LitPick Review
Lamplighter by D. M. Cornish is a fantasy-adventure story. Rossamund's world is inhabited by monsters. Monsters are enemies, but Rossamund and a few others happen to be friends with them. After a monster attack, a calendar (a member of a female society of philanthropy and protection) called Threnody demands to be made a lamplighter prentice like Rossamund. When the Lamplighter- Marshal is called away, the Master-of-Clerks becomes Marshal-Subrogat and sends all the prentices to cothouses. After monsters destroy Rossamund and Threnody's cothouse, they are taken back to the Marshal- Subrogat. During the inquiry, information is given and suspicions are voiced. As if being friends with a monster isn't bad enough, now people suspect Rossamund is one himself.
Opinion:
Lamplighter was an exciting, funny read with a cliffhanger ending. I was often able to see the setting: cold, harsh, desolate wasteland with a few small cities and towns. The characters are interesting and funny. Rossamund's name is actually a girl's name. He refuses to receive cruorpunxis (a monster-blood tattoo) even though his refusal causes others to be suspicious of him, and often complains that his lamplighting tool is too short. Threnody enjoys going to the cothouse, and even buys herself a pair of flashy pistols, but throws them down in disgust when they don't work against monsters. Even though this was volume 2 of the Monster Blood Tattoo series and I had not read the first book, I found that this one worked as a stand-alone story. The book was very long (600 p., plus a 100-page Explicarium, which is essentially a very large and detailed glossary), and contained a lot of long words I didn't know. I very much enjoyed Lamplighter, although I wasn't ready for it to end when it did. I'm going to be looking for the other books in this series.
