Norylska Groans: Book Review

I just finished reading Norylska Groans, by Michael R. Fletcher and Clayton W. Snyder. This is a grimdark fantasy novel set in a Russian inspired industrial setting. The reader follows two characters as they struggle to survive in a system that seems to conspire to crush them without any regard for their personal circumstances. Paired with this is a unique magic system that involves manipulating memories and personality traits. Given my own interest in themes of identity, this definitely caught my interest.

No Spoilers

Setting

The setting of this book is one of the stronger elements of the story. I am not only referring to the concepts behind it that I mentioned above, but the execution of said concepts. The descriptions are vivid and oppressive, mixing winter and industrialism to create a horrifying backdrop for the story. There was one quote about the mixture of black ash and white snow turning everything grey, comparing that to moral complexity, which I thought was quite apt.

Another thing about the setting, which ties into the wider scope of the story, is that it is set in a larger oppressive society. However, the scope stays quite narrow. There is little attention paid to the thought of overthrowing the system, because these characters are so caught in their personal struggles.

Characters

The reader follows two points of view for this novel, Genndy Antonov and Katyushka Leonova. Genn is a former soldier with PTSD, who is desperately trying to move on, but quickly finds that this society does not make that easy. Kat is living with her soon to be husband, desperately trying to restore her family name, but when she decides to get a job as a secretary—a decision that is already out of the ordinary—she is dragged into something far more drastic.

It is impossible to talk about these characters without also talking about the magic system, which I mentioned above. The magic system involves adding and removing memories and personality traits from characters, which can have a profound impact on their self-perception and behavior throughout the story. And because of this twist, much of the complexity arises from this fact, not simply because the characters are complex on their own. This is not a criticism, just an acknowledgement of how the process works.

Most of the positives in this book came from this aspect of the story.

I thought the depiction of Kat's first day at the job was incredibly well handled. I won't go into detail, for the sake of spoilers, but it involves the magic system and its interaction with the perceptions of the character in question. The way the scene was written was perfect for setting up tension for what was to come, and also capturing the internal tension that is inherent for the character, given the job she had to carry out.

Later on, there was one confrontation between Kat and another character that I won't specify here, that stood out to me. In this interaction, one of the characters was obnoxious and unlikeable in almost every way, and it just made me roll my eyes. But then, later in the story, you suddenly get subverted by the magic system. At the time, even Kat was not aware of the background information. But you are then hit with the context after the fact, and it reinterprets the situation, which I appreciated.

I also enjoyed a lot of Genn's fights. The way he was able to fight, especially in spite of a certain special weapon was quite exciting. Similar to one reviewer, he reminds me of Gunnar Broad, from the Age of Madness.

I also thought the twists at the end of the story were excellent. There was one obvious twist, but it stood out enough that I knew it was the misdirect, and that the real one was hidden behind it. And it turned out that there were two twists tied to it, one of which worked for me, the other being more complicated. They were surprising and compelling, though.

Negatives

There are negative aspects to the book, however.

Pop Fantasy

On one hand, I kept getting the feeling that the story had a bit too much pop fantasy feeling to it for me. This is somewhat hard to articulate. I think a big part of it comes from the dialogue, which felt a little too modern. I understand that this is not set in the medieval times, but I still got the sense that the way the characters interacted was a bit off for the setting they were found in. This is not to say that it was completely wrong. The story was not unreadable, and I understand that the modern trend seems to be moving toward modernization, anyway. It's just not my thing.

It was not just dialogue, however. The story was also a bit too superficial for my taste. This is far too sharp of a critique. The magic system and the exploration of identity are profound, especially for a popular fantasy book like this, but there is still a major contrast between something like this and Bakker, which leaves me wanting. It is so focused on its blistering pace that I just wanted it to slow down and contemplate things for just a moment.

The portrayal of torture is one aspect. The story doesn't really explore the implications of torture. I understand that the topic is quite complicated. Torture doesn't necessarily reveal the truth, as the object of the torture will just tell you whatever you want to here to get you to stop. But if they know the truth, they will tell it to you; they will just tell you a whole lot of other things, and you're left to discern the true positives from the false positives. All the same, the story just takes for granted that people can hide the truth despite being tortured, which is unrealistic.

There is also this out of place torture scene at the very end by a character to show how they have changed, but I didn't really see how the change could have been had. It seemed to have come out of nowhere. This leads to the next point.

Pacing

The story is paced way too quickly. I think this manifests in two particular ways.

First, the story takes place over the course of a few days. I think the actual meat of the story actually happens in less than a week, yet the corresponding character change is radical beyond belief. I don't think the magic system is an adequate fall back to justify this, nor is the desire to avoid padding the pages. At the very least, the authors could have put in time lapses to imply that more time was passing.

Second, the actual pacing is, in fact, too fast for my taste. This is where I run afoul of accusations of padding page count. Look at my own writing, and you'll understand my plight. Quite simply, I rarely grasped what was going on in the story. There are snatches of it, here and there. The twists at the end make sense, with some serious questions attached. But I watched and read a lot of reviews after reading this book and there are some that never addressed some of the confusions that I have, and one that explicitly asks the very same question that I want to ask.

There is one major plot question, something that is pivotal to the structure of the entire story, and I honestly do not understand it. I also cannot ask it, because of spoilers. Maybe it has an answer, and I just missed it. One of the reviews also implied that there were out of book answers, which I do not like.

Ending

All of these critiques lead to the ending, which I will distinguish from the climax that contains the twists that I mentioned. The ending kind of just happened. I thought the real ending was coming, that another climax was being built up to—save for the meta fact that the book was running out of space—and then the story just ends. It felt kind of sudden, and the way everything wrapped up could have been neater, making all the loose ends and questions more cleanly answered.

Conclusion

Overall, I am rather mixed, and leaning negative on this book. I will give it a 4/10.

Spoilers

The big question: Why did Kat get Kostas' memory stone? The story tosses out multiple theories as to why, but I don't remember it really saying anything definitive about it. Incompetence? Lazareth did it? But he is Arkady, and he killed Kostas. He did it on accident? I don't understand.

Also, the comatose bodies in the lair made no sense. Apparently, they are all Arkady, and he is just a consciousness stored on a stone that passes from one body to the next, but I only know this from a discussion that I listened to, where apparently one of the authors expanded on the lore outside of the book. He should not have to do that. I was confused about all of this, upon finishing the book, because I didn't understand why all of those people were comatose. Where did their own consciousness go? I can fill in the gaps, I guess, but I'm speculating at that point.

When I finished the book, I simply thought Arkady was consciousness on a stone that passed just between Lazareth and the first Arkady, but I was confused about the status of Lazareth as a distinguished person. Did he have an independent consciousness? I thought he did, and when he put on that stone that made him sharper and more assured, it was him putting on the Arkady memory stone. But I might be mistaken. Another theory I had was that Lazareth was projecting his consciousness onto the first Arkady, essentially using his younger body. Whatever that means. This is the problem. It was never really explained.

The twist I really did appreciate was the one related to Kat and her fawning after Lazareth. It was obvious that Lazareth was the real one to go after, especially with her trust, and I knew this was the red herring, but I did not predict that her proclivity to trust him was implanted within her, in and of itself.

Finally, Kat suddenly seems to fall for Genn in the end of the book. It was suggestive, more than anything, but it still had pop fiction vibes to me.

Conclusion

Overall, I am rather mixed, and leaning negative on this book. I will give it a 4/10.

Video: https://youtu.be/KkWhSxwwfBI