Book Review - NORYLSKA GROANS by Michael R. Fletcher & Clayton W. Snyder

(Title: Norylska Groans / Authors: Michael R. Fletcher & Clayton W. Snyder / Publisher: Self-Published / Publication Date: May 10, 2021 / Pages: 524)

Book Blurb

Norylska groans...

with the weight of her crimes.  In a city where winter reigns amid the fires of industry and war, soot and snow conspire to conceal centuries of death and deception.

Norylska groans...

and the weight of a leaden sky threatens to crush her people.  Katyushka Leonova, desperate to restore her family name, takes a job with Norylska's brutal police force.  To support his family, Genndy Antonov finds bloody work with a local crime syndicate.

Norylska groans...

with the weight of her dead.  As bodies fall, the two discover a foul truth hidden beneath layers of deception and violence:  Come the thaw, what was buried will be revealed.

Review

I'm a huge fan of both Clayton Snyder and Michael Fletcher's books.  So when I heard that they were collaborating on a novel together, well there were two things that I was certain of.  One, it would be super dark with a "bit of the old ultraviolence", to coin a phrase from A Clockwork Orange.  Two, it would be a mesmerizing read that I wouldn't want to put down.  Now having read NORYLSKA GROANS, I'm happy to say that I was correct on both counts.

This is a low-fantasy story that takes place in a sort of Industrial Russia setting.  Life is bleak for many of the inhabitants of Norylska, as just to survive many of them join up with the local crime syndicates that rule the city with a merciless vigor.  It's really quite simple, if you are weak here, you die.  And mostly a very painful and slow death if you end up crossing the wrong people.  You can just feel the hopelessness dripping from the pages in the first few chapters as we are introduced to the two main characters Kat and Gen.

Kat is determined to reclaim a life that was once hers and that she wants to have again.  Stuck in a bad situation with a ineffectual boyfriend, she is tired of walking through dangerous neighborhoods and risking her life just to get groceries.  When she is approached by someone in local law enforcement offering her a job, she sees it as a way out of the malaise that has trapped her all these years.  But this is Norylska, and even those claiming to uphold the law are dirty in their own way and have motivations that go way beyond simply helping people.

Gen is very similar to Kat in that he is desperate to provide a better life for his family.  After losing his job he sinks into a quick depression that leads him to a place where he is also offered an opportunity.  An opportunity to escape the squalor and filth that he and the love of his life Irina exist in every day.  With a new baby on the way, his desperation is even that much greater.  The difference is, those who wish to employ the services of Gen are the most ruthless and violet criminals that you would ever not want to meet.

As the story begins to take hold, we get to experience each individual POV as its own separate storyline but at a certain point, as you would assume, they do converge and become different viewpoints of the same story.  Once that happens, this book goes from great to overwhelmingly extraordinary in my opinion.  And when all is said and done I was left shaking my head at the brilliance of this story and how superbly Fletcher and Snyder wove those threads into a smash-mouth, full throttle, INSANE thriller of a book that I won't soon forget.

I loved, loved, loved this book so much.  The magic is on the light side, but what an awesome magic system it is.  It is primarily based in what are called memory stones that are worn around the neck.  Many of the stones are infused with the memories of those who had worn them previously and died.  Some are even infused with attributes of aggressive animals.  The purpose of wearing the stones is to improve certain traits of the wearer that they may be short on.  Like courage, or patience, or compassion.  The problem is those who are weak of mind may also run the risk of those memories or attributes in the stones taking over and possibly changing them in some very unpleasant ways.  It really is one of the cooler magic systems that I have read.

This book is about the two main characters though and how in attempting to better their individual situations, get sucked deeper and deeper into things that they can't get out of.  To the point where they actually risk losing it all for the final endgame.  The book shines when these characters are deep in the muck and doing what they have to do to survive, by any means possible, most incredibly brutal and violent.  Yes, I have to warn you that this is a dark book and if you are triggered by violence and some intense torture scenes, this probably won't be your type of read.  However, I thought that the violence aspect was in perfect proportion to the dreary setting and plot of the story, so it really worked for me.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the dialogue, which is just top notch.  The amount of incredibly intense verbal exchanges and killer quotes in this book are too numerous to mention.  I started writing them down and just gave up because I couldn't pick just one or two to include in the review.  Just read the book and you'll see what I mean.  I also loved that sometimes right in the middle of a brutal scene, a character will drop a zinger of a funny line.  It was a brilliant way to totally break the tension, if only for a few seconds before the bones began to break.  Simply brilliant I thought and a hallmark of two of the best dialogue writers in the business.  I expect no less from these guys.

This was such a different read from the usual fantasy for me, and I think that is why I ripped through it so quickly.  I read it first thing in the morning, I read it while I was cooking, I stole minutes to read it when I was supposed to be working, I mean, I was transfixed by this book so much.  I can't yell enough about it honestly.  I hope that it gets the readership that it deserves because it would be a crime otherwise.  Think Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy crossed with a little Philip Kerr and Dostoevsky and you are in the general neighborhood of NORYLSKA GROANS.  This is an amazing read that should garner praise from every corner of the fantasy universe.  It certainly gets mine, that's for sure.  The book is officially available to purchase on May 10th, so get your preorder in now because you are going to want to read this as soon as it hits on day one.

Overall Rating: