Thunderer [Mass Market Paperback]

Felix Gilman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 30, 2008

In this breathtaking debut novel, one man embarks on a thrilling and treacherous quest for his people’s lost god—in a labyrinthine Dickensian city that is either blessed . . . or haunted.

Arjun arrives in Ararat just as a magnificent winged creature sails over the city. It is the day of the return of that long-awaited mystical creature: the great Bird. As it soars across the land, as the city’s mapless streets are transformed, as the great river changes its course, as the territories of the city’s avian life are redrawn, crowds cheer and guns salute. Then comes the time for the Bird’s power to be trapped—within the hull of the floating warship Thunderer, now a living temple to the Bird, and a terrible new weapon to be used, allegedly, in the interests of all of Ararat.

Hurtled into this convulsing world is Arjun, who will unwittingly unleash a dark power beyond his imagining—and dare to test Ararat’s moving boundaries. For in this city of gods, he has come to search among them, not to hide.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Scattershot plotting and puzzling theology notwithstanding, there's much to like in Gilman's first novel, fantasy set in the ever-shifting city of Ararat. Once a gifted composer in the distant city of Gad, Arjun has come to Ararat seeking the intangible Voice. Instead, he finds a city filled with other gods, streets that resist being mapped and citizens touched in varying ways by the passing of the mysterious Bird. Gilman's literary antecedents are intriguingly diverse. Ararat itself fuses elements of Renaissance Venice and Victor Hugo's Paris. Arjun's search leads at times into gaslight-era SF à la Jules Verne, at others into distinctly Poe-like horror, while a secondary plot transforms street youth Jack into a hybrid of Peter Pan and Dickens's Artful Dodger. Impressively, the whole remains essentially coherent, though just how and why Ararat's gods behave as they do is unclear, and parts of the convoluted climax rely too heavily on underexplained aspects of the city's nature. Nonetheless, strongly conveyed atmosphere and intriguing characters make this a distinctive debut. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Gilman takes his readers on a journey through a world of deep and wondrous impossibilities where marvels lurk around every corner. His infinite city and the lives of its people quickly become an irresistible compulsion— I imagine an evening where Dickens, Miyazaki, and Jules Verne sat down to dream up a metropolis and its wrangling multitudes. Thunderer will leave you wide eyed, breathless and hoping for more."—David Keck, author of In the Eye of Heaven

“Memorably inventive, with intriguing characters ... impressive.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Gilman is far above average for a first novelist."—Booklist

“Entrancing. A subtle mix of magic realism and epic fantasy, with the beauty of the former and the worldbuilding of the latter. Recommended for any who want to sit back for a spell and just dream.” —Brandon Sanderson, author of Mistborn

“Incredibly imaginative—a brilliant new author.” —Jeff VanderMeer, author of Shriek

“Carries the day with panache and boldness and ingenuity…What Gilman has achieved here is something exotic and Borgesian, a novel that never stumbles or disappoints.”—SciFi.com, Grade: A

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Spectra; Reprint edition (September 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 055359110X
• ISBN-13: 978-0553591101
• Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 1.2 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,170,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly promising first novel--with wonderful world-building March 5, 2008

By booksforabuck VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

When the god he worships, Voice, vanishes from Gad, Arjun comes up with the idea of searching for Voice in the great city, Ararat. In Ararat, gods are abundant and it would be easy, he reasons, to for one more god to lose his way in that city. After traveling for months, he arrives in time to see evidence of those gods--a huge flame that continually lights the city, and a bird flying overhead that showers its powers down on the inhabitants of Ararat, temporarily gifting a few of them with the ability to fly.

Jack Sheppard has waited for the arrival of the bird and uses its passage to speed his own escape from a workhouse. Once free, he joins up with a group of other feral children and schemes to free more. Ararat teems with workhouses and prisons, and Jack embarks on a quest to free everyone. While the power the bird gave most of Ararat fades, in Jack, it seems to grow.

Scientist Holbach has predicted the return of the bird and convinced one of the city's nobles, the Countess Ilona, to invest in a balloon that will, Holbach believes, permanently capture a bit of the bird's power that would otherwise disperse into nothing. The experiment is a success, but at a cost, and the balloon, named Thunderer, becomes a part of the Countess's arsenal. While Holbach dreamed of using it to continue his vast survey and Atlas of the seemingly limitless city, the Countess plans it to be a weapon, allowing her to threaten her rivals without fear of retribution.

Author Felix Gilman shows huge promise in a fascinating and complex world where gods walk the streets, continually transforming the city behind them, where a few humans seem to have abilities that defy explanation, and where disease and corruption never lies far beneath the surface.... The city of Ararat is really the primary character in this story, with Jack, Holbach, Arjun and the others serving mostly as opportunities to peer into other parts of the city, to see new sights and new dangers.

THUNDERER is Gilman's first novel and, despite its promise, it's not without flaws. The Thunderer itself never really plays an important role in the unfolding plot. The mysterious spider god shows incredible potential (and a number of pages are dedicated to this god) but soon fades and never really plays a role in the plot, either. As several people point out to Jack, his plan to spring workers and prisoners from their workshops and prisons is clearly doomed--if the escapes are successful, the newly freed prisoners have nothing to do, no money, no food--yet he seems incapable of doing anything else. Even Arjun seems to wander through the city rather. Only in the last fifty pages or so, when Gilman wraps things up, does Arjun develop goals and start to plan rather than react.

The best fantasy develops wonderful worlds that somehow reflect and shine lights into our own universe. But Gilman, in THUNDERER, seems to forget that it's necessary to have compelling characters and plot as well. There's a lot to like in this book and Gilman certainly shows huge promise. But that promise is only partially filled in this first novel. Read more ›

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Theological Urban Fantasy : a good story, well written January 4, 2008

By Carrie

Format:Hardcover

Yes, someone gave this book a bad review, but don't listen to him -- he's someone who apparently doesn't know the difference between "bazaar" and "bizarre". This book is a delight, and the author is both a good storyteller and a good writer.

I completely disagree with the previous reviewer's critique that the book has no character or plot development; I found the characters to have both depth and charm (and yes, they do learn and grow and change during the course of their travels), and the plot is creatively based upon what happens to the these characters as they seek to find, follow, trap, defy, profit from, or divine the patterns of the many gods within the seemingly infinite city of Ararat. This city is NOT, as the critical reviewer has written, "devoid of cause and effect and logic," but instead is vividly written and fascinating. The gods of Ararat regularly remake its streets in the wake of their passing, and the citizens who believe in these gods (and who among them would dare NOT believe, when their presence is so frequently seen and felt) range from the blasé to the devout to the fanatical.

The summaries of this book focus on the naive traveler Arjun and his search for the Voice, but there is also another main character, Jack (it's not too much of a spoiler to say that he's the one featured on the cover, is it?), a boy of the streets whose own search is equally engaging. Indeed, they are contending with forces greater than themselves, yet they have their own skills and wisdom to draw upon as they make their stand....

The secondary characters also have depth, and skills, and flaws of their own to wrestle with, and as you read you will be certain that even though not every detail has revealed to you, the author, at least, knows everything about both his gods and his mortals, making both the setting and the story of his novel very believable and wonderfully exciting.

I'll be saving my 5-star rating for when Gilman's second book goes to press. Read more ›

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow to build but satisfying January 27, 2008

By Alexander Gray

Format:Hardcover

This novel took a little bit to get it's engine going, but I found it excellent. There are three main characters. The first two are Jack and Arjun and the plot follows the two of them in their separate stories until they intersect. The last is the city, an area that is as much theological as geographical. The city rearranges itself and is infested by gods that are unknowable but impossible to ignore. The book lags at the beginning because the author has to layer on plots and characters and background to let the readers ( and the characters) discover how the city really works.
A satisfying chew.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Maze of Gods December 31, 2007

By B. Thomas-Moore

Format:Hardcover

Horror fantasy is an close description, but it's not so much that as quixotic; all of Gilman's characters are attempting to contend with forces far beyond their control, their intertwining goals shifting like the city itself as the gods pass them by. Their reach exceeds their grasp, but that's what makes them so intriguing to read about.

As for the city itself - for those familiar with the Planescape setting, imagine the Cage without the Lady of Pain, at the mercy of, and reshaped by, any power or demiurge that passes through its portals. The citizens live in shifting districts, ruled by this or that noble house, often claimed by several at once, and all the time hoping for and dreading the touch of the gods who might change anything.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars the Gods Must be Crazy fantasy December 29, 2007

By Harriet Klausner #1 HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover

Arjun the composer leaves his home city Gad on a quest to find the intangible Voice. His journey takes him to the strange city of Ararat where streets change location and direction seemingly on a whim. He finds the place loaded with Gods, who enjoy making the city in their image. Then there is the enigmatic Bird who apparently has powerful influence on the townsfolk and Arjun wonders if the Gods do too.

As Arjun struggles to adjust to the ever changing environs, he continues his search for the Voice. He also ponders why so many Gods reside here and whether they compete to shape the landscape and the people in their image of the moment.

Readers who appreciate something radically different will want to peruse this complex horror fantasy as we accompany Arjun on his quest inside a city in which the visit yesterday to a locale might have been Renaissance Italy but today is late nineteenth century San Francisco and tomorrow only the Gods know. Try being Mapquest providing direction under those ever changing conditions. The convoluted story line never explains why the Gods constantly perform urban renewal; still Arjun and the audience get a first hand look at a theological system in which apparently the Gods Must be Crazy.

Harriet Klausner