THE GUTTER PRAYER by Gareth Hanrahan – 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.

THE GUTTER PRAYER by Gareth Hanrahan – ReviewThe Gutter Prayer Series: The Black Iron Legacy #1
Published by Orbit on January 22 2019
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 544
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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four-half-stars

The nitty-gritty: Full of stunning world-building and epic in scope, The Gutter Prayer is a debut you don’t want to miss.

Goodreads tells me that it took me ten days to read The Gutter Prayer, and dammit I’m now two books behind with my reading challenge! I start my review with this fact not to scare you off from reading it, but to show that although The Gutter Prayer is a dense and overstuffed story that I had to read slowly in order to absorb, it’s still a remarkable achievement for a debut author. I do have a couple of character-related quibbles which I’ll get into later in this review, but overall I thought this book was stunning and deserves all the praise it’s been getting from the SFF community.

The story takes place in the city of Guerdon, a grim place teaming with terrible creatures, where life is tenuous at best. Three friends—Cari, a human girl, Rat, a ghoul, and Spar, a Stone Man—have been hired to break into the House of Law and steal something. But the heist goes terribly wrong, and an explosion in the building nearly kills them. Cari, Rat and Spar must flee the scene before they can be arrested by the Tallowmen, but in the confusion they are separated.

As Cari tries to escape, she experiences something odd and horrific: she “leaves” her body and can see the entire city from multiple points of view. This experience leaves her shaken and compels her to set out on a quest to understand what’s happening to her. As she makes her way through the city, dodging all manner of people and creatures that want her dead, she begins to realize that the old gods, thought dead for years, may not be so dead after all.

Hanrahan’s world-building is probably the best thing about this book. Part grimdark, part fantasy, the city of Guerdon and everything in it is a feast for the senses and the imagination. If you’ve ever read anything by China Miéville, you’ll definitely see his influence in this story. Horrible creatures stalk the streets and tunnels of the city, and getting in their way is not recommended, not if you want to stay alive. The city itself is a character, brought to life by magic, the threat of sleeping gods, and the sheer desperation of its inhabitants, whose hardscrabble lives are in constant danger. I loved learning about the ghouls, rat-like creatures who live off the corpses of the dead. The ghouls live mostly underground in a series of tunnels, which stretch miles below the city, and they eat the flesh from the dead who are, unbeknownst to their loved ones, dumped into an underground chamber where they become food for the ghouls. And if a ghoul lives long enough, it becomes an Elder ghoul (and yes, I believe that is a blatant Lovecraft reference!), hiding in the furthest reaches of the tunnels.

We also get to meet the Ravellers, lightning fast creatures who flay and then absorb their victims; the Crawling Ones, creatures made up of thousands of worms; and the worst of the bunch, the Tallowmen, living candles made from the bodies of the dead, who act as the police force in Guerdon. The Tallowmen are going to give me nightmares for years to come, and I cannot image any worse fate than being unlucky enough to be caught and sent to the factories where the Tallowmen are made. Hanrahan describes all these unpleasant creatures in exquisite detail and leaves nothing to the imagination.

I also loved the reveal that the Black Iron Gods of old are still in the city, after being supposedly killed off in the war against the Keepers, and learning about Cari’s connection to the Gods was one of my favorite parts of the story. But one of my criticisms of The Gutter Prayer lies in the plot itself. There is a lot going on in this story, maybe too much for the reader to absorb. At times it feels crowded, with too many characters doing too many different things. Eventually all the threads connect, but it takes a while for that to happen. I felt this at the end especially, when the action ramps up and takes on an even greater sense of urgency than before. Hanrahan tells his story from multiple points of view, which worked most of the time. But the main characters are so scattered at the end that it was hard to focus and understand exactly what was happening.

Which brings me to the characters. Individually, I loved Rat and Spar in particular, but I did have issues with the amount of interaction among all the characters. I really wanted to love Cari more, she is the main character, after all. But she felt oddly flat to me, and I sort of stopped caring about her at some point during the story. There is another character named Miren, a young man who has a magical ability that comes in quite handy, but he’s a horrible character and I absolutely hated him. Both Cari and her cousin Eladora are attracted to Miren, but he honestly couldn’t give a shit about either of them and treated them both like garbage.

Cari, Rat and Spar are supposed to be friends, but I was disappointed that they spent most of the story apart from each other. Hanrahan tells us how Spar feels about Cari, and how Cari feels about Rat and Spar, but we don’t really get to experience those interactions first hand. I think more dialogue between the characters would have helped in this regard, since there is actually very little of it in this book. The relationship between Cari and Rat is extremely complex, and I wanted the author to go deeper with that relationship and explain why Rat hates Cari so much. Cari herself doesn’t seem to care one way or another whether her friends live or die, which was another reason I had a tough time with her.

But folks, all of these issues with characterizations ultimately aren’t that important, because I thought Hanrahan did a fantastic job with Spar’s character, which made up for the rest. Where do I even start with Spar? He’s a Stone Man, a human who is slowly turning to stone. Only a drug called alkahest has the ability to ease his pain and give him more mobility, but even that can only do so much. Spar is the most tragic of the characters, and I felt as if I were right there with him on his journey. I wanted to wrap Spar up in a big hug, despite the fact that his disease is contagious. 

The ending was suitably epic, and I did love how everything finally came together. Hanrahan even threw in some cool surprises at the end that suggest where the story might be headed in the next book. This debut might not be perfect, but it certainly delivers on many levels and introduces an exciting and talented new voice to genre fiction. Don’t miss it!

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.  

Posted January 21, 2019 by Tammy in 4 1/2 stars, Reviews / 31 Comments

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31 responses to “THE GUTTER PRAYER by Gareth Hanrahan – Review”

  4. sjhigbee

    Thank you for your informative review, which has convinced me that this one isn’t for me… Not too thrilled with overcrowded plots and characters who lose impact halfway through, but this author has clearly got lots of potential and I’m glad you ultimately enjoyed it.

    Reply
    • Tammy

      It’s definitely not for everyone, and mostly because of the grimdark elements. This book is DARK.

      Reply
    • Tammy

      I think we both had similar feelings about certain aspects of the story, but wow, this guy is talented!

      Reply
    • Tammy

      It’s unique for sure! If you love intricate and crazy worldbuilding, then this is a great choice:-)

      Reply
    • Tammy

      I’m looking forward to your review! Yes, it’s so dense and full of description that it’s not a quick read. But I honestly didn’t mind. His writing is so good that you forget you’re reading slowly.

      Reply
  9. Maddalena@spaceandsorcery

    Like you, I felt some distance from the character of Carillon, and at first I almost disliked her, since she came across as somewhat selfish, but along the way I managed to warm up to her, mostly because of her willingness to sacrifice her goals – and not only those – for the sake of her friends. But my absolute favorite was Aleena, the Mighty Cussing One 😉
    Maddalena@spaceandsorcery recently posted…PLANETARY AWARDS: Nominations for the best of 2018My Profile

    Reply
    • Tammy

      I bumped up my rating a little because of the sheer amazingness of the world building. But yes, if you’re looking for a quick read, this is NOT it.

      Reply
  12. Lynn Williams

    I’ve skimmed this because I’m writing my review now. I enjoyed this, but, like you, it seemed to take a long time to read and I’m really not quite sure why. I loved the world building and the ‘gang’ feel – kind of put me in mind of the Gentleman Bastards in style which was great.
    Lynn 😀
    Lynn Williams recently posted…You will, you will, you will, eventually!My Profile

    Reply
  15. Nicole @ Thoughts Stained With Ink

    Your review was *so good*. It hit on practically all the points I think I tried to hit in mine, but definitely failed to. I totally agree on the point of wishing to see more interactions between Spar, Cari and Rat. That would have been really nice to read, because you’re right: we’re told they are friends, but we don’t get to see it as much as I expected when I read the blurb. Great review!!

    Reply
  17. Kristen @ Metaphors and Moonlight

    This does sound like your kinda book! Heists are fun, and there’s a ghoul and a stone man and a human with some sort of out of body experience? Sounds pretty cool! Although when you said creatures made up of worms, all I could think of was Oogie Boogie lol. Those candle things do sound terrifying though!

    Reply

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