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3.5 

Gogmagog

By Jeff Noon & Steve Beard
Gogmagog by Jeff Noon & Steve Beard digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

From the highly celebrated and award-winning authors Jeff Noon and Steve Beard comes Gogmagog, the first book in adventurous seafaring duology, perfect for fans of Mervyn Peake.

Gogmagog tells the story of an epic journey through the sixty-mile long ghost of a dragon. We travel by boat, a rickety steam launch captained by Cady Meade, a veteran taxi pilot on the river Nysis. In her heyday she carried people and goods from the thriving seaports of the estuary into Ludwich, the capital city. But that was years ago. Now she’s drunk, holed up in a rundown seaside resort, telling her bawdy tales for shots of rum. All that’s about to change, when two strangers seek her out, asking for transport, one of whom – a young girl – is very ill, and in great danger. The other, an artificial being of singular character, has secrets hidden inside his crystal skull. And so begins the voyage of the Juniper. 

The Nysis is unlike any other river. Mysteries unfold with each port of call. Not many can navigate these channels, not many know of its whirlpools and sandbanks, and of the ravenous creatures that lurk beneath the surface. Cady used to have the necessary knowledge, and the powers of spectral navigation. But her glory days are well behind her now.

This might well be her final journey.

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50 Reviews

3.5
Beaming Face with Smiling Eyes“A strange book for sure. It’s written very stylistically which I really liked. Arcadia ‘Cady’ Meade is a foul mouthed and brash half plant half human woman who I just loved. She’s vulgar and crude and strong and unshakeable. The plot is simple, the entire book covers a single days voyage and yet it feels as though at least a week has passed. Maybe the days in Kethra are just a lot longer than we have but I don’t know how they fit so many things into a single day. The cast of characters are just as weird and sometimes grotesque as the writing style, and the descriptions were at times so off the wall I had a bit of a struggle to clearly picture them but I found that part of the surrealistic fun. The world in this book is in equal parts a place I’d like to visit and would also never want to go to. There is a hint of Pratchett vibes, but for a staunchly 18+ audience only.”
Rolling on the Floor Laughing Face“What an amusing adventure lolllll. A gritty nautical adventure from the POV of Cady, an old lady (so cool, right??) who is rude, smelly, and disgusting but also has a soft spot for her crew, somewhere down there, and a big secret. In her younger days she was a skilled captain and knows the ways of the river very well, and so a robot and his charge come to her to request for her services to take them on a perilous journey up-river. Oh yeah, the river is haunted by a dragon's ghost. The characters are also all very unique in the sense that they're not your typical fantasy races (elf/orc/dwarf etc) and I thought that was very unique. Never read of a world like this one too. First chunk had a lot of world building, and I think it was done well. The downside is that at some points the transition is rather.. discordant? disjointed? I had to go back and re-read a number of times... I'm not into nautical adventures but... this one is pretty cool, I must say. I love the cover of the book. The characters kind of grow on you. I hate and love Cady. Will probably continue the series. 🐉🐉🐉🐉 despite it being a ghost, there seemed to be an intelligent spirit”
Slightly Smiling Face“This book is a weird fantasy riverboat adventure in all the best ways. The characters are vulgar and rough around the edges but also tenderhearted and honest with their relationships. The world is mud-splattered and magical in a really unique way. I can't wait to sink into part two of this duology!”

About Jeff Noon

JEFF NOON is an award-winning British novelist, short story writer and playwright. He won the Arthur C Clarke Award for Vurt, the John W Campbell award for Best New Writer, a Tinniswood Award for innovation in radio drama and the Mobil prize for playwriting. He was trained in the visual arts, and was musically active on the punk scene before starting to write plays for the theatre. His previous book, The Body Library, was nominated for the Philip K Dick Award. 

STEVE BEARD is a writer who experiments with making essays and fictions from theory, history, testimony and psychogeography. He has written two novels and contributed to the anthology London: City of Disappearances, edited by Iain Sinclair.

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