes.
First for the more "objective" criticism I had: I found the writing clumsy. This showed itself mostly in a pacing that was, frankly, abysmal. The story moved in fits and bursts to suddenly coming to an absolute standstill, with the backstory and the world-building integrated in heavy, heavy info-dumps. While it did not bother me as much as it could have if the word hadn't been as fascinating, it led to the book feeling much longer than it actually was. The writing is also clumsy on a sentence-by-sentence level and filled with odd descriptions that took me out of my reading flow (examples: "My boots sucked up mud like hungry dogs in a pit of peanut-butter...", "Thick smoke tunneled through my nose like an escaped prisoner..." or my personal favourite "The future of [...] looked darker than a blackbird's shadow at midnight").
But ultimately my main issue with this book came down to the main character: Fetch Philipps is everything that annoys me with male protagonists in noir type stories. He is a guilt-ridden, alcoholic, direction-less, and unpleasant private investigator who is not snarky or intelligent enough to be interesting. He is also weirdly indistinct as a main character - he reads super young in the flashbacks and middle aged in present time, he reacts more to what is going on than being a more active player, his motivations are deeply selfish until they suddenly aren't, and his narration never became a distinct voice for me (and additionally, I found it fairly male gaze-y). I admit that this has a lot more to do with my own reading tastes but he really did rub me the wrong way. He is also, and this is a petty issue, disgusting - there were a few scenes where he behaves in a weirdly disgusting way in order to intimidate (?) people (like when he downs the drink the bartender he is questioning spit in or when he drinks from an open bottle although other people informed him there were flies swimming in there).
Content warning: trauma, loss of a loved one, alcoholism, substance abuse
I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Quotes are taken from an advanced copy and are subject to change.
You can find this review and other thoughts on books on my blog.
Rating: really liked it
A great start to a promising series. I listened to the audiobook for this, which I think is the perfect medium for it, since the author himself narrates the story--and does so really, really well.
Being a 'noir detective' tale, there's an huge number of analogies (my cup of tea) and most of them are fantastic. A bit of humour, a bit of poignancy, a ton of interesting characters...I'm looking forward to seeing where Fetch goes next!
Rating: really liked it
The underlying premise of this book is that 6 years ago humans tried to harness magic but instead they destroyed it. Since then all of the magical creatures lost their powers and have had to struggle for existence. That poses a problem in urban fantasy, since the author has removed all of the fantasy from the present. The formerly magical creatures (including elf, dwarf, werewolf, vampire, ogre, gnome, goblin, satyr and siren) just look weird and are helpless in the presence of human greed and indifference. All of the magic is in the backstory of the PI, Fetch Phillips. The book is written in cliché-ridden noir fashion. If you have read any urban fantasy you have already met Fetch. Here, he is tasked with finding a missing vampire, but that search gets lost in the general busyness and world building of this book.
The writing is fairly pedestrian. “I swung my left arm out at him; I never was much good with it. I telegraphed it so bad that he had heard rumors of it three weeks earlier.” I made it through 50% of this book and started to skim. This is the author’s first book, and there is enough there to make me consider reading him again. I assume that this book is intended to be the start of a series. The author narrated his own audiobook and he did a good job, probably because he is an actor.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
Rating: really liked it
ARC provided by the publisher, Orbit in exchange for an honest opinion. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and the quotes included may have changed in the released copy.Actual rating: 3.5 stars
The Last Smile in Sunder City is a UF mystery, imbued with a unique personality, a moody atmosphere and a deep wistfulness. The very first paragraph set the tone quite immediately, hurtling you into Fetch Phillips' melancholic thoughts and destroyed world. For the world, or more specifically the world’s essence, was indeed destroyed beyond repair six years ago when the humans decided they were done being the inferior race. Early on, we learn that the Human Army discovered the location of the source of magic and by trying to harness it for themselves, froze it instead. The immortal Elves withered, The Vampires lost their vigor and their fangs, the shapeshifters became monsters, neither beasts nor men, the mighty dragons fell from the sky. And Fetch Phillips, former soldier turned PI, believes he’s the one to blame for this tragedy. Racked with guilt and regrets, on a steady diet of opiate and alcohol, Fetch became a man for hire, working solely for non-humans.
Life once felt so grand and meaningful. This new world is hushed. Diminished. Fleeting.
I should have loved this book. I used to enjoy mysteries and I was excited to revisit this genre in a unique Urban Fantasy setting. I was warned beforehand that
The Last Smile was a slow book. No problem! Investigations tend to be slow and complicated. But Fetch’s was downright tedious and I felt the pacing suffered from multiple digressions. Fetch’s misery and guilt impeded his investigation and he became his own obstacle, turning in circles, ignoring promising leads, mouthing off, getting himself trashed and thrashed and trying desperately and unsuccessfully to redeem old sins.
What had I become, when laughter felt like a lashing?
If I'm being honest, this could have worked for me if I cared more about Fetch. Heck one of my favorite UF series mixes investigation and personal tribulations. But Fetch was not a likable character. He did his best to prevent you from liking him, especially at first. His investigation quickly turned into a meandering stroll down memory lane and was pervaded with so much misery and remorse that I had to consume it a little sip at a time.
It didn’t help that I also found the characterization wanting as Fetch had to take most of it upon his wary shoulders. It too much for a one character to carry, more so when said character was already weighed down with his past. The other characters came and went, too furtively and lacking depth to make a lasting impression. The only interesting ones were the ghosts (figuratively) from Fetch’s past and the missing person he was tasked to track. Neither of them had enough screen time to develop into well fleshed out personalities, even though their influence on Fetch's life and personality was tangible.
A good man is made through a lifetime of work. Great men are made by their monsters.
Characters and pacing issues put aside however, I was thoroughly impressed by Luke Arnold’s writing and imagination. The prose was just perfect for the story and the atmosphere. Arnold’s words were straightforward, clever and raw and even felt oppressive when the situation demanded it. Following the unfolding story, it went gradually from dry and quite emotionless to quite evocative and engaging, capturing skillfully the subtle shifts that took place in both Sunder City and Fetch.
I like books. They’re quiet, dignified and absolute. A man might falter but his words, once written, will hold.
Something I very much enjoyed as well were the detailed flashback sequences that Arnold incorporated into the narrative and that told young Fetch’s story prior to the Coda, the destruction of magic. Though these sections didn’t redeem Fetch in my book, they urged me forward to discover the real story behind the continuous hint dropping and made me appreciate the extent of the disaster that befell the world and its consequences. The world, post-Coda, was meticulously built, morbidly fascinating and one of the bleakest and saddest I’ve visited so far.
We all fear the other, and if we ever make friends with our enemy, the first thing we do as allies is identify some new foe. There is no real peace, only the brief moments while we turn our heads from one adversary to the next. .
Despite my conflicting feelings about this book, Luke Arnold’s debut impressed me on many levels. It held a rough around the edges kind of charm and its conclusion left me curious for more.
You can find this and more at Novel Notions.
Rating: really liked it
ARC received from the publisher, Orbit UK, in exchange for an honest review.4.5 stars.The Last Smile in Sunder City was an impressive debut by Luke Arnold; a dark urban fantasy that enraptured me with its stellar worldbuilding and writing style.Firstly, I've never been exposed to much noir elements in my reading so far, so I won't be able to make any comparisons. However, I can still safely say that this book accurately captured that feel in its worldbuilding and the characterisation of its main character, Fetch Phillips. In a world where magic was destroyed, creatures or beings dependent on magic for their existence suffered delibitating effects. The setting has a truly bleak, post-apocalyptic feel. Sunder City couldn't be more appropriate a name for a progressive city where all hopes and dreams have been torn asunder when magic was lost.
"It was over. The world will continue to turn and there will still be jobs and seasons and kissing and chocolate; there just won't be music in it anymore. We can bite the fruit and understand that it is sweet but not taste it. We will look at the sunrise and do our best to will some warmth into our hearts and feel nothing."
The entire narrative is told from the first person perspective of Fetch Phillips, Man for Hire. As far as noir type stories are concerned, Fetch could be considered as a standard trope. He appeared to be an even more hardboiled Constantine. World-weary, given to vices to numb his pain and regrets, and still trying to atone for the his mistake (not with much success) even though he believed it to be futile. A man for hire for pretty much anything to get by, I saw him as a highly sympathetic and realistic character. Fetch's voice is one of the highlights of the novel for me. I think Luke Arnold nailed his characterisation from the way he thinks and talks.
"There was no denying that it was bad taste for him to become a mortician after the Coda, but where else does a Necromancer go when the dead stop rising to his call? Sometimes it's just too hard to say goodbye to old friends."
There are hidden depths of emotion in our main character which I found compelling. Everyone makes mistakes, he just happened to commit the biggest one of all. When a unexpected and almost impossible possibility reveals itself, would he dare to hope again, or would he give in to resigned acceptance.
"The thing that kills us is the hope. Give a good man something to protect and you'll turn him into a killer."
The entire plot of the story was centred around an investigation of a missing vampire. Throughout the narrative, the worldbuilding unfolds through the interactions Fetch had with various ex-magical beings like Gnomes, Elves, Sirens, Witches, Wizards, Werewolves, etc etc. The loss of magic was felt very keenly when we get to see how these non-humans are getting by, or rather, barely scraping by. We also get rather long monologues from Fetch about his backstory leading to the annihilation of magic in this world. Although it felt info-dumpy at times, it was still fascinating.
I absolutely have to commend the writing style of the author, as I was so enamoured with it. The writing was lyrical, almost poetic at times, but also gritty, raw and darkly humourous. I don't think that I've ever highlighted so many quotes in an urban fantasy book before. Many a times I caught myself swirling those phrases and word choices around in my head, savouring the elegant simplicity with which it was all put together.
"I like books. They're quiet, dignified and absolute. A man might falter but his words, once written, will hold."
The Last Smile in Sunder City was not your typical urban fantasy with a lot of action. It's a slow-paced mystery and at the heart of it, about a defeated man still trying to make amends and find redemption. I've always thought that I'm not the type who would enjoy such bleak stories, but Arnold's writing was remarkably engaging. Couple that with the excellent worldbuilding, and I was hooked from start to finish.
Official release date: 6th February 2020 (UK) and 25th February 2020 (US)You can pre-order a copy of the book from
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book Depository (Free shipping)You can find this and my other reviews at Novel Notions.
Rating: really liked it
It was over. The world will continue to turn and there will still be jobs and season and kissing and chocolate; there just won't be any music in it any more. We can bite the fruit and understand that it is sweet but not taste it. We will look at the sunrise and do our best to will some kind of warmth into our hearts and feel nothing.
That is the CodaI don't like most noir, much as I want to - a lot of it is simply too grim, and there's plenty of that around without adding it into my reading time. But The Last Smile in Sunder City doesn't just bring fantasy into it, it brings just enough humour and light and hope to offset that gloom.
Set in a world post-magic, after it all came to a sudden and grinding halt, the action is centered around Sunder City, previous technological wonder, and kind of an Ankh-Morpork writ serious:
The coastal towns out East loved their out-the-back beer gardens and sea-view rooftops. In Sunder, you stayed inside with your back to the wall and your wits about you.It's a melange of neighbourhoods - rich, poor, slum - and inhabitants of almost every formerly-magical stripe, and in grand noir tradition, even the streetlights don't shed light on the dark in the streets. It's a beautifully built world, incredibly thoughfully done, right down to considerations like, now that the magic is gone, do plants still grow? Was that magic too? Technology is still in that nascent stage of old-fashioned telephones and automobiles, common in noir, but here turned into further effects of a world struggling to make up the shortfall left by magic's absence. Even our hero's traditional tragic backstory isn't just another set piece, but integral to understanding this world and where it came from.
I ran a comb through my haggard mop of hair and brushed my busted teeth and gums. Half an hour later, I still looked like a bucket of shit, I just had a cleaner bucket.I really, really enjoyed this book. For a debut it's even better - and I see we're due another in the series at the end of the month. Let's hope the magic missing from it's world stays firmly in the series.
Rating: really liked it
Last Smile is a blend of urban fantasy with Hardboiled private eye. You see there once where all these magical beings, but the war is over, the magic is gone, and the elves, the dwarves, the ogres, and the goblins are now doctors, lawyers, and accountants. Lots of good imagination at work here, but I never fully bought into the concept.
Rating: really liked it
Originally posted to I Should Read That
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This review is spoiler-free.I’m not familiar with Luke Arnold’s acting career, however I was still intrigued by his debut novel,
The Last Smile in Sunder City. I had heard good things about it and was incredibly curious to try it for myself. I admit I was a little wary going in because the book seemed to have some similarities to The Dresden Files, a series that I very much dislike, however
The Last Smile in Sunder City proved to be exactly what I wanted from The Dresden Files.
I enjoyed the heck out of
The Last Smile in Sunder City -- Arnold manages to strike the perfect balance between grit and snark, as well as magic and reality. As a huge fan of film noir, I can confidently say that he manages to capture the spirit of noir and crafted the book with such care and passion -- never once did it fall into caricature or cartoonishness, which I sometimes find with books that attempt a noir setting.
I absolutely loved the world and world building in this book -- the concept of a land that has lost its magic years before and the impact that loss has on the magical and non-magical citizens was incredibly compelling. Arnold did a fantastic job of painting a bleak picture of Sunder City’s present day, while giving the reader the story of its past. The various types of magical creatures and how everything from their lifestyles to physiology changed after the Coda was so awful, yet totally fascinating and inventive. I really enjoyed that he included so much about how the magically-enhanced technology crumbled as well, launching the world into a bizarre modern dark ages. I was completely absorbed by the events of the Coda and would love to read more in this setting and about this world.
I absolutely, unexpectedly, adored the character of Fetch Phillips. He’s a refreshing and updated (and not a misogynist! What a concept), yet completely identifiable noir detective. He’s a hard drinking, unkept mess of a man trying to atone for the sins of his past, but you never doubt for a moment that he cares deeply for the people he is investigating or for the lives of the formerly magical folk whose lives have been torn apart. I really enjoyed his back story and the way that details of his past are teased out over the course of the book.
I did find the pacing a little choppy at times, especially with the long flashback sequences tucked in between events. It didn't slow down things down, but I found that it did pull me out of the story a little. However, I did really appreciate those sequences because they added so much richness to Fetch's backstory.
Overall,
The Last Smile in Sunder City was an absolute treat to read. The perfect crossover between fantasy and noir, it’s a fast-paced read that will keep you turning the pages late into the night.
Rating: really liked it
The magic didn't die, it was killed. That's a problem in a world that runs on magic. When humans killed the magic, they doomed all the magical creatures in their world to suffering and death. Technology stopped working, factories stopped running, dragons fell out of the air, elves got very old very quickly, and dryads turned to dead wood. It's fair to say this lead to some resentment.
Welcome to Sunder City, a bleak, noir cityscape struggling to come to terms with the Coda, the death of magic. Where werewolves are living rough on skid row, permanently half-changed, where cat people live in slum alleyways and toothless vampires teach college to make ends meet. Where a human called Fetch Phillips is trying to atone for what he did.
The despairing vibe of Sunder City can be summed up in this one line from Pete the Dogman: "I'd rather be ashamed of the things I've done than ashamed of the things that others have done to me."
It's a parable, certainly, but this book has a marvellous noir voice; Luke Arnold has captured the spirit of the genre perfectly and wrapped it around a fantasy setting with consummate skill.
Rating: really liked it
A successful blend of detective noir and urban fantasy. I can't begin to express how much I love this novel.
A protagonist who by all accounts should be unlovable, uninteresting, even unlikeable, yet I love him. He was so well-written, it was easy to get a glimpse into his mind and soul, and get a real understanding of him. At that point, Fletch Phillips became a trusted friend.
Deep, immersive, a little lengthy at times, yet the world building in this book made Sunder City an interesting, vivid place with a tragic history. An uncomfortable, dark, hate filled place, filled with violence and corruption, which became familiar, even almost comfortable through the author's skillful storytelling. I grew to love Sunder City too.
The world building in this novel is near perfect as the foundation for the next books in this series.
Luke Arnold is a new favorite author and "The Last Smile in Sunder City" is a new favorite book. I love this author's skill, creativity and imagination. I'll buy anything and everything with his name on the cover.
For me, this book was a breath of fresh air. It was unique in the fact that it did not rely on constant action to make it work. It introduced me to the person, allowed me to get to know the person, then become aware of and learn about the world they lived in.
I'm sure now, with the way Luke Arnold wrote this first book, that there's plenty of time for action in the following books. Plus, I won't have to experience it alone. I have my new friend and companion Fletch Phillips to take the journey with. We've already become good friends.
