Advance Reader's Review of The City's Son (The Skyscraper Throne #1) by Tom Pollock

Overview
Running from her traitorous best friend and her estranged father, graffiti artist Beth Bradley is looking for sanctuary. What she finds is Urchin, the ragged and cocky crown prince of London's mystical underworld. Urchin opens Beth's eyes to the city she's never truly seen-where vast spiders crawl telephone wires seeking voices to steal, railwraiths escape their tethers, and statues conceal an ancient priesthood robed in bronze.

But it all teeters on the brink of destruction. Amid rumors that Urchin's goddess mother will soon return from her 15-year exile, Reach, a malign god of urban decay, wants the young prince dead. Helping Urchin raise an alleyway army to reclaim his skyscraper throne, Beth soon forgets her old life. But when her best friend is captured, Beth must choose between this wondrous existence and the life she left behind.

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About The City's Son
Available as: Hardcover $9.23 from Amazon.com / Paperback $17.38 from Amazon.com,  E-book $8.77 from Amazon.com Kindle's Edition , Paperback $12.74 from The Book Depository 

                                                  Recommended Ages: 15 and Up

                                                             Netgalley E-book: 247 pgs.

Published: Expected publication: September 8th 2012 by Flux Book (first published August 2nd 2012)

                 For This Review: *Netgalley Advance Reader Review Copy*

My Star Review 

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Need to mention that as soon as The City's Son came into my notice had already formed high expectations for it. Mostly since there are times when a title's name gives an impression somewhat that they would be good reading. You know and sometimes hit the marks and other times you don't. The City's Son gave a fast impression of a novel of fascinating character.

With that in mind it turned out to be a novel with an entirely unique experience in reading. There are various encounters with personification in the passages that actually many novels today don't contain. Here's an example just too give you so you get a feel for it:

  This is where her trail ends. 
  Thrum-clatter-clatter, thrum-clatter-clatter … 
  I can feel her vibration through the ground. A fox squirms out from behind a couple of steel bins and runs for the road, trailing stink. I let my breath stream out in a slow hiss. 
  Thrum-clatter-clatter … 
  The concrete shale on the ground starts to shift and a breeze picks up, spattering rain against my cheek. The burnt smell is emanating from the wall at the end of the alley, breathing out of the pores in the brick itself. 
  A high-pitched wail fills the air: steel shrieking on steel like screaming horses. The clatter grows louder and the bins clang as they are shaken to the ground. 
  I hear the ghost of a steam-whistle, her mournful, obsolete battle-cry, and I hunker down low. Light starts to bleed through the mortar ahead of me, outlining two glaring, full-beam eyes. I hear the clash of her wheels, stampeding towards me on a path of lighting. The scream rises out of my throat to greet her, cursing her by all of her names: Loco Motive, Bahngeist, Railwraith—
  —and as she roars out at me, I leap sideways and strike—

If that wasn't enough we get envirogated by a world much like our own but obviously with impressive amounts of another world at work is The City's Son with Filius-Fil who must defeat his mother's-Matera Viae's- greatest enemy named Reach (The Crane King) that stands for industrial's growing reach. The fight seems at length much like a Mission Impossible. Until, Fil meets Beth, an unconventional girl who gets drawn into a view of the city and volunteers to help him in his mission. She finds his world magical and thrilling but soon catches on that it is much deadlier than anything else. It being deadly really makes itself more apparent when she encounters huge metallic spiders that usurp people's voices against your will sometimes. Another consequence is that Reach has taken Beth's friend Parva prisoner within its creations putting her new life with Fil at odds.

The story as you can now tell from [above] is impressively imaginative on its own which, by the way, have not entirely covered all. Even so, we still have one of the most captivating Fantasy characters still. Beth is truly a fun girl. She has all the amounts of personality to keep her interesting enough for readers. Fil is a swoon-making guy even if he has a slight grey tint to his skin since he's the boy with the city in his skin. And Reach a formidable opposing villain. 

With the conclusion of The City's Son a lot of things ended well enough alone so wondering where Tom is going to be taking things from now on. Although authors always do find ways to continue their stories especially their series. The continuity have no fear on though. Tom Pollock has my faith. The Skyscraper Throne #2 would be one aiming to engage heartily in when it releases.
Overall: Amazing read!
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult 

                       About the Author

Tom Pollock is a long-time fan of science fiction and fantasy, and has failed spectacularly to grow out of his obsession with things that don’t, in the strictest sense of the word, exist. He studied Philosophy and Economics at Edinburgh University. He now lives and works in London helping to build very big ships. The City’s Son is his first novel.