jack

Mike Shevdon was one of many authors that I saw or heard mentioned at Eastercon and immediately wanted to try their books. Liv picked up his first one.

Good things

Sixty-one Nails is urban fantasy, about a slightly-older slightly-less-bachelor protagonist than usual, who is sucked into an underworld of Fae.

The Fae are well-written: the alienness, the necessity of being truthful if misleading, complicated pacts, aversion to iron, court politics etc all feel like they really matter, in a way that a lot of urban fantasy doesn't capture.

The lovely thing is that the plot is fast tangled up with an 800-year-old ritual of the law courts, paying a quit rent of hazel rods cut with two particular knives, one sharp, one blunt, that apparently is actually true.

Bad things

Lamentably, I didn't find the plot as engaging as the premise. Nothing was specifically wrong, but it felt like it had the necessary plot elements existing in a vacuum, lacking the background depth of some of the setting.

Gender

Fairly typical, some good female characters, but some things I didn't like.