Gutter Mage
JS Kelly
Roz and I will never be best friends
Gutter Mage reminded me of one of those jokes in which you're told a long, implausible, pointless story in order to justify a elaborate pun. (When I was a kid I heard one with the punchline "People who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones." I don't remember the story. I could make one up, but then, so could you, so we'll just skip that exercise.) There is an excellent climactic scene in Gutter Mage in which our heroine, Rosalind (Roz) Featherstone fights with all the bad guys. That was pretty good. But the long, detailed story that set up that excellent scene was less excellent.
Now, I am not suggesting that J.S. Kelley wrote the book that way -- that they thought up this dramatic climax, then wrote the previous chapters of the book to set it up. No, based on their Acknowledgements section, it seems to have been the opposite. It appears that Roz spent a considerable time living in Kelley's head and consoling them through hard times. Kelley felt a debt to Roz and an obligation to get her out in the world. So really, the main experience of Gutter Mage, from Kelley's point of view, is spending time with Roz.
Roz is my main problem with Gutter Mage. Roz is an arcanist, which means a person who studies magical theory. She's a fighter, and I don't mean that figuratively -- she gets into fights in which she kicks her opponents in the privates. She has poor but worthy parents whom she neglects. She smokes a pipe, swears a lot, drinks a lot, and has casual sex a lot, though probably not as much as she lets on -- she seems like the type who would exaggerate her sexual exploits. I didn't hate her, but I didn't much like her, either. If she sounds like your type of people, you may do better with Gutter Mage.