SMOKE EATERS by Sean Grigsby – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Smoke Eaters by Sean Grigsby
Published by Angry Robot on March 6 2018
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 384
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: A story full of great ideas that really shined in some parts, but unfortunately needed more polishing and editing to make it a standout debut.

I was intrigued by the idea of Smoke Eaters, a story about a special crew of firefighters with the ability to withstand dragon smoke and slay dragons. And although there are lots of cool ideas in this story, it ultimately didn’t work that well for me. A combination of “debut author syndrome” and a lack of strong editing seem to be the main issues for me, which kind of makes me sad because I think this could have been a much stronger story. Also, I recently read another book that had a similar story idea, and I couldn’t help but compare the two. The Sky is Yours is also about the sudden appearance of dragons and the resulting destruction of a society, but it’s a far superior story, in my opinion, and that may have ultimately influenced my feelings about Smoke Eaters.

Cole Brannigan is counting down his last days as a firefighter in Parthenon City, Ohio and looking forward to retirement, when he’ll have more time to spend with his wife Sherry. The year is 2121 and due to several major cataclysmic events, the world has been turned into a post apocalyptic landscape. The main cause? Years ago, dragons suddenly started to burst forth from their underground lairs, setting fire to buildings and killing everyone nearby. Now cities lay in waste and citizens stay hidden inside, since no one is never sure when a dragon will appear (although earthquakes are a sign that one may be about to emerge).

But one day when Brannigan’s team is summoned to put out a fire, things go terribly wrong. A dragon attacks his crew, and in the middle of trying to save them, Brannigan discovers that he’s able to breathe inside the burning house, despite the smoke-filled room. When a team of smoke eaters arrive on scene to kill the dragon, they discover Brannigan’s ability and whisk him off to smoke eater headquarters. Brannigan is told that he is one of the few who can breathe dragon smoke, and as such he is recruited (against his will, more or less) into the ranks of smoke eaters, even though he keeps explaining that he’s about to retire. Suddenly his life is full of long hours of training, dangerous encounters with dragons, and even worse, an angry wife who can’t understand why he’s taken on a new job. 

I loved the idea of dragons popping up through the ground and causing destruction, and Grigsby has created a fascinating world where there are different breeds of dragons who cause destruction in different ways. I also appreciated the in-depth details about firefighting. The author brings his own real life experiences as a firefighter into the mix, so all the scenes that deal with fires have a wonderful authenticity to them. The dragons are fierce and deadly, and I appreciated the fact that they are in the story for one purpose only: to kill and destroy. There’s also a fair amount of graphic violence and gore in this story, so be warned if that bothers you.

I also loved the idea of smoke eaters, humans with the ability to breathe dragon smoke and survive. The author gives an explanation for this ability later in the story, which made me very happy, mostly because there are other world-building elements that don’t get sufficiently explained.

But even though the author had some really good ideas, a lot of the world-building confused me. High at the top of that list was the idea of the wraiths and their relationship with the dragons. Wraiths are the ghosts of people who are killed by dragons, and their appearance is also meant to attract other dragons to the site. Once the dragon finds a mate and lays eggs (in the ashes of the building it just burned down), the wraith’s purpose is to guard the eggs until they hatch. I don’t know, it just didn’t make sense to me, and I honestly spent a great deal of time puzzling out the whys and hows of the wraiths, when I should have simply been enjoying the story. There were several elements that kept popping up that were never explained, like why some people have eyes that glow (maybe it was a smoke eater thing? maybe I missed that?). Grigsby brought up a fascinating parallel between the dragons and the life cycle of cicadas, and I was hoping he would develop it further, but unfortunately it never went anywhere.

I really wanted to like the characters in Smoke Eaters, and although Brannigan had his moments, for the most part he rubbed me the wrong way. I’ll give it to you straight: Brannigan is a horny, middle-aged man who is constantly ogling every woman he comes into contact with. Because the story is told from his first person POV, we are treated to such observations as how his co-worker Naveena’s chest jiggles when she laughs, her glowing skin or shiny hair, and this gem:

“I was sure this would be the room where I died. I guess it wasn’t a bad way to go—we’d saved a bunch of orphans. But I’d always thought I’d die mid-orgasm, and I was kind of sad a bunch of winged assholes were going to be my ruin.”

Just yuck. I know my feminist side is rearing its ugly head right now, but I can’t get past the fact that Brannigan was a sexist piece of work. I feel as if Smoke Eaters is geared towards male readers, so ladies beware.

To make matters worse, I absolutely hated Brannigan’s wife Sherry. Not only is she the most cardboard-like character I’ve ever run across, but every word out of her mouth got on my nerves and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why Brannigan was married to her. Brannigan literally wants to retire so he has more time to have sex with his wife, but lord help me, I just couldn’t understand why.

The bottom line is that there was just too much going on in this story. Grigsby clearly has lots of great ideas, but it felt as though he tried to cram each and every one of them into this book. At about the halfway point, the crew decides to take a trip to Canada (I’m still not sure what the point of the trip was), and even though they come back with an item that plays an important role later on, the whole side trip seemed unnecessary and tedious. There’s also a subplot that involves a slimy mayor who is trying to replace the police force with droids, but it came so late in the story that it just didn’t have a very big impact. I think a sharper editing pen could have whipped this story into shape, but sadly that didn’t happen.

There were so many little details in Smoke Eaters that I loved, like Brannigan’s robot dog Kenji who only speaks Korean, some hysterically funny pop culture references (John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and The Doors song Light My Fire both have cameos), and some awesome action near the end that reminded me of Ghostbusters, but these were simply small moments that just weren’t big enough to hold together the otherwise rambling plot. Despite my criticisms, however, there were some fun moments in this story, and I would certainly be open to seeing what Sean Grigsby comes up with next.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.