Check out Dom’s full spoiler-free video review on his channel here

The Thirteenth Hour, book one of The Cruel Gods by Trudie Skies, is an SPFBO8 finalist, and whichever way you look at it, that’s high praise in itself. It isn’t though, the type of book I would normally expect to pick up. It’s a Gaslamp fantasy, set in a steam-powered city, and there’s a steampunk vibe throughout. So it’s a level of technology more advanced than that of my usual reads, and that should be taken into consideration when reading my review.

We have twelve domains, that are each very different settings. Each of these domains has its own people, and they all look different and have different mannerisms and to some degree different capabilities. So there’s a very varied world and although we don’t visit all of the domains, people do move between them, giving us access to different races during our reading.

I found this setting to be a very interesting concept. As well as the twelve domains, each the purview of that individual domain’s god, you also have the afore-mentioned steam-powered city, called Chime. This is the hub of this world, and the setting for the book itself. Here, there is a portal that can take you to any of the twelve domains, but on a twelve-hour cycle, so if you miss the crossing to your intended domain, you’ll have to wait twelve hours for the next crossing.

Chime itself is a very diverse city, with a defined upper, middle, and lower layer. This is the one place the gods can’t tread, so it’s where people from all domains can mix freely, although they need to remain faithful to their individual god as they do so. So overall, the worldbuilding was very well done. There’s clearly been a lot of time and effort put into this, and in the book itself, it all works very well.

The characters are not really defined by their domain, which is a good thing. Those who we see enough of have their own personalities and motivations, and in general, the interactions between the characters were quite good.

Our main characters of Kayl and Quen worked well, even if they would probably never work well together under normal circumstances. This story though is definitely not what they would call normal circumstances. As a Diviner, Quen has the ability to manipulate time, which is a very tricky thing to write into a story, as it can make a character overpowered, and make everything all too easy. I think that was well-handled here though, so it never became a problem.

The specifics around Kayl, that I must bypass for spoiler purposes, could lead to similar problems, and while I found there was sometimes a bit too much convenience to it, it was again, mostly well-done.

I listened to the audiobook and started out really liking the narration—the voice used was good on the whole—but as the book went on, I started to fall out with it a little. A couple of the issues I have with the book overall might stem from the audio, but it’s difficult to tell.

Firstly, the voices in general started to grate on me a bit towards the end of the book. With the story ramping up and various aspects leading to frenetic dialog, I felt there was a bit too much variation in the volume of narration, and I found myself cringing now and then and reaching to turn down the volume while listening with other people in the house (especially as I have a seven-year-old daughter and there was a fair amount of swearing in the book).

The second part was that this is a story told in the first person, and you have two main characters narrating their individual parts of the story. There were no indications at the start of a chapter whose point of view we would now be in, and I found there to be insufficient variation to be able to tell this by voice. So sometimes I would have to wait a little while before I could confirm whose head I was in.

So those two factors definitely make me feel like I might have preferred reading this physically rather than listening to it, but of course, there’s no way of telling if that would change my overall perception of the book. As it is, I ended up appreciating a lot of the book, but not enjoying it as much as I’d hoped I might.

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Time Stamp: 20:23

The Thirteenth Hour by Abbie Skies

This book was a unique weird gaslamp fantasy with fun and diverse characters and settings. I am really glad that I liked this book and will read book 2 when the audio is released.

So what worked for me?

Worldbuilding: The concept of 12 different gods that live in 12 different domains that shape their mortal lives and powers. This allowed for very unique and fun characters that were easy to tell apart.

What did not work for me?

Writing: The writing was a bit meandering and descriptive so I feel like the book ended up being too long and slow at points.

Similar Media?

The Elder Empire series by Will Wight is the closest comparison I can make with the multiple cruel gods that abuse those under their control. Elder Empire is more biopunk/cosmic horror while The Thirteenth Hour is gaslamp/steampunk.

Score: 7.8/10

Character: 8

Plot: 7

World-Building: 9

Writing: 7

Enjoyment: 8

THE THIRTEENTH HOUR by Trudie Skies is the first book in the author’s The Cruel Gods series. It is a steampunk fantasy set in a steam powered world ruled by gods who demand worship. Each god has full sway over their own created people which gives the city of Chime a lot of diversity in types of beings, ideologies, and rules.⁠

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Kayl is one of the Godless, those who have lost their faith and refuse to worship. Kayl isn’t your everyday Godless though, and soon she is realizing there is more to her story and her connection to the world. Quen is a warden, someone who polices the world. His kind have the ability to see into a person’s past and future, though is own ability to see exactly how someone will die at a touch is unique to him.⁠

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The strongest part of this book was in the world building. I think the author created a very unique and fascinating world. I really enjoyed the two main characters and exploring their lives and their histories. There are a lot of complications in the world in terms of the way that memories are handled and I thought the author did a great job of making some of the choices very natural. Quen’s ability to see how someone dies creates a lot of trauma in his relationships and his ability to relate to the world as a whole, so he utilizes abilities in the world to remove this knowledge which of course creates other complications. The mystery of Kayl’s past is also very intriguing.⁠

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Some of the side characters could have used a bit more fleshing out for me. There was a relationship between Quen and her long-term boyfriend that was a romance that I didn’t think was really needed. ⁠

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In terms of plot, there is a lot going on and there were times where it felt a bit much. Overall I found the writing to be good and I enjoyed my experience reading it.⁠

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This book came to a lot of satisfying conclusions, but there is a lot of room to continue and world left to explore

My full thoughts are in my video review/vlog

https://youtu.be/ahEh6DSSDQM

The first half of this book started really strong for me I was super intrigued and enjoyed the world building as well as being interested in the stories of our two main characters.

But after hitting 60% I found myself losing interest. I didn't care where the plot was going and the repetitive writing of the book made it far too long for me. (& I mean I love a chunky book but there needs to be meaning for the chunk)

The main point of issue for me ended up being the characters in this book. We had two protagonists who's voices were too similar for me. I had a hard time defining the two. I did prefer the male pov over the female as we had an interesting convos about memories in his chapters. And all of the side characters and gods didn't have any personality for me.

That being said the book was well written just some pacing issues. And the world building was fascinating.

It is urban but set in a new fantastical world. Not our own. Which I like. It reminded me of the settings of City Of Stairs and Foundryside by Robert Jacson Bennett.

Was okay, wish I liked the plot and characters more! The world was interesting though.

I read this for SPFBO (Cassidy's version). Watch my reading vlog with more thoughts here:

https://youtu.be/R6cVYShxAow

https://youtu.be/Dx1GXp_JGmw