Clockwork Boys by T Kingfisher

I would like to thank Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Titan

Published – Out Now

Price – £17.99 hardback £9.99 eBook

In the first book of this touching and darkly comic duology, a paladin, a forger, an assassin and a scholar ride out of town on an espionage mission with deadly serious stakes.

When forger Slate is convicted of treason, she faces a death sentence. But her unique gift for sniffing out magic (literally) earns her a reprieve—of sorts.

Along with a formerly demon-possessed paladin named Caliban, her murderous ex-lover, and an irritating sexist scholar, Slate sets off on a mission to learn about the Clockwork Boys, deadly mechanical soldiers from a neighboring kingdom who have been terrorising their lands. If they succeed, rewards and pardons await, but they must survive a long journey through enemy territory to reach Anuket City. And Slate has her own reasons to dread returning to her former home.

Slate and her crew aren't the first to be sent on this mission. None of their predecessors have returned, and Slate can't help but feel they've exchanged one death sentence for another. Her increasing closeness to Caliban isn't helping matters: for the first time in a long while, Slate might actually care about surviving.

Fantasy loves a good quest as well as the goal we usually have a great band of characters coming together, changing along the way and of course more than a few exciting adventures along the way. There have been times it has fallen a little too much into stereotypes but there are always some authors happy to play with the format. Delighted to say we can to that latter group T Kingfisher’s deliciously entertaining fantasy novel Clockwork Boys which starts a new series with a very unusual set of characters and some unexpected adventures and dangers to face.

The Dowager is at war against a magical threat from her enemies in Anuket City a rampaging advancing army known only as the Clockwork Boys. Add in a deadly plague known as the Blight and things have got very desperate. The latest plan is to send a band of skilled prisoners with nothing left to lose on a mission to find out what powers them. The lead is the smart forger Slate with a slight skill of witchy foresight, the laconic assassin Brenner who is also a skilled thief and now joining them the disgraced former paladin Sir Caliban once a famed hero who after being possessed by a demon ran amok killing part of his temple…the demon is apparently dead. They may not be the best and brightest but they’re all anyone has got.

T Kingfisher continues to be an author who combines excellent storytelling with a dash of humour, lightness and then throws in a handful of weird darkness and all combined with skilled character work and this novel sings as a read to me. While we have a quest story these aren’t the usual heroes we are expecting. Slate and Brenner are far more rogues who see crime as a business and yet now accept they must do this or be killed. Slate is funny, learning to be a leader and balancing two headstrong men who occasionally want to kill each other. Brenner and Slate have a complicated relationship and share the banter. Now we add in Caliban who is a skilled warrior, incredibly gallant and carries so so much guilt and developing feelings for Slate in a refreshing adult complicated not quite yet romance way. None of these three are from stock fantasy casting and each takes the reader focus on the page. They’re human not heroic and yet trying their best we see signs they will do the right thing (just not always perhaps the expected way). I loved the tensions, interplay, banter and developing relationships in the group. Latre on we get a young priest from a group of very intelligent geniuses who also think women are inferior. This adds to the dynamics as you’d expect in unusual ways!

Adventure wise we have the focus suitably on the group coming together and then in standard fantasy narrative a long ride awaits. Kingfisher though tries not to d the expected. Bandits here are negotiations with fellow criminals not fights. There is a stunningly strange and eerie sequence in a magical forest that links to the plot of Caliban’s demon possession in unexpected and interesting ways and we also have glimpses of vast and unknow magic. When the Clockwork Boys make their appearance, we see both the massive damage they cause and their inhuman nature. Nothing in this story feels easy. The pacing is brisk and very much in this story also focused on us getting to know out initial trio and they also getting to know each other. My one reservation is the ending feels a little sudden, Kingfisher does say in the afterword this was just one very very long novel, and this is the just the first half. Not a problem as we now know there is a second book at least in this series and I very much want to know what happens next as I sense things are about to get really interesting.

Clockwork Boys is an adventure that avoids doing the usual. Its funny, dark, romantic and has a touch of bawdiness too when needed. I love the way these contradictions work rather than overpower each other and that makes it a hugely engaging and refreshing read. I highly recommend it!