At the time of this writing, City of Night is just getting started—with five parts of chapter 1 complete—but I think it has the potential to be good.  It is young adult urban fantasy, full of teenaged angst and hints of magic at every turn.  The world against which the protagonists seem set feels large and dangerous, full of inertia and external agendas.

The story follows two characters from different cultures.  Morgan Silver is a Witch—a child of the night.  She lives in an abandoned hotel in an abandoned part of the city with her brother and his gang, but feels she’s a burden to him, because they are all nocturnal, and she’s afraid of the dark.  Sandy Banks, on the other hand, is a Sorceror, the child of a doctor, living in the Sorcerers’ city, kept safely away from the Witches and all their kind.  But something is wrong.  In the Sorcerer’s city, fitting in is key, and Sandy doesn’t fit in.  Her skin is as white as a ghost’s, and she has orange eyes and white hair.  At school, she is picked on and ostracized for her strangeness.

Swirling around these two characters is the growing threat of violence.  In the Sorcerer’s city, the Chief of Police makes speeches about cleaning up the City—by which he means taking back the abandoned parts of the city and wiping out the Witches.  But on the other side of the border, things are little better, for the Witches fight amongst themselves.

Both Morgan and Sandy have reasons to run away, and run away they do.

Now, I know what you’re thinking—this all sounds intolerably angsty, a big pity party for the protagonists.  And I’ll not deny—that’s definitely a risk for the story line.  There’s something that almost seems Mary Sue about it, presently.  Almost.  Fortunately, so far, City of Night has managed to walk that line.  There’s angst, but the characters don’t wallow in it—they take action.  Not necessarily wise action, but action nonetheless, and that’s what holds it together.  As long as that continues—and things don’t come too easily for them—I think the story can work.

The writing itself is fairly good.  It’s densely written, with lots of narrative description and internal state, and not a lot of dialogue, but each part does move the story forward and builds on what has gone before.  The scenes are vivid and the night is appropriately scary.  The prose can get a little purple at times—especially when the characters are dealing with their fear—but it’s nothing a good edit pass can’t fix.

Overall, if the author can continue to walk the line on the angst front, and turn that brooding danger into something real, I think City of Night could turn out to be something quite good.  If you like young adult urban fantasy, it’s definitely worth a look.

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City of Night is full of choking, horrific dread. One protagonist is afraid of the dark that will eat her, while another is afraid of her ghostly reflection in the mirror. The horror that overtakes each girl as she confronts her fears, that are wrapped in such mundane things, is nail biting. The author does a wonderful job detailing each [more . . .]

(Disclaimer: the author of this story is a friend of mine.  But that’s okay, because she already knows what I think of it.)

City of Night is a young adult fantasy.  Young adult fantasy can be difficult to get into if you’re not a young adult.  That said, if you sit back (but not too far from the screen) and relax, and don’t get too caught up in ideas of what’s "serious" and what’s not, City of Night is an engaging and enjoyable story.

Like most good works, the best thing about it is the characters.  They are distinct, believable kids, with different strengths and personalities and senses of humor.  Izzy is the quirky little-sister type, Sandy the sweet lost soul, Toby the kind but overburdened leader, and Vince the wise but troubled friend.  They’re a bit Mary Sue (the kind of characters that seem unrealistically idealized), but only a bit, and in different ways.  They still have arguments and fights where it’s not clear who’s right, the kind of thing that Young Adult fiction has too little of, for fear of muddying the moral of the story.

And the Mary-Sue-ness of the characters is just enough to make them likable without them being too cloying.  While reading, you want Sandy to find people that accept her for who she is, and for Izzy to be seen as an equal by the others, and for Toby to let go of some of his responsibilities and share the rest.  (As of this writing we’re still not entirely sure what’s up with Vince.)  That engagement with the characters can keep you reading.

The plot and setting are fun if not earth-shattering so far.  We’re only in the third chapter, but we know that the City is split into two parts: the City of Light, ruled by conformist Sorcerers, and the City of Night, ruled by rebellious and argumentative Warlocks and Witches.  Sandy, feeling rejected by the City of Light, has run away to the City of Night, where a gang of Warlocks and Witches her age have taken her in.  The young denizens of the Night seem to have magic far beyond what Sandy has learned so far in school.  So why are Witches and Warlocks shunned and powerless?

Hopefully we’ll find out.  The story is only in the third chapter, and is perhaps a little slowly paced for me, though I must admit I’ve grown accustomed to reading short stories these days, so take that with a grain of salt.  And while I think at this point in the story most novels would have advanced the plot further and introduced more conflict, we have gotten a good read on the characters and some nice and atmospheric world-building.

So to sum up: the plot is fine but slow, the world different if not wholly unique, so it’s the characters that have to keep you coming back for more.  And they do.  Although sometimes a bit Mary Sue, they’re genuinely likable kids, and I’m sure more so for kids who are still officially kids.

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