Assessment:
Overall rating (4 votes)
Recommended by Chris Poirier, Morgan O'Friel, Sarah Suleski, and 2 other members.
City of Roses
A serialized novel, presently on hiatus.
City of Roses is about what happens when Jo Maguire, a highly strung underemployed telemarketer, meets Ysabel Perry, a princess of unspecifiable pedigree. It’s also about hearts broken cleanly and otherwise, the City of Portland, Spenser, those moments in pop songs when the bass and all of the drums except maybe a handclap suddenly drop out of the bridge leaving you hanging from a slender aching thread of melody waiting almost dreading the moment when the beat comes back, and the occasional swordfight.
City of Roses
A Serialized Phantastick on The Ten Thousand Things & The One True Only
— contains some graphic sex, graphic violence, and harsh language —
Tags: bi fae gay lesbian magic online novels present tense romance sex third person urban fantasy
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Editorial Reviews
Beauty, grit, and song
When I first I click on a link to web serial it’s without any intention of reading it right then and there. I just want to have a nose around the site, scan a few paragraphs, look at some pictures if there are any, and decide if it’s of interest to me and how soon I may return to read further.
I did that with City of Roses and after an hour found that I had read all of Act One and was utterly captivated. The prose flows effortlessly, like a song, and the beauty of it juxtaposes brilliantly with the grit and grunge of the city and characters. I rarely come away from a dirty urban setting feeling as if I’ve just lilted through a Shakespearian sonnet but City of Roses gives me just that illusion, without being boring or sluggish in an over fascination with its own narration. The story moves, the characters come alive, and the world sucks you in with its mysterious alternate reality adventure.
As for that story itself, you need know no more than the summary tells. I clicked through just to see the site design and having no other knowledge of the serial, found myself drawn into it like a fly happily entrapped in the writer’s web.
Stop reading this review. Go read the story. Read it. Go. Now. What is the matter with you? Why are you still here?
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Breathless Anticipation
The first thing I noticed upon viewing the site was that the author utilizes a heavily stylized form of sentence prose. The rhythm of the sentences can get choppy in some areas and overly-long in others. This style’s employed, as far as I can tell, to attempt to mirror the way that people experience the world around them.
Sometimes, particularly in fight scenes or at dances, this works wonderfully; it picks me up and scurries me along with a flurry of details just as I’d imagine they’d happen, without pausing for unnecessary signifiers. Other times it’s bothersome and obviously out-of-step with normal grammar, which usually happens during slower sections of the tale. It took some getting used-to, but once I adapted to it I found myself unwittingly slipping into that cadence whenever I typed.
The characters are usually unique and interesting. The author utilizes a good cross-section of what would normally be considered the fringe of society — people with dreadlocks, punks, the homeless, goths, telemarketers, etc. These people typically play an important role in the fae underworld, which makes their outsider appearance even more enjoyable.
There’s definitely a hint of Gaiman’s Neverwhere in this particular style of urban fantasy. There’s a whole world that exists alongside ours, but it’s structured along the lines of high fantasy kingdoms. This image is completed by focusing on kings, queens, dukes, knights, hunts, balls, and much more.
One interesting quick for the fae is that they slip in-and-out of human consciousness. The fae could party all night with a human without the mortal remembering the next day. They’re also capable of wiping humans away from the urban area they’re in, so that only the fae and the chosen mortals are able to move around. It makes certain battle scenes and hunts all the more attractive, because they’re taking place in such everyday places as abandoned malls, freeways, parking garages, and clubs.
There’s also a distinct lack of what’s commonly become associated with urban fantasy, such as werewolves, vampires, witches, etc. While there are fae, they don’t typically resemble modern interpretations of the fae in urban fantasy — it seems to appear only in the facts that they’re immortal (unless hurt by a human), that their currency seems to be fairy dust, and that some names are taken from famous fae.
The author manages to skillfully weave in subplots and intrigue without them becoming a distraction. After six chapbooks, several sub-points are still unclear — the purpose of the wild nicknames (things like Axe, Chariot, Mooncalfe, etc), the ties between various members of the court, what Ysabel’s plans are, where Joe’s ultimate alliance will be, and whether or not readers will ever discover what’s playing on Roland’s headphones. With each new chapter as many questions are raised as answers given, and yet it’s never anything that detracts from the plot.
If you like urban fantasy, this story is a something you should check out. Even if you only peek into it for the unique style, don’t pass it up. The characters, subplots, and intrigue are bound to drag you under the story’s spell.
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