Lord of Thundertown

by O.F. Cieri

In the movies, Thundertown was depicted like a real town, with boundaries, Folk-run businesses, and a government. In real life, Thundertown was a block here or there, three businesses on the same side of the street, an unconnected sewer main, or a single abandoned building.

When an epidemic of missing person cases is on the rise, the police refuse to act. Instead, Alex Delatorre goes to Thundertown for answers and finds clues leading to a new Lord trying to unite the population.

No one has seen the Lord, and the closer Alex gets to him, the farther Alex gets from his path home.

Genres: Urban Fantasy

263 pages, ebook

Published January 6, 2020

About the author

O F Cieri is based in New York. She has written three books; Lord of Thundertown, Lockdown Laureate, and Backmask.

Reviews

[M.A. Hinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been waiting for this book for, like, a year, and it did not disappoint. It's strange and sprawling in the best way, both ambitious and highly personal. It reminds me a lot of Neverwhere or Stardust, both by Neil Gaiman, where the story is at once about a few characters who have fallen into a magical world and are way in over their heads, and about the powerful, impossible to understand forces pulling the strings in the background. This is urban fantasy in the best sense: where characters discuss getting degrees in magic graphic design, but their parents tell them it's a waste of money; where a powerful fairy creature can work all kinds of magic but still has to get the right permits before she can make real changes.

[Joyfully Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Joyfully Jay review.

2.75 stars

ord of Thunderdown utterly failed to engage me as a reader. One of the biggest issues I had with the book was how extraordinarily poorly this noir-ish fantasy world was described. My best understanding is that the world is divided into “above ground” and “below ground” realms; humans primarily occupy the former and…not humans primarily occupy the latter. Cieri seems to describe the nonhuman entities as Alvar, trasgo, and Folk without clarifying what (if any) distinctions there are between them. All I could really figure out was that the non-humans, by and large, lived underground and could apply “glamour” to themselves to appear more human-like, but the purpose of this glamour was never clarified. The big “conflict” in the book seemed to be that this apparent segregation between humans and non-humans meant the non-humans were living subpar lives underground. Yet the issue of equality seems to take a backseat to the MCs traipsing around underground areas and being ignored because they’re humans looking for more humans who got lost underground. Confused? Yeah, me too.

Read Camille’s review in its entirety here.

[Josephine Pizzino]

Anyone who has spent time on a NYC subway knows how disconcerting it is when your train changes destination while in route, and that disconcerting, freaky feeling as you and your fellow passengers wonder where you're going and how to get back to where you set out to go. Now, imagine that subway has been hijacked, not by the MTA but by the Aether, a mysterious entity/force which unpredictably changes streets and tunnels in a kind of architectural anarchy, unconcerned about the effect of these changes on the physical beings in the way. But a scrappy band of Lower East Side squatters set out in search of missing comrades, stable housing and reliable subway system.

So many things about this book ring true and yet it's all exquisite fantasy. O F Cieri has a magical feel for language which engages and also, at times baffles.

You will have to suspend the boundaries of logical thinking while reading this book, in much the same way as the inhabitants of the LES have to suspend the predictability of the floors and walls of their apartments.

Read on! You will be rewarded with a delightful first novel. Hopefully, just the first of many.

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Baffling, but Interesting

I loved the way this book started. Instead of one large info-dump, the author staggers what is happening in the book’s world with the information needed to create the world. There is very dynamic world building happening, and it requires a great deal of attention, so breaking it up while moving the story along is an excellent way to go about it.

The characters are many, which got quite confusing at times, so eventually I just focused in on the ones I considered to be the “main” set: Alex, Nails, Samantha, Senator Loisaida, and the Kijkaan.

The last two are definitely not human. I’m not sure if Alex and Nails are human or not, but I think so. I do not believe that Sam is human, and I’m basing that on the statement, “Big, strong Sam, twice Alex’s size in both directions…” This confusion makes it difficult to create a complete mental picture, and that bothered me throughout the book. I am in the process of rereading it now that I have the full construct of things in my head, so I may update this later.

There is one very important detail that would have helped me greatly from the beginning, so I’m sharing it here. An “Aether design” is what would generally be called a “magical spell” in most books. Had that been known to me from the start it would have caused significantly less confusion. You’re benefitting here! Go forth with this knowledge and read!

The plot was wonderful. I really enjoyed watching life unfold where magic meets politics and the hows and whys of things, and what it took to attain the goals each of the characters had. The pacing bogged down in a few spots, but this is this author’s first novel, and that is generally expected, so it didn’t bother me.

This is not a romance novel and therefore has a zero heat level. It is an adventure set in a time of strife, and the author spares nothing in describing the squalor of living situations and the pettiness of those who are supposed to be protecting their territories within the construct of New York City. I enjoyed all the gritty details. No squeamishness allowed here!

The ending left something to be desired as far as I was concerned. It didn’t really feel like an ending except for the envelopes (and you’ll have to read to discover what exactly that means). It just felt… unfinished. I’m hoping that this means there will be more books set in this world and that we will get to spend more time getting to know the vast array of characters.

I’m rating this at 3 stars, and I definitely recommend giving it a read. This one really wasn’t in my normal wheelhouse, but I enjoyed myself once I got my pieces and parts straight. Give it a try, and I will definitely be looking out for what this author has in store for us in the future.



I voluntarily read an ARC copy of this book for Divine Magazine from the author with hopes for but no obligation to provide a review.

I voluntarily read an ARC copy of this book for Divine Magazine from the author with hopes for but no obligation to provide a review.

**Same worded review will also appear on Divine Magazine, NineStar Press, and Amazon.com.**

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly a mystery. This is a world in which Lords rule over the territory. There's magic, there are bizarre creatures, and aether is molded into blocks and spirit-like-appearances and mechanics. Alex is trudging through life, living in a small room in a building (there's a fair amount of squalor in this book) with his roommate, Nails. They're getting by... albeit not so comfortably... and then their friend, Sam disappears. When she returns, she tells them that she was captured and taken to  "Thundertown."

Head into this book with an open mind! The writing style is creative, the world terrifying and bizarre at the same time! Yes, it's an adventure... mystery... but it's also really imaginative. The world-building was great. There's a lot of detail, so if you like to sink into a plot and be enveloped by it, you'll love this.

There were a few too many characters for me to keep track of! A bit of a challenge at times.

[Joscelyn Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strangely compelling story with a plethora of engaging characters and top-notch world building. All in all an enjoyable read and I hope that this unique world will be revisited.

*I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book provided by NetGalley*

[Sebastian Nothwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw and evocative, this novel breathes new life into the genre. Cieri's decadent prose combines fantastically unnerving fae with the dirt-under-your-nails realism of life for the working poor of New York City to craft a compelling fairy tale with twists and turns worthy of an ancient Greek tragedy.

Fans of Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, and Charles de Lint will enjoy this queer fable for a new age.

[Griffin Hancock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly refreshing to read an urban fantasy that doesn't just tread the same ground as the Dresden Files or Vampire the Masquerade. Rather than asking "what if the supernatural already existed in our world", Thundertown asks "what would our world be like if it had always existed". Fae lords are mired in petty bureaucracy, squatters fix their water heaters with sorcery, pocket dimensions have to be OSHA-compliant. Definitely recommended reading for anyone who likes queer punks, urban planning, or a little light body horror.

[Maryann Kafka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no idea where this novel would take me but I was absolutely hooked by blurb and Prologue. I liked the plot of getting lost in the subway of NYC.

The story starts with Samantha “Sam” after a hard day of work taking the subway home. As usual the power surges but this time it doesn’t come back on. Sam and several other passengers attempt to walk through the tunnel and disappear.

With the disappearance of Sam, Alex Delatorre and David “Nails” Kaczorowski need to find their friend. Alex made the attempt at getting the City police involved but they didn’t want to be concerned. That had Alex taking it to the Day and Night Court. Senator Loisaida enters the picture and becomes involved in the disappearance because it has to do with the territory that she is paid a fealty for protection as being a Lord.

When Sam suddenly is back and contacts Alex, Sam explains that the other passengers are still in the tunnel and she has the need to rescue them. Nails eventually becomes lost in the tunnels too and Alex and Sam are determined to go into the tunnels and find him.

O.F. Cieri did quite a bit with world building and some character building for a few that were important to the story. Cieri also did some very descriptive writing in the way of creepy, crawly and fantastic creatures. But it became difficult to follow at some points with trying to figure out who was: human, tsargo, Folk and Alvar. There’s also a type of energy known as the Aether that could be manipulated and I wasn’t sure if it fit in with magic somehow.

I really wanted this to be a great story and it just disappointed me. I kept reading because I wanted to find out what was going to happen when the group went back to search the tunnel for Nails and the others left behind. I thought Thundertown would be found to be a magical place or a place of evil but it was never revealed.

I liked the connection that Alex had with Nails but it was just friendship, nothing more. Alex was a very caring character and really had concerns for his friends, Nails and Sam. I didn’t care for the ending with Alex apparently feeling guilt with the death of one of the characters in the chaos of the tunnel escape.

This novel did have some diversity with the mention of a few of the characters ethnicity. But what really was disappointing there’s very little on LGBTQ or even a budding relationship with any of the characters. It isn’t until very late in the story where Alex is posed a question from his mother about Nails sexuality and Nails has thoughts that he might be attracted to Alex and that’s it. I’m not an expert but for me I don’t know if this qualifies as being an LGBTQ story.

This was a hard review for me to do because I really felt there were some good ideas and characters to build on but some parts were just too confusing.

[Shirley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like Lord of Thundertown. Actually, I did like a fair amount of it. The writing was great, the characters were intriguing and the world building drew me in. The problem was that this story line was all over the place. So much so that I spent a fair amount of time confused.
Even so, that doesn't mean that I'm going to give up on this author. Given that this is not only the first book that I've read by O.F. Cieri, I'm pretty sure it's their first book. I'll be on the look out for more from this author.
I received Lord of Thundertown in exchange for a fair and honest review.

[Micchi Kins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the writing style in this book, and definitely want to read more by this author. The worldbuilding was amazing, rich and robust without feeling like I was getting an exposition dump every five seconds. The story itself is relatable, and enjoyable.

[Coltostallion · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure how to rate this book, to be honest. The writing was good, the characters were decent, but I wasn't entirely sure what was happening at many points. It's not necessarily a bad type of confusing, but I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I could have.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

**Review to follow**

[Michael Tichy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Urban fantasy at its finest. Vivid and compelling characters, a world with plenty of grit and grime and with a real sense of connection to history. And the narrative is a brilliantly crafted mystery unveiled slowly. A joy to read.