A beautifully crafted though massively complicated debut to what looks like a rolling series. I worry when I write something like this, because if the author has thrown so much complication at the first book in a series, one wonders A) Is there anything left for the next one? B) to top the first one, is the next one simply going to get labyrinthine to the point of lax and undisciplined (like the later Harry Potter volumes did, I would suggest …)

But that’s just speculation nagging me. And even if the jury is out for me about the rest of the series, there is a huge amount to praise in this first volume. It is certainly well done – well written, well plotted, a world well-fleshed out. It’s a genre novel in pure culture – all the familiar components, shaken up and reassembled – but genre novels have huge appeal, and there was enough that was original in this one that I wasn't left feeling I had read the book before.
I quickly believed in the world that Hilliard has created. It felt solid, as if I could look round a corner and there would be more of it, not just the cardboard back of a stage set. That’s a huge achievement for a genre fantasy book.


The cast of characters was compelling. Four of them were really structural for this book and there were several more whom I cared about and would be happy to meet again, perhaps in a more major role in a future volume.

I liked the shades of grey – I have always been interested in the liminal space between good and evil, and this was well charted in some of the characters.

I liked the variant take on various old tropes (oh how I loved those interesting black unicorns – anyone who has been anywhere near a western girl-child in the last few years will have been fed to gagging with fluffy saccharin pastel-coloured ones, so this was a bold innovation, but well achieved.)

I liked the exploration of class and status and race and discrimination – modern issues I haven’t seen explored in this way through this genre before. Done with a lightness of touch that I admired, but still there for the taking.

All in all, a fine debut. Well done Mr Hilliard. I’ll risk the next one and eat humble pie if my opening misgivings are proven wrong.