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A young woman job hunting in Manhattan gets more than she bargained for when
she discovers a secret world of zombies, vampires, and other denizens of the night
in 'The Shambling Guide to New York City'.
the book we'll be reviewing on this episode of SFF180.
Hi everyone.
TMW here with my personal assistant Wink, as always.
And on this episode I'm joined by a special guest. Sarah is joining me
from Bookworm Blues. Thanks for being on, Sarah!
—Thanks for having me. —Yeah! Okay, so let's talk a little bit about this book here.
Mur Lafferty wrote this. I think this is her first major... her debut novel, really.
—I think so. —And it came out sort of like
barely months before she won the Campbell Award
this year for Best New Writer. So a very exciting, big year for Mur.
So tell us a little bit about this book. What's this all about?
Well, 'The Shambling Guide to New York City' is basically about
Zoe, who had a problem with her old boss at
her old job and she moved to New York City to start over.
She had publishing experience and she kinda got thrown into this —
well, she fought for this job in a unique
publishing company and then the book is kind of her
adventures as an editor for this fantastic company.
And then she discovers — I mean, quite a lot of stuff goes on once she gets
involved in this world of monsters.
They call it the "coterie" here.
And it's all the usual kind of run of the mill — you know, the casting call
for urban fantasy, right? You got your vampires and your zombies,
and some other fey... —An incubus who's drop-dead gorgeous.
—Of course, yeah. —*** tension, yeah, it's all there.
The water sprite who kinda becomes her little BFF,
you know, girlfriend, gal pal and all that.
It has a lot of really cute elements, I thought.
For me, I enjoyed it,
on sort of like a brain candy level.
A sort of literary potato chip, you know, and I'm perfectly fine
with that kinda book.
But what I found I had to do for a lot of it was,
even enjoying it on that level, as with so much urban fantasy, I found
myself having to make quite a few allowances
for just a ton of plot contrivances,
a ton of relationships that just sort of fit
standard tropes. A ton of
plot convenience going on.
"Oh well, this person just happens to be this other person who..."
Et cetera et cetera, and you know that sort of —
I don't want to say disappointed me, but I thought that once it kind of
slipped into that groove
of just sorta following expected tropes, the novelty of the premise...
It kind of wears off.
For me, the point where that started was when she got her job at the
coterie publishing company.
Because there's a whole world that she didn't know about.
She doesn't fit into it at all.
She just maybe edited one book before, and then here she is going to head the department
at this publishing company house, full of people she didn't know existed before, and that just
started the ball rolling for me. It just took too much effort to —
I don't know.
Well, it was like, "Oh, there's this whole secret world of monsters in New York! That's kinda cool."
That's her reaction about it. It's like she accepts it very quickly.
—Yeah. —And even then I was still sort of puzzled, because
thinking of the situation, she is really pursuing this job
very avidly, despite that she's constantly being told at the beginning
"No no, you're not good enough...
you know you don't fit in." Et cetera. She's like "No no no, give me a chance."
But then she goes to the job interview,
and it's not even in offices, it's in this kind of old run down theater
in the back where they've converted the dressing rooms and
she shows up, and the vampire boss guy is just sorta lounging around in a
T-shirt, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, if I'm a young professional
job seeking woman in New York City, I'd be, like, running
as fast as my Pradas would carry me, right?
—It just didn't make sense to me. —Yeah.
Looking at it, it seems like, yes, okay, I wanna be in publishing, but it seems to
me like I wouldn't really mind working the perfume counter at Saks until I got
in with the Big Six,
you know, got a real publishing job that's not all creepy and underground
with, you know, strange people who are trying to seduce me half to death all the time.
—Yeah. —So in order even to really enjoy the book
on that sort of frivolous level, you still just have to make a lot of allowances,
and I thought that it just sorta stretched it a bit too far at times.
There's a lot of mental gymnastics involved.
And especially with the incubus relationship, the whole
thing in a club that happens. It just felt so incredibly contrived.
Because like two chapters later, she learns, well, all you have to do is not
look at him. And so...
it's stuff like that throughout the book that just really bugged me.
Well, you know what got me about that scene in particular?
That was, I think, symptomatic of what
I thought was a tonal inconsistency throughout the book.
For example, you have a whole bunch a different scenes that seem to be sort of
going down a checklist of
well, what do urban fantasy fans like? Right? So you have
um — so there's the scene where she first meets
the demon cab driver and she's going in the cab,
through all those mystical tunnels that no one can see, you know...
and that kind of felt like it had a bit of a Harry Potter
tone to it, right? But then later on you have that zombie fight
in the apartments, which is almost kinda played for slapstick.
But then you have that scene in the club,
which seemed to me like, Mur's sitting there going, "Okay, you know Fifty Shades of Grey is really
hot right now. I think I have to put some heavy, porny kink in here."
And it just seemed more— again, this kind of contrivance to see what can
I do to make this book
just hit all the marks? —It's really formulaic.
But on the flip side, I really thought Mur's writing was good. It was frivolous and it was light,
and it kind of fit the tone I think she was going for. I think she kind of tried too hard.
But I think her writing in itself,
it was easier for me to digest than a lot of other
urban fantasy, And I really struggle with urban fantasy, so that's
kind of saying something. —Yeah, I would agree with you on that.
It's highly accessible.
It is a cute idea. But I just wish that
Mur maybe just hadn't tried to make it all books for all fans in one go.
Go ahead and stretch yourself a little bit. Dare to be a little more original at times.
Yeah, I wished she'd kind of traveled off the path a little bit more.
Because I think her writing showed a lot of potential in that respect.
It shows that she's a powerful author who
has the potential to be really creative. Because a lot of the twists she took with
like, zombies and vampires —
I mean, they're tropey, but they're not the kind of tropey that I see in
urban fantasy all the time. She has her own unique twist on everything, and I wish
she had kind of been courageous enough to really go with it,
to really let herself go, instead of trying to follow all the formulaic
things that she seemed to try and follow. —Because there are hints of it there, right?
I mean, I like the idea that, for example, like the zombies
have kind of worked this deal with morgues to get their brains.
I really loved the little satirical touch about how because zombie eat
the brains, they're like the
intellectuals of the underworld. —Yeah, I loved that.
A lot of it's so clever. —Yeah, and it just comes so close, it's like, you could do
a little more with that, you know. Play with that a little bit more and
just have more fun with that.
A good book for fans of this genre, if you're not expecting a whole lot.
I don't see this as having a whole lot of crossover
appeal to anyone who is not already, like, deeply invested in UF as a fan.
I saw one reviewer refer to it as,
like, Sex in the City for urban fantasy.
And I think that's pretty applicable. It's just light and fluffy
and it's there, it fills a gap. —And frankly, Sex in the City for
urban fantasy is something that Shanna Swendson was doing ten years ago.
So, we need to move forward from that, even.
Otherwise, okay, so what's your final verdict on this? On a five scale,
I'm giving it a two and a half, which is not to be, you know — it's close but no cigar.
—How about yourself? —I'd probably give it a three.
It's just kind of middle of the road, it's all right.
I hope she does more. I hope she's —
I just hope she deviates a little bit more, and gets really brave and just runs
with some of the ideas that she presented.
—Well, she has the raw talent to do that. I agree with you. —She really does.
I loved her writing style.
And that's probably where the disappointment was, because she is such a powerful writer
but the story just wasn't up to her quality.
Yeah, but I think it's safe to say we'll
be following her in the future to see where she goes. —Oh definitely.
Awesome. Sarah, I wanna thank you for being on the episode today.
I think we'll have to do this again at some point. —Definitely, it's fun.
It was a lotta fun. So all right, everybody, remember, these are reviews, you will not
always agree. But if you enjoyed watching the show today, please leave a like,
subscribe, share the video with a lot of your friends,
and until next time, happy reading. Take care.