Review: Smoke and Stone

Smoke and Stone by Michael R. Fletcher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Holy Smoke! (and Stone) was that a wild ride…

Michael R. Fletcher makes his return to grimdark fantasy in fine fashion, introducing us to a fascinating new world, different from that in his brilliant Manifest Delusions series. If you enjoyed the world-building and backstabbery of that series, you’ll love this one just as much. It’s the first book in the City of Sacrifice series, set entirely in the city of Bastion, which to its inhabitants comprises the entire known world.

Bastion sets on a single stone, which covers a diameter of about 250 miles. A quarter of a million people live here, separated by several walls which ring around the core, where the priests live. It’s an elaborate caste system, where the farther out one lives from the center, the more poor and numerous.

Smoke and Stone takes place mostly in the Grower’s Ring, where the food for the city is harvested by, you guessed it, the Growers. The poorest in this society, Growers are given very few (if any) amenities, but several things that are listed as being punishable. It’s actually a crime for them to own chairs, so most of them flip unused boxes over to have something to secretly sit on. The Growers are seen as too stupid to do anything but grow food, so their children are taken away at birth and raised (to be Growers) away from their birth parents.

As one can guess, the priests control everything in the name of the gods. But it turns out, the gods have a hand in things, and some of them aren’t so happy with how it’s all turned out. Seems that thousands of years ago there was a big war between these gods and the walls of Bastion are all that protects humanity’s survivors from, well, whatever horrors are out there.

In our story, we have two protagonists and the narrative alternates between their two perspectives. First we have Akachi, a young member of the priesthood that is being assigned a parish in the Wheat District, where he will be expected to guide souls until a real priest can be found to take over (the last few met pretty horrific ends, so Akachi is not expected to last long). Secondly, we have Nuru, a street sorcerer from the Grower's Ring, where the Wheat District is located. She’s a member of a small gang that roams the streets of the District and are becoming aware of and unhappy about the status quo in the city of Bastion.

The magic system is pretty awesome and unique. Nuru and Akachi are both practitioners, though they use their skills in different ways. There are narcotics which are taken in to gift/enhance the user and enable them to do all sorts of wicked things. This is another trademark of Fletcher fantasy, in that he puts a lot of thought and creativity into a magic system that’s very different from what’s already out there.

This novel then gives us the stories of both of our young protagonists as they learn the ins and outs of their mutual district from opposite perspectives. They both have a cast of side characters that are quite interesting, and we follow all of these through the story to its ending. All I will say about that is that’s it’s pretty Michael R. Fletchery in nature, so be prepared to feel like breaking something.


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