A review by markyon
The Relic Guild by Edward Cox
3.0
This is the latest in a series of debut novels that Gollancz have promoted this year. For me, it’s not a completely successful debut but still quite an entertaining read.
From the back of the book:
“Magic caused the war. Magic is forbidden. Magic will save us.
It was said the Labyrinth had once been the great meeting place, a sprawling city at the heart of an endless maze where a million humans hosted the Houses of the Aelfir.
The Aelfir who had brought trade and riches, and a future full of promise. But when the Thaumaturgists, overlords of human and Aelfir alike, went to war, everything was ruined and the Labyrinth became an abandoned forbidden zone, where humans were trapped behind boundary walls 100 feet high.
Now the Aelfir are a distant memory and the Thaumaturgists have faded into myth. Young Clara struggles to survive in a dangerous and dysfunctional city, where eyes are keen, nights are long, and the use of magic is punishable by death. She hides in the shadows, fearful that someone will discover she is touched by magic. She knows her days are numbered. But when a strange man named Fabian Moor returns to the Labyrinth, Clara learns that magic serves a higher purpose and that some myths are much more deadly in the flesh.
The only people Clara can trust are the Relic Guild, a secret band of magickers sworn to protect the Labyrinth. But the Relic Guild are now too few. To truly defeat their old nemesis Moor, mightier help will be required. To save the Labyrinth – and the lives of one million humans – Clara and the Relic Guild must find a way to contact the worlds beyond their walls.”
The Relic Guild holds a great deal of promise. The world building is great, with the Labyrinth composed of lots of dark Victorian-esque streets, trams, strange watching eyes and magic, which together created a rather Mieville, ‘New Weird’ or Gaiman type feel. It didn’t take long before I felt I knew the place.
The book starts well, in an exciting rooftop chase scene. The characters are then introduced. We have Clara, the lost waif of a prostitute who is also a changeling (read werewolf), Marney, an old empath, Samuel, a grumpy assassin who’s clearly seen too much of the world, strange magic, evil villains and god-like overlords.
And yet in the middle I found it dragged a little. We have lots of running about, and rather repetitive exposition, often flashing back to events forty years previous. It did pick up towards the end, when the tale becomes almost Lovecraftian in its echoing of cosmic scale and horror.
Ultimately my overall feeling was that although there was a lot about The Relic Guild I liked, there was little I loved. Perhaps it was the two-hander style, which flitted between ‘the present’ and forty years previous throughout the novel, but did little to enhance the plot. Such changes in perspective, whilst useful, were rather unnecessary and actually became a little galling in that I would just be getting to grips with one part of the tale before being whipped back/forward to the other. Whilst I accept that it is a common enough technique these days, and shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did, usually such a process means that things become reconcilable towards the end. Here it seemed more of a narrative trick rather than for any great purpose.
Or perhaps it was the characters, who became rather similar in places – Clara quickly adapts to her new role in the Guild and ends up sounding rather like the younger Marney, who we keep flashing back to. This may be deliberate – showing the reader the effect of being part of the Guild, perhaps – or it may just be that the characterisation is rather cookie-template.
Perhaps my biggest issue is that, in the end, as good as the writing was, and as enjoyable as the world building was, in the end I didn’t really care about the characters, nor felt that they were facing any major world-destroying peril (although this seems more important as we get to the end). This was a shame, as I think that overall the story may have potential and it may be that it only reaches that potential in the next book.
The ending was a little abrupt and really did nothing but set up the next novel. In terms of the resolution of the tale, there was some at the end, but there were also a lot of unfinished elements that may either leave the reader wanting to read the next tale or alternatively feeling a little frustrated at the point that a lot of things happened that seemed to go nowhere.
So in the end, there was little more to say than I enjoyed it, it was a solid, though rather unremarkable debut, entertaining yet also undemanding. It is clear that Edward Cox as a writer has potential, but this one didn’t entirely work for me. The Relic Guild may be a case of a novel where the execution is fine but that the process creates something that in the end seems rather soulless. There may be others who love it more than I did, although for me it was more of a ‘like’ than a ‘love’.
File under ‘enjoyable, a brave effort, but may not be for everyone.’
From the back of the book:
“Magic caused the war. Magic is forbidden. Magic will save us.
It was said the Labyrinth had once been the great meeting place, a sprawling city at the heart of an endless maze where a million humans hosted the Houses of the Aelfir.
The Aelfir who had brought trade and riches, and a future full of promise. But when the Thaumaturgists, overlords of human and Aelfir alike, went to war, everything was ruined and the Labyrinth became an abandoned forbidden zone, where humans were trapped behind boundary walls 100 feet high.
Now the Aelfir are a distant memory and the Thaumaturgists have faded into myth. Young Clara struggles to survive in a dangerous and dysfunctional city, where eyes are keen, nights are long, and the use of magic is punishable by death. She hides in the shadows, fearful that someone will discover she is touched by magic. She knows her days are numbered. But when a strange man named Fabian Moor returns to the Labyrinth, Clara learns that magic serves a higher purpose and that some myths are much more deadly in the flesh.
The only people Clara can trust are the Relic Guild, a secret band of magickers sworn to protect the Labyrinth. But the Relic Guild are now too few. To truly defeat their old nemesis Moor, mightier help will be required. To save the Labyrinth – and the lives of one million humans – Clara and the Relic Guild must find a way to contact the worlds beyond their walls.”
The Relic Guild holds a great deal of promise. The world building is great, with the Labyrinth composed of lots of dark Victorian-esque streets, trams, strange watching eyes and magic, which together created a rather Mieville, ‘New Weird’ or Gaiman type feel. It didn’t take long before I felt I knew the place.
The book starts well, in an exciting rooftop chase scene. The characters are then introduced. We have Clara, the lost waif of a prostitute who is also a changeling (read werewolf), Marney, an old empath, Samuel, a grumpy assassin who’s clearly seen too much of the world, strange magic, evil villains and god-like overlords.
And yet in the middle I found it dragged a little. We have lots of running about, and rather repetitive exposition, often flashing back to events forty years previous. It did pick up towards the end, when the tale becomes almost Lovecraftian in its echoing of cosmic scale and horror.
Ultimately my overall feeling was that although there was a lot about The Relic Guild I liked, there was little I loved. Perhaps it was the two-hander style, which flitted between ‘the present’ and forty years previous throughout the novel, but did little to enhance the plot. Such changes in perspective, whilst useful, were rather unnecessary and actually became a little galling in that I would just be getting to grips with one part of the tale before being whipped back/forward to the other. Whilst I accept that it is a common enough technique these days, and shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did, usually such a process means that things become reconcilable towards the end. Here it seemed more of a narrative trick rather than for any great purpose.
Or perhaps it was the characters, who became rather similar in places – Clara quickly adapts to her new role in the Guild and ends up sounding rather like the younger Marney, who we keep flashing back to. This may be deliberate – showing the reader the effect of being part of the Guild, perhaps – or it may just be that the characterisation is rather cookie-template.
Perhaps my biggest issue is that, in the end, as good as the writing was, and as enjoyable as the world building was, in the end I didn’t really care about the characters, nor felt that they were facing any major world-destroying peril (although this seems more important as we get to the end). This was a shame, as I think that overall the story may have potential and it may be that it only reaches that potential in the next book.
The ending was a little abrupt and really did nothing but set up the next novel. In terms of the resolution of the tale, there was some at the end, but there were also a lot of unfinished elements that may either leave the reader wanting to read the next tale or alternatively feeling a little frustrated at the point that a lot of things happened that seemed to go nowhere.
So in the end, there was little more to say than I enjoyed it, it was a solid, though rather unremarkable debut, entertaining yet also undemanding. It is clear that Edward Cox as a writer has potential, but this one didn’t entirely work for me. The Relic Guild may be a case of a novel where the execution is fine but that the process creates something that in the end seems rather soulless. There may be others who love it more than I did, although for me it was more of a ‘like’ than a ‘love’.
File under ‘enjoyable, a brave effort, but may not be for everyone.’