
The Etched City
A Novel
Random House Worlds · Print & ebook · November 23, 2004
“Combine equal parts of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and Chine Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, throw in a dash of Aubrey BeardsleyandJ.K. Huysmans, and you’ll get some idea of this disturbing, decadent first novel.”—Publishers Weekly Gwynn and Raule are rebels on the run, with little in common except being on the losing side of a hard-fought war.
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- Who it’s for
- For when you want fantasy that feels sharp, strange, and a little radioactive.
- Genres
- Dark Fantasy, Gaslamp Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
- Published
- Random House Worlds, November 23, 2004
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“Combine equal parts of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and Chine Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, throw in a dash of Aubrey BeardsleyandJ.K. Huysmans, and you’ll get some idea of this disturbing, decadent first novel.”—Publishers Weekly Gwynn and Raule are rebels on the run, with little in common except being on the losing side of a hard-fought war. Gwynn is a gunslinger from the north, a loner, a survivor . . . a killer.
Continue reading
Raule is a wandering surgeon, a healer who still believes in just—and lost—causes. Bound by a desire to escape the ghosts of the past, together they flee to the teeming city of Ashamoil, where Raule plies her trade among the desperate and destitute, and Gwynn becomes bodyguard and assassin for the household of a corrupt magnate. There, in the saving and taking of lives, they find themselves immersed in a world where art infects life, dream and waking fuse, and splendid and frightening miracles begin to bloom . . . “The plot, with its stories-within-stories and its offhand descriptions of wonders and prodigies, brings to mind the works of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.”—Locus
Sharp Strange Fantasy
For when you want fantasy that feels sharp, strange, and a little radioactive.
Come here for
- dark-fantasy atmosphere, with a literary edge
- layered worldbuilding that leans eerie
Expect
- serious tone
- immersive, conversation-starting read
Where it sits
| Dark Fantasy | 80% |
|---|---|
| Urban Fantasy | 48% |
| Gaslamp Fantasy | 38% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Urban Fantasy
- Dark Fantasy
- Sci-Fi Adventure
- Authors
- K.J. Bishop
- Publisher
- Random House Worlds
- Published
- November 23, 2004
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Urban Fantasy