The Last Smile In Sunder City:
I’m Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window. There are three things you should know before you hire me:
1. Sobriety costs extra.
2. My services are confidential.
3. I don’t work for humans.It’s nothing personal – I’m human myself. But after what happened, it’s not the humans who need my help.
I just want one real case. One chance to do something good. Because it’s my fault the magic is never coming back.
The Last Smile in Sunder City is an urban fantasy that is both like and unlike those that you may have read before.
It hits on a lot of the usual, much-loved tropes: an alcoholic private investigator trying to solve a missing persons case, first-person narration with a tendency to indulge in similes, and a mysterious past that is explored in dribs and drabs as the story unfolds.
But there is a lot of originality here, too. Fetch Phillips doesn’t operate in any secret magical underbelly. Sunder City doesn’t need a magical underbelly, because in this world magic isn’t something that needs to be hidden. Well, I should say that it wasn’t something to be hidden away. Magic is gone now. The humans saw to that.
What’s left is something along the lines of a post-magical dystopia. Magical creatures find themselves in constant suffering, their bodies unable to sustain their magical characteristics. An angel’s wings might become featherless, nerveless stumps. Werewolves might end up stuck halfway between animal and man. Immortals might find that the years catch up to them all at once. And as though to rub salt in the wound, children of these species are no longer able to grow into their natural (previously-supernatural) forms, and so instead become sorry, misshapen, in-between things.
Fetch Phillips blames himself for all of this. We’re shown why through glimpses into his past — shorter chapters interspersed through those of the main narrative. In the present, his investigator work helps to bring closure to those that need it. Though, of course, he is rarely thanked for this, and it looks unlikely he’ll ever find closure of his own. You get the feeling that what Fetch really wants is a place and people to belong to, even if he doesn’t feel like he deserves that. But is Sunder City that place? In a way, that’s the question that drives much of this story.
The world is the star of the show here. Arnold’s imagination runs wild, creating an intriguing (though bleak) sandbox that begs to be explored, with plenty of quirks and oddities to paw at your attention. Much of the book is spent doing exactly that, moving from place to place within Sunder City as Fetch hunts for a lead. This necessitates a somewhat slower pace, which some readers might find a little at odds with their expectations of urban fantasy, but is very enjoyable for those who crave the intricacies of worldbuilding.
The narrative voice is somewhat typical for crime-based novels, but I found that it helped draw me into the story. It doesn’t attempt to re-invent the wheel or anything, but it suits the world to a tee, and that combination of original ideas and familiar voice made for an accessible, immersive, and enjoyable reading experience in my case.
This is a book for those readers who want a world to get lost in. It’s a satisfying and imaginative story for sure, but what really struck me was that the building blocks are all there for a wholly original series that could go in a variety of wild and entertaining directions. This felt like an introduction to the world and its characters, and I hope that the conversation continues to allow for plenty of sequels to build on these foundations.
If you’re a fan of noir-ish urban fantasy, and like your books with a strong and distinctive narrative voice, then The Last Smile of Sunder City might be for you.
The publisher, Orbit books, provided a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Last Smile in Sunder City will release on 4th February 2020 on ebook, and 6th February 2020 in paperback!
It’s sounds great, thanks! 🙂