#caliban from the clocktaur wars

[silverskye13]

Doodle dump! Because I've got a lot of stuff kicking around and I like some of these sketches.

Bottom one is one of my OC refs for Art Fight. Assuming I finish it XD Better late than never I guess.

[depresseddepot]

at a party kicking my feet twirling my hair and daydreaming about lord caliban from the clocktaur wars

[reviewsthatburn]

THE WONDER ENGINE is a perfect sequel to THE CLOCKWORK BOYS, full of wit and care between a small group of people expecting to spend the rest of their extremely brief lives in one another's company against long odds and in great danger.

Full review at link.

[takiki16]

Pssst, I heard you like fealty-swearing, subby murderbots. If so, you should deffo read the Clocktaur War duo by T. Kingfisher (and her adult romances set in the same world have overlapping tropes like paladin mc's). Happy Holidays! *scuttles back into the darkness*

anon. anon. ANON.  WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?????????

The Clockwork Wars, by T. Kingfisher

Paladin’s Grace, by T. Kingfisher

I want you to know that you PERSONALLY are responsible for what has happened to my life in the last few days.  I borrowed Clockwork Boys yesterday, December 24th, 2020, could NOT put it down, and burned through both Clockwork Boys and The Wonder Engine and am right now, December 25th, 2020, in the middle of Paladin’s Grace.  I am behind on several other fandom commitments, there are other books in my queue, I am forkin beside myself.

What. Have. You. DONE??????

This!!!! This!!!  This is my Kryptonite!!!!! Big sword-wielding subby murder-bots who have severe self-worth issues and are extremely competent warriors, but also have hearts of gold and are polite and care deeply about being compassionate to those who don’t happen to be big sword-wielding murder-bots!!!!  Constant and regular “I would follow you like a dog” Caine Wise-esque inner monologues!  Romance!  Swearing fealty!!!  And not just like, a weak-ass declaration delivered standing saying ilu 5ever babe, but proper, actual swearing of fealty.  Sword point down in the ground, hands on the hilt, kneeling with head bowed, you are my liege and I will serve you till the end of my days fealty!!!! 

I haven’t even gotten onto how great it is that Slate and Grace  fill my job competence kink and aren’t waifish ravishingly beautiful 20-somethings, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME

It’s not just that all of the paladin characters are like gifts off of my self-indulgent subby male character fantasy wish list.  It’s that the Clocktaur universe was deliberately written in order to respond to the overuse and abuse of self-loathing male heroes who were guilt-wracked over something or other.  The romances are as much about Slate and Grace and their own baggage and insecurites as they are about Stephen and Caliban and how angsty and paladin-y they are.  It’s about the characters actually caring about other humans, about poetic descriptions of magic and supernatural power, about how cool it is that Grace’s job gives her such a neat inner monologue and how Slate can still have a relationship with Brenner, etc etc etc.

For anyone looking for a blurb, The Clocktaur Wars is set in a magical fantasy world, where a forger, an assassin, a disgraced paladin, and a snooty scholar are set off on a quest to save their city from mechanical monsters. The series is complete at two books.  Paladin’s Grace is another adventure set in the same world, although so far unrelated. 

(and I have to be honest.  I HAVE to be honest.  I opened Paladin’s Grace so fast after finishing Clocktaur Wars because the blurb read “Stephen is a broken paladin, living only for the chance to be useful before he dies. But all that changes when he encounters a fugitive named Grace in an alley and witnesses an assassination attempt gone wrong.” Why am I LIKE THIS why am i PREDICTABLE)

[yukinojou]

Yuletide letter 2019

Fandoms: The Untamed, Clocktaur War, Craft Sequence

Dear Yuletide writer,

First of all, thank you!

The things that prevent me from reading a story are animal harm (very triggering for me) and humiliation. I’d also prefer no mutilation, no D/s / alpha/omega / etc dynamics and no non-consent scenarios. I like verbal sparring, sensuality, character studies and slice-of-life stories.

Clocktaur War, T. Kingfisher - Brenner I'd love anything with Brenner - backstory, interaction with Slate and/or Caliban, rolling his eyes at Edmund, even darkfic near/after the end. AUs eliding the canon ending welcome. I was rooting for an OT3 ending, but I'm very happy with gen or the canon triangle.

Craft Sequence, Max Gladstone - Kai Pohala, Eberhardt Jax I loved those two together in Ruin of Angels - they have a great dynamic and there's more than a little attraction there on Kai's side, possibly Jax's as well. Does Jax try to hire Kai again? What else did those two talk about while planning their coup? My kingdom for them out on the town, Kai trying to find out if it's a job interview or a date or a friend thing or all three... (Ley, Izza or both as the peanut gallery more than welcome.)

The Untamed - Wei Wuxian I inhaled all Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi material (in translation) except the audio drama this summer, and I love Wei Wuxian as a character. I'd love case fic (either pre- or post-death), fluff with Lan Wangji, family scenes, scene retellings, AUs. The drama is especially rife in missing scenes that I'd love written - just how far did Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's reconciliation go before the battle of the Nightless City? What if Wei Wuxian got a chance to talk to Xue Yang some more, since they've canonically known each other from before the Sunshot Campaign in this version? Just what lessons did Wei Wuxian impart to Lan Sizhui once they recognised each other? I think the only character I actively dislike is Jin Guangshang, otherwise I'll welcome all of the cast, though Wen Ning and Wen Qing are firm favourites. I hate that we never saw Wen Qing die, and having her ghost appear to give Wei Wuxian closure would be lovely. I'd love for the music to feature. And if by any chance you've read the old manga X/1999 or Tokyo Babylon, an encounter between the Yiling Patriarch and a powerful Dongying dark magician would be absolutely perfect.

[sage-nebula]

V Y !

V.) Do you have any 3-way ships? If so, what?

I read T. Kingfisher’s Clocktaur War duology recently, and those books would have been significantly improved if Caliban/Slate/Brenner had been a canon OT3 (with Brenner surviving the story, at that). I shipped the three of them so much, and so much more than I shipped Caliban/Slate (the canon ship) by themselves. Everything would have been improved by making them canon.

I also like Hiccup/Astrid/Eret from Dreamworks Dragons, as I mentioned in an ask yesterday, as well as Nine/Rose/Jack from Doctor Who. Jim/Pam/Karen from The Office also would have made me super happy had it been canon.

Y.) A fandom you’re in but have no ships from:

Hollow Knight! I LOVE that game, it is my second favorite game of all time, but there’s nothing really shippable in there in my opinion. Romance isn’t a part of the story, to the point where “romance options” are mostly provided as a joke by the dev team, haha. Doesn’t stop the rest of the fandom from shipping, and they’re free to do as they wish, but there’s nothing really shippable in that game in my opinion (romantic-wise, anyway), so I don’t have any ships for it.

[the-mad-bird-diaries]

So it's Friday, and it's a challenging time. Oh, I needed to write "time for a challenge", but my drama with the underground club next door is still a thing, sooooo…(yes, you'll read about it as long as it goes, sorry) I picked up the #bookisharmy challenge from @slowreadswede bookstagram and in this challenging time I love the idea of creating my own bookish army and summoning it up here. So here is what I've got: 🛡Leader: Can I take Dalinar Kholin from Stormlight Archive? I think I can. Unite Them. ⚔ Champion: Caliban from Clocktaur War. He is a champion of my heart, sooooo. It's his place. 📜Councilor: Kettricken from The Realm of Elderlings. My perfect wise advisor. ✨Wizard: Mona from A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. If you haven't read this book you can't imagine how useful baking can be in defense. Also, a baker is a baker, you know. Pastries every day. 🗡Sword: Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher. It’s hard to find someone who'll be better with a sword. 🪓Axe: Fitz from The Realm of Elderlings. This boy needs good company and a couple of normal friends for sure and we all are here for him. 🏹Archer: I'll cheat and take Waxillium Ladrian from The Second Mistborn Era and his guns. 🪶Animal companion: So, it's the third category I use T.Kingfisher's book in. It's a hint you need to go and read her books. Armadillo familiar from Minor Mage is my choice. 🎲Wild card: Matrim Bloody Cauthon from The Wheel of Time and it's time to toss the dice. I tagged some of you but, as always, no pressure! #bookishchallenge #thewitcherbooks #thewheeloftime #andrjezsapkowski #robertjordan https://www.instagram.com/p/Cikbf9XLrnf/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[rhetoricandlogic]

Sleeps With Monsters: Feeling and Faith in The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher

Liz Bourke

Tue Mar 20, 2018 11:00am

I’ve only ever read a handful of books that treat the question of religion in fantasy with any serious weight. The presence or absence of gods and their powers, the (un)knowability of divine things, the question of whether or not one can get, or understand, an answer from a god—the question of whether, if you’ve given your fealty to a god, it matters if you understand the use said god makes of you—is not a question that fantasy in general deals with in great detail, even—or perhaps especially—in those works that take the existence of gods for granted.

Until now, my short list has generally included Lois McMaster Bujold’s Five Gods works (The Curse of Chalion, Penric’s Demon) and not much else. But now I find—in the middle of a grimly humorous story that reminds me of nothing so much as a really fucked up Forbidden Realmsadventuring party—that T. Kingfisher (otherwise known as Ursula Vernon) has a revelatory scene in her The Wonder Engine, second and final book in the Clocktaur War duology.

The Wonder Engine follows on from Clockwork Boys, where we first met the forger Slate, the assassin Brenner, and the demon-haunted paladin Caliban—as well as their clerical companion, adolescent savant Learned Edmund—and learned that they’re a last, probably doomed, attempt to save their city. They’ve been sentenced to death, and if they don’t stop the invading Clockwork Boys—living, almost indestructible automatons, sent out by neighbouring Anuket City—their death sentence will be carried out, thanks to the cursed tattoo each of them unwillingly received. But, unfortunately, though they’ve managed to reach Anuket City, their mission is still dangerously likely to kill them before the curse has a chance.

Especially since Slate has history in Anuket City, the kind of history that would quite like to torture her to death, and neither Brenner nor Caliban trust each other—in part because they’re both attracted to Slate, but mostly because one’s a smart-mouthed assassin and the other is a sometimes-painfully literal paladin with a talent for saying exactly the wrong thing.

It’s around paladin Caliban that the religious questions of The Wonder Engine coalesce. Caliban is, by his own lights, a failed paladin: possessed by a demon, he slaughtered a dozen people, and though he was rid of the demon in the end, its rotting corpse is decaying down the back of his soul. He hasn’t felt the presence of his god since the demonic possession, and he feels himself to be abandoned. Probably unworthy.

In The Wonder Engine, Caliban has not one but two encounters with divinity, the first with a goddess, the second with his god. Neither are explicable. Neither of them resolve anything: when Caliban feels the presence of the god he pledged himself to once again, he doesn’t feel grateful. He feels angry: why wait until now? Why let him despair?

The problem with gods is that authentic religious experiences don’t tend to come with answers to these sorts of questions: all you have is feeling and faith. And your personal decisions as to what to do with it. (I speak as an agnostic/atheist who’s had a couple of very religious experiences, before I decided that religion and I had to part ways.) Kingfisher gets to the bleeding, beating heart of this—and does it in a book that’s about so much more.

The Wonder Engine is a grimly funny adventure story that also manages to be compassionate and pragmatic. And it manages to say more about religious experience and faith in a chapter than most books do in a treatise.

I really love it. Read it.

[atrusofmyst]

I can imagine this being Caliban’s sword from the Clocktaur War. He probably apologizes the whole time as he’s using it.

Executioner sword with inscription:  Inscription: When I raise this sword, so I wish that this poor sinner will receive eternal life.

Germany, 1600s

[souridealist]

Hello, Yuletide writer! First of all, I’m sorry it took so long to get this letter up, and I am genuinely touched you didn’t just say “to hell with it, this disorganized motherfucker is getting whatever she gets.” (And then I posted it half-written by accident, good Lord, why am I like this).

General Likes and Dislikes:

I DNW’d suicide and deportation, due to personal experience with both. I would lump POV character suicidal ideation under the heading of suicide, but ‘tactical’ suicides (eg: captured spy with an arsenic pill) don’t upset me at all. For example, I have a couple of canons that could allow for “Okay, my grand plan is that I die a little bit and then come back!” and others which could allow for situations where death is preferable to capture, and you can feel free to explore either. It’s specifically mundane, depression-based suicide depictions that I need to avoid. 

Deportation I would prefer you interpret a little more broadly. Acknowledging canon events are fine, but I’d rather the story not focus intensely on characters being forced to leave their families, their homes, their lives. (For reference if useful, I discovered this is a hard fictional limit while watching episode 1x08 of The Good Place.)

Other than that: I’ve requested all the canons here because I enjoy them, so canon-subversion fic is not really what I’m looking for here. I’m okay with dark, grim stories, but I’d prefer they not be hopeless ones. I like stories that are honest about characters’ flaws without condemning them.

I... hope that nails down some of the more nebulous points, in some way!

On to general likes: I’m really into things like epistolary fic, mixed media, in-universe documents, outsider POV, Rashomon stories, anything like that. I have no strong feelings on first/second/third-person or on past versus present tense, so run wild there. 

As a general rule, I’m going to be entirely happy to see non-nominated / non-requested characters make cameos or indeed take a central role in the fic, as long as the characters I did request are central as well. 

I’m a deeply polyamorous shipper at heart, and that informs a lot of these requests, but most of the relationships I ship are relationships where I just plain enjoy all their interactions, so gen works. I am also perfectly comfortable receiving smut for Yuletide, including for the teenage ships. One of my absolute favorite things is smut that uses sex to explore the characters and their relationship; relatedly, I like awkward human details more than idealized sex. (I don’t feel a need to get into things like historically-accurate lamb intestine condoms unless you really want to, though.) 

The only specifically-sexual DNWs I’d add are scat play, A/B/O, and parental incest, though I’d be frankly surprised to see the last come up with these canons. (Watersports are okay, since I know they’re often grouped with scat play without distinction.) 

Now, by canon! (Which may contain spoilers for their original canons). Also, as a note, I have more to say about some canons than others, but it’s not a measure of enthusiasm; I just don’t want to delay this letter any longer.

Summerlong - Peter S. Beagle

I loved this book’s lyricism, its sense of atmosphere and place, the wonder and beauty that ran through it all. And I loved how old the story felt, how timeless, and how nobody in it was young. Most of all, I was intrigued by the interplay between Lily and Lyonesse. A lot of it was sketched offscreen, related second-hand and in negative space, but there was still a sense of something layered and deep. I’d love to see it pulled into focus, whether in the form of missing scenes or post-canon stories.

Standout moments in my memory: when you forget that Persephone loves you. The dinner-party scene.

(Though I liked the book, I was very much disappointed that Abe and Lyonesse slept together. As I said, I’d be glad to see that played out with Lily instead, if you chose.)

Girl Genius

I am here for camp and shenanigans and gears on things and unabashed technobabble and the sheer glorious enthusiasm that spills out of every page. I love the canon’s sense of zany mayhem and bodice-ripper pulp novels and the way they’re willing to touch on very dark, sad, brutal things without ever losing its energy and color. I wouldn’t want to see them stripped down and rendered ordinary, but if you can get that sense of brilliant experimental chaos in a coffeeshop AU or a college, knock yourself out.

My other favorite thing about the comic is how it revels in Agatha being someone spectacular and extraordinary. We’re not here to watch our protagonist struggle and suffer, we’re here to watch her struggle and triumph. It’s great.

I’m also very, very much here for Tarvek/Agatha/Gil OT3, and this is one where it has to be an OT3 for me to like the ship; as far as I’m concerned, they all three need each other and care for each other. None of it’s going to work with only two; someone would be missing, no matter who it was. If you don’t want to write that kind of story, I’d much rather get straight gen than a story that picks a “team” in a love triangle. 

(As a note, I do prefer a three-sided true triangle to an open V, but I’m definitely okay with an open V as long as Gil and Tarvek are grumpily-fond metamours). 

One of the darker threads in the comic is the way all three of them have a very painful, bloody legacy; they have all been very isolated growing up; they have all three been failed and used and betrayed by their parents. It’s a heavy thing, and there’s absolutely no need, but if you go into it, I’m interested.

Bonus points: outrageous inventions, Jaegers being Extremely Helpful About The Romance, Castle Heterodyne being Extremely Helpful about anything. Bonus bonus points: if you happen to have read the novelizations, there’s some fascinating shit in the footnotes and epigraphs. If I’d wanted anything specifically novel-related I would have nominated the novelizations as a distinct fandom, but if you want to throw in some Easter eggs or if something novel-specific always struck you as a good starting point, I’d be delighted.

Standout scenes: The entire Hogfarb’s Resplendent Immolation arc; “We could have used him as a hostage! A bargaining chip! We could have... we could have... we could have kept him safe.” / “I’m sorry.” 

Clocktaur War - T. Kingfisher

These books are such a brutally detailed portrait of such flawed, tragic people who have done, and do, truly terrible things -- and yet the story is never anything but compassionate, never writes them with anything but tenderness and love. That’s what I love about it; hence the very specific DNW of villainizing anyone. 

I love all three of the characters nominated, but I admit that what fascinated me most was the relationship between Brenner and Slate, though Caliban/Slate was both excellent and made a great deal more sense as a long-term romance. I requested Caliban rather than just the two of them because I also very much enjoyed Caliban’s perspective on that dynamic, and on the ways that his presence changed it.

Having said that, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I ship Caliban/Slate/Brenner (as a V, mainly, though the possibility of emotionally-fraught life-affirming let’s-do-this-instead-of-thinking-about-how-scared-we-are threesomes did cross my mind frequently during the wait between books).  I did spend a certain amount of time wailing that I wanted Slate and Caliban to get a nice little cabin, where Slate forges things and Caliban tries to ignore it, and every couple of month Brenner drops by and they all three fall in bed together and it’s kind of surreal for all of them but also a vital touchstone for all of them and NOBODY IS DEAD, but I also knew from midway through the first book that Brenner was going to die; I mostly have my peace with it. 

That said: I am on board for canon divergence, and not only on that one point. There’s so much going on in the story, and in the story’s world; it’s rife with what-ifs. I wouldn’t, however, want to see the characters pulled into any less flawed world than theirs.

Standout scenes: “I can make you die slow;” the scene where Brenner is prepared to strangle Slate to prevent her allergies inadvertently betraying them all; the very quick dispatch of robbers in Chapter Five of The Wonder Engine; “He had not quite realized that he would crawl on his knees to any god that would take him.”

The Innsmouth Legacy - Ruthanna Emrys

What I love about this one is everything it has to say about being an outsider, a monster in the world, and all the ways that that does not make one monstrous. The way it takes the empty vastness of the cosmos and turns it into a source of faith and strength, this too shall pass, and, more, the way it creates justification for kindness. That drew me too, so deeply; all the ways it is about love and community in the face of emptiness.

I need to confess that I don’t know the Cthulhu mythos that well, beyond these books. However, if you’re a huge mythos aficiondo and were all excited to include a bunch of details, I’ll probably need an index but I will be thrilled to know they’re there, because I still love that kind of thing. 

I requested Aphra and Audrey as my favorites -  in particular, I loved Audrey’s drive and determination, how quickly she clutched on to magic with both hands and would not let go, next to Aphra’s slowly opening heart. However, I do love pretty much the whole of Aphra’s spreading odd family, so if you want to write a more ensemble piece, absolutely feel free. In particular I loved the confluence, the idea of these people, all unexpected, finding such a view of each other’s souls, and coming back to find it was impossible not to care for each other deeply, now. Or, in other words, the soulbonding is both group and canonical. 

Note that although I’m interested in the soulbond elements of the confluence and have at least a passing interest Aphra/Audrey, I’m not asking for any shipfic that suggests their connection is deeper within the confluence. Just different. 

While I’m on the topic of shipfic, there’s a lot to possibly unpack with the legacy of Innsmouth and the question of having children to carry that legacy on, in a story where Aphra falls in love with a woman. Should that be an idea that bites you, I’m intrigued! 

Regarding the deportation DNW vis-a-vis the destruction of Innsmouth, anything on par with canon is fine.

I feel like talking about standout scenes would be redundant at this point (CONFLUENCE), but I also need to give out a shoutout to all the many and varied beach scenes in Winter Tide.

Although I haven’t read Deep Roots yet, I intend to, and even if I haven’t read it by Christmas, I spoil myself for things constantly, so incorporate it as much as you please without fear. 

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

This broader franchise is a huge part of my childhood, going back all the way to the first couple of Percy Jackson books, and the Norse were a delightful pick-up to the cast. Alex and Magnus charmed me immediately, weak as I still am to Rick Riordan’s bickering love interests, and Alex is such a wonderfully shitheaded highlighter pack of a person, while Magnus is so wonderfully caring, and so utterly, continuously stunned by her. (Every other chapter. “A minor physical detail of Alex looked really nice. I have no idea why I noted that.” BOY, YOU ARE SMITTEN WITH HIM.) 

Blitz and Hearthstone, meanwhile, struck me as absolutely married, the whole time; I loved their caring and their protectiveness and their trust, even when under stress. And I, er, have a history with dwarf/elf ships, to whit, that I am weak. And Blitzen kept on referring to Hearthstone as “my elf,” and frankly, at that point, it’s time to make an honest elf out of him.

However, if you don’t want to write shipfic, I also love the humor and the heart of these books, in addition to being an outrageous mythology nerd, so I will still be delighted to read gen adventure fic, or Shenanigans up at Hotel Valhalla, or just a thousand words (or ten thousand words) of the characters sitting around and snarking at each other. 

Standout scenes: the pottery studio sequence; Alex telling Magnus “your fly is down” in ASL in the middle of an important bluff; Alex and Magnus talking about books and Alex commenting on The Left Hand of Darkness. 

And thus, the letter is officially done! The mods reached out to remind me, so I tried to go into some detail, but please, especially after all this wait, I hope you don’t feel any obligation to my nonsense. Write the story that’s yours, that makes you happy, and I will enjoy it. Good luck, and thank you for writing for me. 

[rhetoricandlogic]

Liz Bourke Reviews

Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher

March 29, 2018

Liz Bourke

Clockwork Boys, T. Kingfisher (Argyll Produc­tions 978-1-61450-406-1, $24.95, 230pp, hc) November 2017. Cover by Ursula Vernon.

“Darkly funny” is a phrase that also describes Ursula Vernon’s (writing as T. Kingfisher) Clock­work Boys, the first volume in the Clocktaur War duology, which will be completed in spring with the release of The Wonder Engine. Clockwork Boys is a little darker than most of Vernon/Kingfisher’s oeuvre. It starts by introducing us to Slate, a woman who’s visiting a prison to recruit some muscle for a suicide mission. Slate herself is quite resigned to the idea that she’s going to die soon, for she too is a condemned woman – a forger convicted of treason – and she’s in charge of this suicide mission.

In the prison, she finds Sir Caliban, a temple knight – a paladin – who killed three nuns and five novices while possessed by a demon. The demon is dead now, and its insubstantial corpse is rotting at the back of Caliban’s soul. Caliban’s imprisoned anyway, because, although he wasn’t responsible for what happened while he was pos­sessed, his temple doesn’t believe that people get possessed without having done something wrong. Slate thinks – as does her talent for second sight, which manifests as an overpowering smell of rosemary – that Caliban’s her best bet. He might be dangerous, or he might be important: the rosemary smell isn’t specific as to which.

So Caliban gets to join Slate and her assassin colleague Brenner (another condemned man, and Slate’s former lover) on a suicide mission. What’s the mission?

Slate and Caliban’s city is losing a war. Badly. Their neighbour-enemy, Anuket City, has devel­oped weapons that everyone calls the Clockwork Boys: unstoppable creations of clockwork and flesh, killing machines that can destroy everything in their path. Missions have been sent before to try to investigate – and possibly sabotage – what makes the Clockwork Boys, but none have suc­ceeded. Slate’s mission is the Dowager Queen’s last (faint) hope, and Slate herself thinks it’s likely to fail. The only reason she’s doing it at all is because someone’s put a magic tattoo on her arm that’ll eat her from the inside out if she tries to go off-mission. Accompanied by a young scholar from a religious order with an institutional bias against women, Slate, Caliban, and Brenner – and young scholar Learned Edmund – set off on what might be the world’s least fun road trip.

The story is told in the third person, alternating between Slate’s viewpoint and Caliban’s. They are both fascinating characters – as one might expect from a writer of Ursula Vernon’s calibre. Slate is a pragmatic woman with an interesting background. Her history with Brenner makes for a complicating factor when it becomes apparent that she’s attracted to Caliban. Brenner’s a surprisingly protective ex, and he doesn’t really believe that Caliban’s at all a safe person to be around – he thinks Caliban was either faking the demon, or is still possessed by one.

Caliban is… well, he’s certainly an antidote to the brooding-for-no-good-reason godly paladin common to the Forbidden Realms role-playing-game tie-ins (or, indeed, that Neverwinter Nights videogame of yore, which I understand provided inspiration for Vernon herself). Cut off from the touch of his god, broken free of the certainties of his old life, with a dead demon muttering in his head – and his nightmares – and with a full load of guilt and horror for his demon-possessed ac­tions, as well as facing the prospect of a suicide mission, he manages to keep both his mind and his sense of humour, such as it is. He’s also attracted to Slate, and determined not to act on that attrac­tion: he thinks he’d be taking advantage of her, or betraying her trust, when the truth is he really doesn’t trust himself.

The roadtrip winds through a weird landscape, and the characters run into all kinds of problems. Between mud, horses, Slate’s allergies, and the Clockwork Boys, there are a lot of dangers. And that’s before Caliban finds himself in the middle of a village of deer-people led by a possessed sha­man, a shaman who clearly wants something from this particular ex-paladin and his dead demon.

Clockwork Boys ends without resolving its ma­jor problems, but it’s a fast and entertaining novel, one that nonetheless succeeds in being about trust, determination, and the tension between hope and despair in impossible circumstances. It’s also full of Vernon’s trademark brand of grimly humorous pragmatism – though Clockwork Boys has a lot less gardening than I’ve come to expect.