Waterblack

Cities of the Weft #3

by Alex Pheby

THE DEAD ARE RISING. Nathan Treeves leads an army of ghosts from the underwater city of Waterblack, heading to the final, destructive confrontation with the forces ranged against him. But although he is more powerful than ever, he also has new challenges to face. Most notably, Sharli, an assassin whose journey we follow – from her perilous childhood in Malarkoi, to slavery in Mordew, working in a nail factory, to making murder her trade under the ever watchful eye of the terrifying Mr Padge. And on to the climactic encounter between Nathan, The Master, The Mistress and the Atheistic Crusade…

In this, the monumental conclusion to the Cities of the Weft trilogy, Waterblack pushes the boundaries and possibilities of the fantasy genre further than ever, with more style than ever, posing vital questions about the way power can be abused, who decides who has it – and what it means to have none. It's a book that speaks to and about our own times with magnificent eloquence. It is a trilogy for all time.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Dark Fantasy, Fiction

633 pages, Hardcover

Published February 6, 2025

About the author

Alex Pheby is a British author and academic.

His latest book is Mordew, the first in a fantasy trilogy.

His second novel, Playthings, was described as “the best neuro-novel ever written" in Literary Review. The novel deals with the true case of Daniel Paul Schreber, a 19th-century German judge afflicted by schizophrenia who was committed to an asylum. In 2016, Playthings was shortlisted for the £30,000 Wellcome Book Prize.

In 2019, his third novel, Lucia, which deals with the life of James Joyce's daughter, was joint winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize.

Pheby is also the author of Grace, published by Two Ravens Press.

He currently (2020) teaches at the University of Greenwich and has studied at Manchester University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Goldsmiths. and UEA.

Reviews

[Ian Mond]

Not enough people in genre circles are speaking about this trilogy.
 
That might be because not enough people have read the first two books, Mordew and Malarkoi. I could be wrong. Perhaps there’s a simmering fandom ready to explode with delight with the publication of Waterblack, the final book in the trilogy. I hope so. In a field that’s overflowing with epic fantasy trilogies (or extended series), the “Cities of the Weft” stands apart.
 
I’m not so bold as to say that it’s unlike any fantasy series that’s come before it. Many authors, with Pratchett at the top of the pile, have sought to deconstruct Tolkien-flavoured fantasy. But with the “Cities of the Weft”, deconstruction and subversion is just one part of the game. Pheby’s interest also extends to complex metaphysical and epistemic themes about Godhood, the unending desire for absolute power, and the possibility of a meaningful life in an unstable Universe; one where reality can be broken, fragmented, and irrevocably changed with a click of the finger.
 
And if all that is too Philosophy 101, the series also explores the nature of family, the one you are born into and the one you choose. It’s also a “coming-of-age” story (one not limited to a single character) and a journey of self-realisation.
 
It’s an intellectual and emotional delight. You will be astounded by the outlandish ideas and the pyrotechnic set-pieces of Gods and Angels and Demons and Magical Dogs; a battle between the rational and irrational. You will gasp and cheer and cry. Or, at least, I did.
 
I know how enthusiastic I can be, how I’m never short of a platitude. But I genuinely believe the “Cities of the Weft” is a masterpiece, a classic of the epic fantasy genre. Whether it’s viewed that way by others in the field is not for me to say—unlike the Weftling Tontine, I don’t have that sort of influence. But I hope you, at least, read it, and even if you don’t love the trilogy as much as I do, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
 
If you want more detail on what Waterblack is about and the hilarious way Pheby subverts the conventions of a final volume in a trilogy, you’ll have to read my review in Locus, which, like the novel, is out in February.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Pheby is doing with the worldbuilding in Weft what VanderMeer is doing with his weirdness in Ambergris.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if Piranesi was Epic Fantasy? Waterblack, the third and final book in The Cities of the Weft trilogy, is very much that to my mind.

*Spoiler-free*

This book is weird, trippy and beautiful. It is heartbreaking, meta and wise. It is intricate, philosophical and it utterly stole me away.
This was a superb ending to a true masterpiece of a series.

"In the City of Death, there is only one audience for the performance of death, and that is the city's Master."

This series as a whole is like the dream you have in which you live an entire life. Those dreams that contain a world of personal experiences, love and loss, confusion, hurt and growth. And upon awakening, you try to hold it all to you... but how do hold an entire life? When your alarm, or your twisted bedsheets, or the light coming between the curtains keeps pushing that fleeting little life further away into the folds of your mind until it's entirely irretrievable.
This series feels like that dream life put to paper, captured, to be experienced again via the medium of the exquisitely written word.

"He stood on the White Stag's hill, freshly born or reborn, his bodies memories, his previous life, there, but things of the past.

He was all alone, with no one to save, no one to care for, no one to serve.
There was nothing to be, except whatever he was, on the top of that hill.
There was no one who knew him.
There was nothing to do.

Who was he, then, under these circumstances?"

The Cities of the Weft is criminally under read. That is both a personally held opinion and a cold, hard fact, simultaneously.
That is not to say everyone should read it, because many won't like it, and many will bounce off it, some will adore book one and dislike the direction the series goes from there... and all that is to be expected - these books don't hold your hand. They are long and intimidating. They ramble, twist, and evolve, unconstrained by genre convention and literary rules.
I believe, however, that if you enjoy the works of Gene Wolfe, Steven Erikson, China Mieville, Mervyn Peake, Charles Dickens, Susanna Clarke, Jeff VanderMeer, Marlon James, Ursula Ke Le Guin, or any sebset of these authors, Alex Pheby needs to be on your radar.
He is doing something with these books that I haven't seen done anywhere else, he is creating a new kind of fantasy, like (but unlike) Tolkien and Pratchett before him, and I know that it won't be long until this trilogy (and it's upcoming prequel trilogy?) finds it's market, at which point there will be a boom, and these books will finally be getting the attention and adoration that they deserve.

"Sometimes he wrote in one mode - as a list - sometimes in another - as a story - and even sometimes he wrote as an essay, as a glossary, as an appendix, as an interlude. The people he lived with had different preferences and likes, and because a book may be read in different ways, he wrote himself like that.

Read me from start to finish, if you wish. Or skip through me. Or flick here and there. Dog-ear my pages, if you must: the choice is yours. Only, do not tell me what I must be: we are all different, I as much as you, and so may it remain forever."

5 stars for the third time for Alex Pheby. Every book in the trilogy, however different from the others, has earned top marks from me.
This is a new an all-time favourite.
Phenomenal.

[Corvus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing conclusion to the trilogy. Poorly edited, frequent typos, multiple loose ends with the plot, and unnecessarily verbose. This read like an unedited draft or outline, with nearly half of the material consisting of the author's tangential, roundabout musings.

Skim through this one if you want to know how it concludes, but even then, there's way too many unsatisfied questions. It seems like the author might have been trying to set up the need for a prequel to address them when they should have simply been handled here.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was long and weird, and I did love reading it. I do think that Pheby is trying to create a really new and unique kind of fantasy, and it reminded me in some ways of the Locked Tomb series in how it plays with the ideas of deities and reality. I am glad I read the series and will be curious what else he writes.

[Joshua Clarke-Kelsall · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel leaves me feeling very conflicted about what I thought--mostly on the merit of Mordew, with Malakoi as a worthy, if flawed, follow-up--was a fantastic new fantasy series. As a self contained novel focusing on the story of Sharli, the assassin, it is engaging, interesting, and satisfying in its conclusion (up to a point). However, as a conclusion to Cities of the Weft, it is incredibly unsatisfying for a number of reasons. Before getting into them, I will say that Pheby's prose is still wonderful and evocative (when he restrains his didactic impulses), and I hope that more modern writers adopt this wonderful literary style. It is unfortunately the story itself which lets it down.

First, and this was a worry I already had when I read Malarkoi (the second novel in the series), the series seems utterly uninterested in the boy who is set up to be the protagonist, Nathan Treeves. He is absent for most of the second book. In his place, other players are then set up as interesting characters, whether it's Nathan's mother, Clarrissa; his friends, Prissy and Gam; or Dashini, daughter of the Misstress of Malarkoi. But most of these players also have cursory appearances in this book as well, and their ends are dealt with either with brutal (not in a good way) efficiency, or, more baffling still, relegated to appendixes. When the most interesting parts of your novel are relegating to appendices, I think that betrays a serious problem with your novel.

I get that part of Pheby's aim here with Nathan's absence is subverting the chosen one/coming of age trope, but this comes at the cost of the series lacking in serious pay off for most, if not all, of its major players. The Master of Mordew, chief villain of Mordew, only appears in one such appendix, and his ending is like something out of a loony tunes cartoon in its absurdity. I already struggled to believe the second novel's attempt to subvert the Master by portraying him as essentially a buffoon. Again, you can make the point that the big bad isn't as smart as he thinks--a common trope of villains, but it is done with so cartoonishly with the Master that it makes me role my eyes.

Nathan's role in this story is larger than previously, but it mostly relates to an overly long passage of his time as the Master of Waterblack. Now this is a very evocative and interesting part of the novel, but it does go on a bit. Moreover, it again leads to the author building up something big happening with Nathan, as he transforms all the dead into an army of angels. Nathan is immediately then shot down from the sky by his evil parents, who hate him, seemingly because the plot requires them to hate him, but it's okay, because his parents are brutally killed off just a few pages later by Nathan's dog, Animaxander, who then disappears form the novel himself now that his purpose has been served. For Clarissa, all the stuff that was built up with her in the previous novel is addressed in an appendix. One might hope that, being saved, Nathan will then have some impact on the plot, but no, he is then captured by Sharli, brutally tortured, and abandoned by everyone after a failed attempt at rescue from Dashini.

I wasn't really expecting Nathan to be the hero. As I said, the series is clearly subverting that. Still, if one is going to subvert it, then the author better make sure we get a good replacement. Well, the hero of the day is Prissy, who was made into the Mistress of Malakori at the end of the second book--one of its best moments. Now this could have made for a satisfying conclusion, had Prissy appeared at all in this book prior to saving the day. Unfortunately, she appears at the end of this book as the personification of a deux ex machina, with non of her previous character traits, to tie up all the story in a nice little bow.

And Nathan? Well, he just gets trampled on to death by the creatures he killed in the first novel. Worse, Pheby then provides us with the moral lesson that we are supposed to accept: that Nathan deserves this gruesome end because he was ultimately just a violent angry boy. Which brings me onto my major gripe with this book, and that is the severe moralising of the narrator. Honestly, the amount of times this novel pauses so that the author can indulge us in his philosophical and moral ramblings makes me wonder why he didn't just write a non-fiction book on these topics! There were tendencies toward this in Mordew and Malakoi, but it was mostly restrained as Pheby used the narrative and story to convey his themes, rather than being overly didactic. If Pheby had cut the moralising and philosophising down by 70%, he could have probably found the space to give his characters satisfying ends to their stories!

One of the most amusing--because of how hypocritical it is--parts of this moralising is Pheby's stance on not portraying the sexual abuse of Sharli earlier in the novel, nor even giving the man responsible a name. On the other hand, he egregiously describes the grizzly trampling to death of Nathan at the end of the story, but seems to think that is justified because the boy was angry and violent after all. Nathan is also a child... a child constantly abused and manipulated by those around him. It is interesting that while Sharli, who develops into a woman who gleefully murders babies as an assassin--apparently doing the kinds of jobs that even assassins don't like doing--is given a free moral pass by Pheby, to the point where she ends the novel in her own personal heaven, while Nathan, who is still a boy while he commits his wrongs, and who actually shows remorse for them, unlike (on the whole, Sharli), is gruesomely and sadistically treated.

Now this should not be taken to mean that I want lurid descriptions of sexual violence in books. I don't. However, there is a very simple way to be respectful if you don't want to include depictions of sexual violence in your works. Don't do it. You don't need to justify this to your reader or wag your finger at them. People are not stupid and will understand why the author doesn't want to describe such horrible things in detail--at least if the author doesn't shoot himself in the foot by indulging in detailed descriptions of equally horrible events later in the novel. To his credit, Pheby is self aware enough to comment, with more didactic nonsense, on the double standard. Not that his arguments convince.

All that said, I do find the character of Sharli to be quite interesting when we detach her from the series. The first part of the book that tells her story is excellent, and she is an excellent character. Although I think Pheby's moral point of view regarding her character is unhinged, especially in light of his moralising about Nathan, she is still a fascinating character. The main problem is that she actually doesn't appear properly until this novel (the Sharli in the previous novels being a fake), as a fully-fledged character. And it is in introducing this character and focusing much of the story on her that is mostly to blame for the disregard of other key players in the series.

Ultimately, the conclusion to Cities of the Weft collapses under the weight of Pheby's urge to subvert tropes, moralise, and philosophise. These things do have their place in novels, but when they come at the expense of the craft of writing--at the expense of character work, pay off, plotting, structure, then they ought to be restrained. In previous instalments Pheby was capable of striding that line pretty well, especially in Mordew, but here, the story gives way to themes and ideas, and in consequence, a poor conclusion to what was a promising series results.

[Sam Burgess · Rating 2 out of 5]

Middling end to a series that started off with such promise. A lot gets left unexplored, and probably only 1/3rd of the book is actually dedicated to 'finishing the story'. It feels like the author had a great idea for a first book, then ran out of great ideas, but still insisted that he had to write a trilogy

[Micah Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inventiveness to the nth degree. So many ideas but also creative use of the medium. Plenty to chew on.

[Thegazzardian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost didn’t bother with this book. After the huge drop in quality that was Malarkoi, I wasn’t ready to pay full price to try the third, and my library system doesn’t seem to have bothered stocking it. But I happened to see when this went on sale on Kindle and gave it a go.

What I loved about this series was the very unique world building, with off the wall imaginative ideas from the get go, starting with the living mud in Mordew.

What started to drag it down was getting too deep into the mechanics of how it all works and confusing character motivations that didn’t get clearer as the story progressed.

I was sceptical about this book and ready to DNF if it got too painful.

And as I got into the book, I kind of expressed that was the way I was going to go. Instead of following up on anything that was left hanging at the end of the last book, this book follows Sharli at the start.

Don’t remember her? She was a minor character in the 2nd book. She was the one who, ah…

Well…

She sat at a table at one point I think?

Yeah, I got nothing, but this book spends about 250 pages telling her backstory. In a book that’s 515ish pages long and has to conclude all the plot threads left dangling.

Yet I didn’t DNF. In fact, other than my frustration that the book wouldn’t get on with it and tell me the story I came for, I found myself drawn into Sharli’s story. It shone a bit more light on Mordew and Malarkoi and wasn’t tied so much into all the craziness that was being built up. It was more about Sharli’s hardships with occasional touchpoints with characters who are already dead where we’re at now. Yet that kind of worked, actually? It showed that you can have a good story in this world without it being so crazy metaphysical.

I mean good. Not great. I don’t know if Pheby always over explained every little thing so much but the writing style really insisted on keeping you at arms length and talking down to you constantly, so I never got super invested. A bit, though.

Then that part ends and we finally find out what happens to Nathan after the end of the last book. This section was ok, maybe a bit long. Same problems with the prose.

Then an “interlude” where we find out what happened to another character after the end of the last book.

And finally we get into where stuff starts happening and resolving all the shit going on. With like, 120 pages to go.

Did all that setup make this part clear? Nope, I’m still unclear on what half the characters wanted. Some of the characters plots aren’t even mentioned, like what happens to the Master (although there are footnotes encouraging you to read the appendix because for some reason it’s answered there?)

And stuff just sort of happens and there are some of the really cool ideas and moments that made this series so interesting and some really big wow moments but still the same prose issues.

And then it’s kind of over, and I might read the appendices because apparently part of the story is just in there but overall I’ll say I found it minimally satisfying.

Like, why did we spend so much time on Bellows and his brother last book if they aren’t even in this one? Or on Clarissa’s mission last book, if all she’s going to do in this one was that? (I still don’t really get her deal. For any author that over explains so much, he misses explaining a lot of important things somehow).

Why spend so many pages on Anaximander, if he’s going to do one thing only in the conclusion and then disappear?

I could go on but that’s ultimately my gripe … it just felt like it underdeveloped a lot.

I’m glad I finished the series. I enjoyed Sharli’s bit the most, despite wanting it the least. I really appreciated the imagination on display. The book covers are some of my all time favorites. I just love them. Looking at them makes me want to read these books, even though I already have.

But ultimately I don’t think this series delivered on its promises and that’s a downer.

[Andy Cockayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

what just happened!
looking at the reviews, about two-thirds of readers absolutely love this third book, and one-third are completely bemused by it. I'm definitely it would seem firmly with the minority! I'm not going to rant, I'm not clever enough to write a book, so I hardly feel qualified to critic any authors labour of love. I will say this, though: I struggled throughout this third book. It was not an easy read in any way, shape, or form! and I would warn any would be reader to be wary, this is not like the first two! a really tough read.

[Htom_sirveaux · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNFed at about the 50% point.

So disappointed after the first two.

What is the deal with trilogies/series just falling apart at the end? Don’t authors have a plan? Don’t they know where they’re going to end up when they start out?

Was it Terry Pratchett who said “Endings are hard, do them first”?

[ZorZamen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo empecé con mucha ilusión, pero al autor le dio como una ida de pinza al principio con unas introducciones de personajes laargas, rebuscadas y tediosas, solo comparables a las sagas de relleno de Naruto.
Afortunadamente luego mejora bastante y deja buen sabor de boca, así como un montón de frentes abiertos por si le da la venada de volver a la saga.
Por cierto, hay que indagar si este señor y Van der Meer son primos o algo.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really disliked how the main story was resolved, but the appendices actually redeemed it completely, making it clear that this was never a coming of age story and maybe your parents seemed nasty and cruel because they were nasty and cruel. Still a mess of complicated ideas and incomprehensible worlds, but the people pretty much all made sense. I was to read the spin off pirate book.

[Rebecca Rash · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 👏🏼 series 👏🏼 is 👏🏼 incredible. The prequel is coming in 2026 👀👀 so do yourself a favor and read this mind bending gothic fantasy.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wordy, confusing, complicated, meandering. Best read of the year so far.

[Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like it very much, but at least it took a long time to read.

[Brent Corcoran · Rating 5 out of 5]

I expected it to be dark

But I didn't expect it to be dark in this way. Starting from a new standalone Mordew book, the author brings the whole thing round to a cruel close. Because of his meticulously embellished and developed, abysmally desperate world-building, we clearly see the rationale of desperate characters making desperate mistakes. We want to look away, but can't. And still loving them for all that. As they say, he sticks the landing. The author transcends his genre. This trilogy is one you should surely read. If you can bear it.

[Grimdark_dude · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic ending to an outstanding trilogy! I have never read anything so weird and wonderful and highly recommend the trilogy as a whole! The ending brought so many moving pieces together in an excellent finale. This is going to be a story that will stick with me forever due to the pure intelligence and creativity of the series! So glad to have stumbled upon it and hoping Alex Pheby returns to the world! Regardless I am very excited to see what stories he tells next and hoping he returns to the genre!

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was not enough, and would never satisfy a Sparkline Actuary of Waterblack.

For this actuary, Waterblack, and the whole 'Cities of the Weft' trilogy were far too much, but I am at least satisfied the trilogy is over. Even the presence of tontines, and of actuaries, who are in fact cats who 'tally the responsibilities and obligations of those responsible for the Sparkline inheritances that attach to deaths' couldn't redeem the book.

And if that makes about as much sense to you as it does to me (i.e. none) then you are likely an 'inadequate reader' (shades of Can Xue, but I don't think Waterblack will be troubling the Nobel Committee):

If you do not know what this means, you need only read on. Providing you are not one of those inadequate readers whose eyes skip across the page in search of' what happens next' you will learn the meanings of the phrases above, and how they are used in context. If you are one of those skipping inadequates, there is little chance you are reading these words in any case, since they do not relate directly to the 'plot'.

Though in the part of Waterblack, the author does actually throw a bone - or rather a 250 page novel-in-a-novel-in-a-trilogy with a plot-driven return to the Dickensian parts of Mordew, giving the back-story of someone who appeared an incidental character:

Sharli appeared in the last books, but in a marginal way. The Sharli in this book is much more central: she is the subject of a substantial number of its pages. Why, you might ask, is a marginal character from the first two books taking up so much of your time in the third?

The answer is that she was a marginal character in the events of the first two books because the story was not being told from her point of view. If it had been told from her point of view then you would have been more aware that she had a central role in the story, but you would not have learned much about Nathan and his circle. This is often the way with life, you will come to understand, that people to whom your attention has not been directed can have a direct and powerful influence over what happens to you in the future.

And that part of the novel was an enjoyable if not particularly deep read, but the novel then reverts to the, as per my review of Part II, more of the rather silly meta-world building and the exposition of the overly complex 'theology' of the “weft”. The more meta-plot also requires rather more of an emotional investment in the characters and in the construct of Pheby's world than I have (which is almost none in both cases).

There's again a small nod to this world being built on our own, with two cities on the sites of Paris and Dublin, and a reference to the 1882 Phoenix Park Murders, but these seem to be merely nods.

Ultimately this wasn't for me, and I can only repeat my review of Malarkoi:

I'm no fan of fantasy books ('The City And The City' and 'A Song of Fire and Ice' are clearly brilliantly written books, but were 1-2 star reads for me), nor of long books (my ideal length is 100 pages and for anything over 250 pages the author has to work very hard to justify their demand on my time).

And the author himself stated that the trilogy was very much not aimed at the fans of innovative literary fiction, such as myself, who appreciated his previous novels (Lucia and Playthings). Were it not for Galley Beggar's loyalty to their authors the trilogy would be a very strange pick for them - as it bears little resemblance to the rest of their list.

A generous 2 stars for the Sharli section. Hopefully Pheby's next book will be a return to his previous style.

[Alfredo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong conclusion for the series.

[Ishani Guha-Shepherd · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF'd at 38%
Really disappointing way to end the trilogy. I had high hopes and was intrigued after Malarkoi and the events of Nathan's life. Just couldn't engage with the new characters. The story was slow, poorly edited with frequent typos, and unnecessarily loquacious and dull in a negative way. The result was that it was a real struggle to read, and it drew me into a false assumption based on the wonder and wit of the first two books. Why do trilogies fall at the last hurdle? Don't authors have a methodology as to where the arc (if any) will end?
Ultimately, I do not like criticising an author's labour of love, as I can not write, but the mixed reviews with the notable highs are happy to see in the reading community. I credit Alex Pheby on his creative gumption and talent at achieving that.

[Nw · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing ending. This book feels like it was rushed to print when it should have gotten a more thorough edit. Too many long winded digressions distracted from the core of the plot. I didn’t mind them in the first and second books bc they were less frequent and shorter and progressed the story. Also, is this the ending bc there are quite a few unanswered questions? If this series is continued in some form I hope the author allows his editor more control.

[James Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, as much as I found the other books in this series awfully slow, weighed down by meandering prose, a level of mystery so high it failed to capture my interest, and a bizarre decision to include everything interesting about the world Pheby creates in unnecessarily large appendices, I had fun reading this book!

The flaws of the previous two books were still in evidence here, but in lesser degrees: I still found myself powering through long, whimsical, and ultimately quite boring tangents - though less so than in previous volumes. I found the pace to be quicker - in 250 pages we sped through the life and times of Sharli, in a more guelling 150 or so we made it through Nathan's reprisal of Waterblack, and in a very stirring final 150 pages we saw the chaotic, fantastical, clash of the Cities of the Weft with the Assembly.

The final section was undoubtedly the most interesting - we got to see several long threads of plot come together in a very satisfying way - seeing the true scale of Portia Hall's plans was especially fun. I thought our characters all got very just resolutions (particularly that of Sebastian Cope, Nathan Treeves, and the Bellowses), with just the right amount of ambiguity to leave the end up to our imaginations or (I say this with slight trepidation), another book or three.

There were, as with the other volumes in this series, some decisions I thought were a little bizarre. While I enjoyed the quicker pace of Sharli's point of view, the decision to introduce her as a major character (her story taking up nearly half of Waterblack) so late in the series was strange. Though, considering the poor pacing of previous books, I don't know that sprinkling Sharli's perspective throughout the previous two novels would have been a good choice - thought it may have helped readers develop a stronger attachment to her.

Pheby's decision to include some very pertinent scenes regarding the detonation of the weft-bomb, Portia, Sebastian, Clarissa, Adam Birch, among others, in 100+ pages of appendices was still bizarre. He did a better job at integrating these appendices into the main story of the book, through the use of footnoting which had me referring to it quite frequently in the latter half of the book. Nevertheless, I did felt that all of these appendices, as they were discrete character scenes, could just have been incorporated within the main text of Waterblack. Pheby, somewhat wryly, addresses this odd decision by revealing that the Cities of the Weft volumes are, in fact, the recollections of the boy-book Adam Birch, who, free from the oppression of the Master and Clarissa, can decide to organise his thoughts in the form of a book however he likes - which, aside from being a pleansantly surprising reveal, I thought was a nice way to integrate the book's format into the wider theme of this book.

The main theme this book addresses (and indeed this entire series) is that of cycles of violence. Violence, Pheby quite powerfully demonstrates, begets further, more extreme violence. This is evidenced most powerfully in the stories of Nathan and Sharli, who, used and abused, come into power, and use it for ill - with consequences that beget only further violence and death. It is also seen in Portia's planning as she replicates the violent methods the Weftling Tontine used to kill the weftling to summon and kill the warpling, continuing the cycle of violence into a higher plane of existence . It is seen in the violence Sebastian Cope, Nathaniel Treeves (Nathan's father) and Clarissa Delacroix perpetrate and the bloody ends they eventually* meet. And finally, it is seen in Prissy's ascension to the position of Mistress of Malarkoi after Portia Hall's ascent into the warp. Prissy, we see, continues to wage war on the Assembly, aiming to utterly destroy them all - continuing the Tontine's cycle of violence in the material realm. Ultimately, Pheby leaves us with the message that violence begets only further violence, that power has a natural tendency towards violence, and individuals are not to be trusted with it - a powerful, pertinent message.

Overall, Waterblack was an enjoyable book, though I probably won't be rereading The Cities of the Weft series any time soon. I probably will pick up the first book in Pheby's new Tontine Trilogy, advertised at the end of this book, when it comes out.

[James Leyshon · Rating 4 out of 5]

My most anticipated read of 2025 is finally here in all its fantastical, outlandish glory. And boy, what a ride it's been!

What started as a (rather digestible) tale of a magical slum boy's ascension to godhood rapidly evolved into something much stranger, complex and unorthodox: a deeply philosophical & metaphysical saga featuring malevolent deities & sorcerers, mind-bending realms, talking dogs, the undead, living deformities born from the corpse of a murdered god (to name a few), the culmination of which is an apocalyptic showdown of chaotic & epic proportions.
I can honestly say that I've been left gobsmacked, confused, charmed & disgusted by this impressive trilogy.

There may have been a few bumps along the way, particularly where Waterblack is concerned. The first third, which focuses on the assassin Sharli, certainly had some tremendous story beats and was a welcome return to both the cities of Mordew & Malarkoi. Ultimately this section both proved to be integral to the grand scheme of things and a tad overlong. I must admit that come page 250 I was yearning to find out what was happening to those other characters I'd come to know & love thus far.
The time spent with the enigmatic Eight Atheistic Crusade didn't quite ensnare me as much as that spent in the aforementioned cities, though the cultural differences were notable and once again spoke to Mr Pheby's creative vision.
And finally, the subversion of expectations (something all of us have come to expect at this point, I'm sure) near the end may have come at the expense of emotional fulfilment. Many questions remain and I am left to wonder if certain character's fates were ultimately 'satisfying' or not.

Hence why I am torn between awarding Waterblack a 4 or a 5 star rating...

Having said all that, is this really the kind of story where things should be neatly resolved at the end, once the dust has settled? Would this story have benefitted more from sticking to genre tropes, and would there be more satisfaction to be found as a result? My gut tells me no, and my appreciation for this final entry in particular may very well deepen over time.

To conclude, I have immense respect for this work as a whole, and I can say with absolute certainty that The Cities Of The Weft has quickly become one of my favourite series to date, one that I intend to revisit soon with a fresh perspective.

It is also my understanding that Mr Pheby is working on a prequel trilogy.
I for one cannot wait.

[Matthew Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Continuing the issues present in Malarkoi, Pheby introduces yet more new narrative threads and protagonists in this final book in the trilogy.

Waterblack became a chore to read which I finished purely out of a desire to see it to completion rather than out of enjoyment.

Cities of the Weft as a world has real potential but is hindered by Pheby lacking control of the narrative by this final book in the Trilogy.

Major character's narratives take back seats, what were interesting loose threads from Mordew and Malarkoi are abandoned and Pheby spends far too much time lecturing the reader on how smart he is.

The book starts with an interesting new narrative and protagonist that is rooted in previous works while also giving some context to the previously unexplored Atheistic crusade.

Then the majority of the book is devoted to a tortuous unbroken "interlude" that was painful to read. It was an elongated philosophy lecture delivered by a talking dog, worst of all the plot point it finally establishes is never resolved. It gets relegated to a very confusing appendice set after the conclusion of the book which in itself still ends on a unfinished thread.

Finally we get to the conclusion of the overarching narrative of the trilogy. Only for it to be rushed, little explanation is given to what is going on or why it is going on and suddenly the book ends. It is a very unsatisfactory ending that gives no real narrative conclusion to virtually any story thread opened in any of the 3 books.

Conclusions for Shari, the baby killing assassin, and Nathan, the angry neglected god-child reach conflicting messages. Shari is given her own personal heaven, seemingly because she only embraced violence due to abuse. Meanwhile, Nathan is crushed to death by the elephants he killed in Mordew despite having taken mastership of Waterblack and providing justice to the dead of the world. The final Nathan centric chapter from Pheby sees him suggest that Nathan deserved everything bad that happened to him because he was a neglected child. Its a totally immoral and disgusting ending.

And after this conclusion to the story, Pheby does his usual trick. He inserts multiple apendicies that explain all the things he forgot to include in the actual narrative.

What started as a very promising entry into fantasy in Mordew ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

[Zach Weinberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I truly love this series, but I’m really frustrated with this book. Giving this a 3 because I still want to like this, but holy cow did this book test my patience.

I was so impressed and excited by what Pheby was doing in the prior two books, Mordew and Malarkoi. I admired the series’ discursiveness, its willingness to descend into its own philosophical strangeness, and its detached and storytellerish narrative voice. But it’s very tough to balance these things and also tell a story…and the series, which was already teetering on the brink during Malarkoi, seems to have fully collapsed under its own weight here.

This book opens with several hundred pages of tertiary character backstory and lore serving as introduction to a new protagonist. This is delivered alongside endless rhetorical question philosophizing, the combination and density of which nearly pit me off this book entirely. We finally pick up with the protagonist of Mordew (absent in Malarkoi) halfway through, and then about 500 pages in catch up with where we left the action in Malarkoi. The climactic showdown is thrilling but all too brief, leaving over 100 pages of appendices explain basic tenets of the story, like the resolution of the overarching plot and the basic motivations and backstories of key characters. Even then, much feels hand-waved away.

And of course, the first appendix opens up with two straight paragraphs of rhetorical questions. I understand the references to Greek philosophy embedded in the world, but come on, this Socratic storytelling gets so exhausting.

In his effort to explain the terminology of the first two books and the foundational elements of the world, Pheby renders the world overly technical and leaches the stakes out of everything. When we are shown repeatedly that the distinctions between life and death and reality and unreality and existence and nonexistence are under debate and essentially meaningless, it’s hard to feel like anything at all of any consequence has happened.

There’s a lot in here to like, but it’s just buried by hundreds and hundreds of pages of stuff. I came in excited, and left exhausted.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspirational to me individually, in an obtuse way. An epiphany unveiled itself three fourths of the way through that has altered my perception of myself and instigated action on my part. Let me explain: I was noodling a wikipedia rabbit hole when I ran across this title. Thinking to myself, 'I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, was slightly disappointed by the second, I might as well give the third one a try,' I promptly opened up my Libby app and checked it out from my local library. As I read, I began to feel a kind of deja-vu (or deja-lu) similar to the one described in my review of the most recent Tad Williams yarn. Just as in that case I discovered after roughly five hundred pages that I had already read the book. This has happened before. I don't know how many times. Having forgotten the specifics of the plot, I finished it again. In the case of Tad Williams my post amnesiac reading was an overall negative experience where, as far as I can recall, I enjoyed the book less the second time. With Waterblack the second run through was, from what tatters of memory I can resolve into sense, a more entertaining adventure than the mostly forgotten first read. I have to stress the fact that I am an unreliable reviewer. My overall impressions that I post on Goodreads are very likely the product of a rapidly disintegrating intelect. I am forced to acknowledge that I don't trust these reviews to have any value. My ramblings are as likely to surprise and disappoint myself as they are to influence you. Having this experience has highlighted the usefulness of Goodreads. Goodreads is a wonderful way for me to keep track of what I have and haven't read. I am currently going through my books and cleaning up the data recorded here, as best as I can recall, before I lose more of my memory. Before my cognitive ability degenerates further, I am recording what I have read and when I did it. If I can only remember to consult it before I pick up a book for the 'first' time, then I might save a little of the time I have left.

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“But where else was there to go? This place — this drowned and deathly city where he could breathe and live, the people of which he could redeem, or revenge, or make into angels — wasn’t this his place? More than Mordew. More than Malarkoi. More than the immaterial realm and the intermediate realms. Where should he be, if not here?” Waterblack, the third and final of Alex Pheby’s Cities of the Weft trilogy, is even more challenging and mad and unrestrained than its predecessors Mordew and Malarkoi. Part of me wishes I hadn’t read each book when they first came out, 4.5 and 2ish yrs ago respectively, as even with Pheby’s opening summary of the previous action I found some of the names and concepts hard to remember, which is further complicated by this novel’s first half being a major segue from the plots of the first two. The next chunk of the book, which returns first to Nathan Treeves and secondly to the ghost of a certain magical dog, accelerates the plot, so that the final third of the book can happen: a breathlessly epic battle of gods, god killers, dragons, demons, angels, teleporting, forcefields, enchanted knives, and a deliciously satisfying act of canine vengeance. It’s bonkers, and entertaining, and as satisfying as it is frustrating. It answers as many old questions as it asks new ones, and its appendices are essential for answering a few more, while also hinting at more weft-world stories to come, including (but maybe not limited to) the already-announced Tontine Trilogy prequels. Pheby has crafted a highly original fantasy series, which is literary and metaphysical and deeply ontological, like if Descartes and a bunch of other philosophers had gotten together to write an apocalyptic epic. It’s challenging, but that just makes it all the more rewarding. Out 14 Jan in the US, and Feb here in the UK.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

In short, Waterblack is a long, messy and frustrating conclusion to a trilogy that started so strong.

Having finished Malarkoi, one would expect Waterblack to pickup at the epic cliffhanger where we left off: with the revival of Nathan at the hands of the Mistress and the confrontation of the Tontine members. However instead of this, Waterblack immediately spends half of its page count revisiting the life of Shari the assassin, who was breifly introduced in Book 2 and who is used as a clumsy tool to introduce another Faction to the story.

Shari's story is flat at best, but when I want to read about Nathan (the supposed main character of the series), her story becomes downright annoying and sets a trend for Waterblack - I suspect that Nathan's story only constitutes 25% of the pagecount and I'm not sure he has any lines of dialogue at all.

Alex Pheby's has both a fantastic command of the English language and a unique and intriguing world he's created. However, for a conclusion to such an epic trilogy Waterblack lacks pace and focuses in all the wrong places. Maybe a fourth book was needed after all?

[Akiva · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series was such a roller coaster. I'm not totally sure what I thought of this book spending on its entire first half on a bit character from the previous book, but her story was compelling and it did a ton of world building. But when that transitioned to another plot half way through I got bogged down. I think at the end of the day this series loses out due to:
1. Really badly needing editing. A lot of stuff happens but a lot of it doesn't go anywhere
2. Some of the characters are compelling but mostly they're not very good or outright bad people and it's hard to really get behind them. An exception is made for the dogs of various magical sorts who are a delight.

Ultimately, it just didn't feel like anything that happened in it mattered, especially because there was always some insane metaphysics thing around the corner that threw it for a loop.

Still this book gets some extra points for the parts of it that were coherent and for just being absolutely gonzo and continuously escalating, especially once we hit the appendix.