“Oyster McLellen has spent his life causing mischief. Running with a small-time gang and fleecing money from tourists in Hyde Park to support his struggling family in the absence of his father, who abandoned them years ago. When a simple money drop for his boss, Big Mickey, goes wrong, Oyster's future looks bleak. His only chance to redeem himself in the eyes of Mickey is to get the money back, but as he pursues the thieves across South London he suddenly finds himself washed up on a beach, surrounded by broken phones and shattered office furniture. His new world: Greater London. A city built on the detritus of our own, where leviathans crafted from broken skyscrapers roam the seas, where ink beetles nestle beneath the skin of its residents and where Oyster's father, Lucas, may well have escaped to all those years ago. But there are bigger things at stake. Oyster's allegiances are torn between the enigmatic Nonesuch, the eccentric escapist Marya Petrovna, and the terrifying Mr Primrose - and he will have to choose who to align himself with quickly. Because plans are afoot: something ancient is brewing, and a choice needs to be made, the consequences of which will determine the fate of Londons, and life, everywhere.”
While The Lighthouse at the End of the World has nothing to do with Jules Verne’s 1901 tale of the same name, Philip Suggars does give another in a long line of fantasy novels set in London, or alternative London, one where magic works and peoples alliances are always suspect. It is not a horrible debut (and a beginning of series) but the book did frustrate me from time to time.
The book started well, with Oyster trying to provide for the remnants of his small family (his sister, his disengaged mother, and himself) since his father left them, which shows the empathy he has despite his exterior roughness he constantly needs to show. Because in the London writer Suggars created is one that is grey, gritty, and grimy, where our Oyster is trying his best (and failing somewhat at it), despite the odds being stacked against him. This seemly Dicken’s inspired supporting casts are well drawn, with the only flaw being we seen this all before.
While Suggars paints a reasonably odd and weird Greater London, once Oyster arrives, we get whole other set main and side characters, all with their motivations, at times, it was hard to keep them all straight. The ending was somewhat disappointing (because it becomes very clear early on, his Oysters Dad was somehow apart of all this), because it all felt rushed and then it was over and somehow Oyster survived.
I really liked the weirdness of Suggar’s Greater London and those who dwell there, but the book could’ve cut certain things and enhanced others (like his Mother’s role in all of this). It probably could’ve been about twenty pages or so shorter, but that theme seems to run through a lot of books I read –overlong with too many superfluous sub-plots.
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