The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Hanrahan – Review

Published: January 22, 2019

Publisher: Orbit Books

Series: The Black Iron Legacy #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 512 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

A group of three young thieves are pulled into a centuries old magical war between ancient beings, mages, and humanity in this wildly original debut epic fantasy.

The city has always been. The city must finally end.

When three thieves – an orphan, a ghoul, and a cursed man – are betrayed by the master of the thieves guild, their quest for revenge uncovers dark truths about their city and exposes a dangerous conspiracy, the seeds of which were sown long before they were born.Cari is a drifter whose past and future are darker than she can know.

Rat is a Ghoul, whose people haunt the city’s underworld.

Spar is a Stone Man, subject to a terrible disease that is slowly petrifying his flesh.

Chance has brought them together, but their friendship could be all that stands in the way of total armageddon

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I think The Gutter Prayer has been one of the most highly anticipated fantasy releases of Winter 2019 and for good reason. Gareth Hanrahan has shown himself to be highly creative in world building and he’s created something that will stick with me in the months to come. The Tallowmen and the Crawling Ones were particularly haunting and projected an aura so sinister and creeptastic that they may even feature in my nightmares. I mean, the Tallowmen used to be human until the alchemists got ahold of them and turned them into murderous candlesticks and the Crawling Ones…. *shiver me timbers* are THOUSANDS OF SORCEROUS WORMS IN A TRENCHCOAT. Essentially.

The city of Guerdon is neutral in the war between the gods and the alchemist guild supplies weapons to all sides – horrible things that eat you from the inside and worse. The old gods of the city are perhaps not as dead as everyone thought and if they awaken, Guerdon won’t be safe any longer. Carillon Thay is an orphan turned thief and her new companions Rat (a ghoul) and Spar (a human slowly turning to stone) get mixed up in a bad way with the master of the Thieves Guild. Cari is, unbeknownst to her, a conduit or saint of these horrible deities that are awakening and she begins to have strange but useful visions. Spar is trying to fight the guild he’s a part of and Rat, well he’s just trying not to turn into a slavering, corpse-munching monster too quickly.

This is a multi-layered story with a number of interesting side characters that I’ve not even mentioned. The story felt VERY busy and I thought the 87 (exaggeration) plot lines distracted from the main three things going on. I generally like books with a lot going on but in this case it just didn’t work for me, which is the reason I’m only giving 4 stars.

This is a series that I definitely want to continue on with and I’m curious to see where things go from here. I think it has a lot of potential to expand not only on the city of Guerdon, but the Godswar that rages across the land thought it seemed there was too much introduced too quickly. We saw some sneak peeks of what the distant war was like and it just sounds horribly interesting in a violent way – I mean, blessings that are curses, giant warrior saints, etc. If you’re look for a unique fantasy that leans toward the darker side of things, this might just be the next book you want to check out.