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amerginaMind the Gap: A Novel of the Hidden Cities by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
My mom suggested I read this book, so I took it out of the library in my hometown. It's an urban fantasy based in London, but one without any "monsters." That is, there are no fantastic creatures, but there is fantastic elements. Using the terminology of Rhetorics of Fantasy, this is an Intrusion fantasy, where magic intrudes on the normal world and must be either sent back or incorporated into the current world.
It's a well written book, a bit on the violent side, but not gratuitously so. It's light on the fantastic elements and reads a bit more like a suspense novel with fantastic elements. It's not a book I would have normally picked up, but I'm glad I did. The first chapter grabs you and keeps you reading. There really wasn't a place in the book that was dull. The authors do a good job of using all the senses to describe the Underground and the ground under the Underground. You do get a sense of the age of London and all the secrets there.
I gather the authors are doing a whole series of books like this one, based on hidden cities. While I liked this book, I wasn't so enthralled that I would hunt down others in the series, but I do recommend it to anyone who wants a different kind of Urban Fantasy.
Always assume there’s someone after you. That was the paranoid wisdom her mother had hardwired into Jasmine Towne ever since she was a little girl. Now, suddenly on her own, Jazz is going to need every skill she has ever been taught to survive enemies both seen and unseen. For her mother had given Jazz one last invaluable piece of advice, written in her own blood.
Jazz Hide Forever
All her life Jazz has known them only as the “Uncles,” and her mother seemed to fear them as much as depend on them. Now these enigmatic, black-clad strangers are after Jazz for reasons she can’t fathom, and her only escape is to slip into the forgotten tunnels of London’s vast underground. Here she will meet a tribe of survivors calling themselves the United Kingdom and begin an adventure that links her to the ghosts of a city long past, a father she never knew, and a destiny she fears only slightly less than the relentless killers who’d commit any crime under heaven or earth to prevent her from fulfilling it.
My mom suggested I read this book, so I took it out of the library in my hometown. It's an urban fantasy based in London, but one without any "monsters." That is, there are no fantastic creatures, but there is fantastic elements. Using the terminology of Rhetorics of Fantasy, this is an Intrusion fantasy, where magic intrudes on the normal world and must be either sent back or incorporated into the current world.
It's a well written book, a bit on the violent side, but not gratuitously so. It's light on the fantastic elements and reads a bit more like a suspense novel with fantastic elements. It's not a book I would have normally picked up, but I'm glad I did. The first chapter grabs you and keeps you reading. There really wasn't a place in the book that was dull. The authors do a good job of using all the senses to describe the Underground and the ground under the Underground. You do get a sense of the age of London and all the secrets there.
I gather the authors are doing a whole series of books like this one, based on hidden cities. While I liked this book, I wasn't so enthralled that I would hunt down others in the series, but I do recommend it to anyone who wants a different kind of Urban Fantasy.