Gears of the City

November 24, 2008
In Gilman's alternately fascinating and frustrating sequel to 2007's Thunderer
, the time-walking musician Arjun has gone mad after trying to climb the mysterious mountain at the center of the city of Ararat. The city itself—easily the novel's most fascinating character—has entered a dark age. Gods no longer wander among the people, men go to work in dreary factories and secret policemen called Know-Nothings patrol the streets. As a wounded Arjun flees the mysterious Hollow Servants, he encounters a variety of odd characters who join his quest to explore the mountain. Gilman's world-building is intricate, but his plotting often falters and the denouement is a mess. The multiple viewpoints bog down the storytelling, and though there's still much to enjoy in exploring the city, it's not enough to save the book as a whole.

November 15, 2008
Sequel to Thunderer (2008), Gilman 's sprawling, impressive fantasy debut.

The vast, ancient city of Ararat, a bewildering maze of pollution, poverty, decay and ignorance, cowers in the shadow of the mysterious Mountain. The protagonist wakes to find himself with no memory, imprisoned with a dangerous half-human, half-lizard. After the creature, under the guise of prophesy, bites off two of his fingers, Arjun remembers his name and something of his past. Arjun came to Ararat in search of his music god, but instead encountered a malevolent wizard called Shay who showed him how he and others travel through enigmatic passageways in time, space and probability. Somehow, cruel, ambitious St. Loup persuaded Arjun to assault the Mountain, under the assumption that whoever controls it controls reality itself. But the Mountain, a machine constructed by vanished Builders, has powerful defenses, and Arjun lost his memory, returning to Ararat as a ghost. Rescued by two sisters, Ruth and Marta Low, from the mindlessly destructive Know-Nothings, Arjun volunteers to retrieve their estranged third sister, Ivy, from another ghost, Brace-Bel, whom Arjun had once known. Brace-Bel, defended by weapons given him by Shay, has his own theories about reality and the Mountain. But Ivy refuses to leave Brace-Bel, and slowly, a far greater struggle takes shape as Shay, and what prove to be innumerable copies of him, fight with Ivy, an engineering and geometry genius, for control of the Mountain.

Spectacular existential meltdown; what 's missing is direction and urgency.

(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 15, 2009
Wandering through the once great city of Ararat, Arjun seems to be just another lost ghost. When two sisters rescue him, he agrees to find their third sister and embarks on a journey to a fortified mansion whose defenses defy the current knowledge of time and space. Gilman's follow-up to his debut novel, "Thunderer", breaks new ground in fantasy storytelling with its unique combination of action and mystery and its unforgettable background that spans both time and space. A good choice for most fantasy collections.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.