Book Review: Gleam by Tom Fletcher

Gleam by Tom Fletcher

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Book 1 of The Factory Trilogy

Publisher: Jo Fletcher (September 4, 2014)

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had no idea what to expect before heading into Gleam. I was only perhaps vaguely aware of its dystopian nature, and coupled with that striking image of the pyramid on the cover and the “Gormenghastian” description in the blurb, I was fully prepared for a wild ride through a world rooted in bizarre and unfathomable traditions.

The book ended up being all that and a lot more. But what I didn’t anticipate was the highly engaging quest narrative, following a group of ragtag adventurers on a journey to discover the dark secrets of their strange and wildly imaginative world. But boiling the story down like that somehow also feels woefully inadequate, because nothing is at all simple in the universe of Gleam.

The story starts off by introducing us to our protagonist Alan, who lives with his family at the center of the gargantuan factory of Gleam in the fully inhabited and operational Pyramid. However, we get the sense that Alan is somewhat of an outsider, which is hinted at by his mistrust for the other Pyramiders and his penchant for making trouble for the authorities. We don’t know what kind of trouble he’s been stirring up at this point, but it was enough to provoke the Arbitrators, who threaten Alan with attacks on his wife and young son. To protect his family, Alan is forced to exile himself into the Discard, the barren and lawless wasteland that surrounds the central district.

I admit, I wasn’t sure what to make of the book for the first 50 pages or so. Time skips ahead about four years, and I experienced many moments of confusion. It appears “Wild” Alan has done lot during that time, but it’s not clear exactly what he’s been up to. It’s gradually revealed that he has been surviving as a traveling musician, earning room and board singing songs that are mostly about the corruption of the Pyramiders. He’s also apparently run afoul of a Discard drug lord of sorts, for stealing from her supply of rare psychedelic mushrooms. It turns out Alan has a good reason for his pilfering, but all that doesn’t become clear until a good handful of chapters. Plus, we also discover that Alan did not always live in the Pyramid before his exile. In fact, his parents and his whole village was massacred by Pyramiders, but as an act of mercy a soldier brought him back to the Pyramid and he was raised there. Finally, his bitterness and dissension started to make sense. All the pieces of the puzzle ultimately did come together, but it just seemed to take a while which made this beginning section of the book a rocky experience for me.

To be sure though, after everything eventually fell into place, that’s when the story started taking off for real. With his supply of mushrooms cut off, Alan must find a way to get some more and get it fast – or it would mean dire consequences for his family still confined in the Pyramid. With the quest item established, our protagonist starts gathering himself a party to go forth into the unknown, braving the wilderness beyond. But like I said earlier, this is not your ordinary adventure.

Firstly, Alan is not your traditional hero. He’s not intrinsically a bad person, though he is entirely self-serving and makes it clear he’s on the quest for no other reason than his own purposes. His fellow adventures are a group of vagrants much like Alan, a quirky mix of eccentric and just plain weird characters. Hands down, my favorite member of the party had to be Bloody Nora, the woman who belongs to a mysterious group called the Mapmakers, a faction dedicated to exploration and recording of the features and changes to Gleam. They are also deadly fighters, as evidenced by Nora’s brutal efficiency at killing their enemies.

But the story and the brilliant characters are just icing on the cake. What really blew me away was the setting and the world building. While great world building is something I remark upon frequently in my reviews of fantasy novels, I have to say very few have actually come near to the caliber in Gleam. I don’t even know where to start. The large, mystifying concrete structures infused with “bubble” hollows in which Discarders make their home? The giant snails that can serve as mounts for vertical traveling? Freaky and disturbing descriptions of unusual ailments that afflict unfortunate locals? There’s just so much to talk about.

Even a wasteland like the Discard is so vivid and evocative in all its strange and wonderful details. The best part is the mystery – how did this place come about? Who built these crazy structures that litter the landscape? No one knows for sure, and it is part of the reason why the Mapmakers seek to explore and document everything. The world is disgusting yet beautiful, an all-around unpleasant place to be filled with monsters and mutants, but I couldn’t help but be drawn in by all the pure insanity of the surroundings. It’s amazing in all its slimy, swampy, icky glory.

Gleam is simply beyond fascinating. There are certainly dystopian undertones, but unlike a lot of dystopian novels, the focus here isn’t so much on the social or the culture, but on the environmental. It’s the physical world that really comes to the forefront, which really helped me get immersed in the story. The plot itself is also relatively simple, but not once did I feel the quest narrative flounder once it got going, because something was always happening, or my attention was held captive by yet another mind-boggling aspect of the world. After a briefly dicey start, I quickly fell in love with this book.

A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Jo Fletcher Books!