Charlie N. Holmberg’s novels are something rare in the fiction lover’s world: reliable. When a new novel is published, a reader can buy it and dive in, knowing it will provoke, interest, and satisfy. The Hanging City is well worth reading. It is suspenseful, and even while reading the last few pages, the reader has no idea how the tension will resolve, but resolve it does, in a sudden yet redemptive manner.
The Hanging City pits two civilizations against each other: the humans, who live as tribe-like small settlements scattered across the desolate landscape, and the trolli, a larger, more cohesive and resourceful group of beings who built a hanging city beneath the ruins of what was human metropolis in a time long ago, before catastrophic drought devastated the world, making most of the land a barren, dry, dusty wasteland. The rise of the trolli’s prosperity followed the drought-caused descent of humankind, and, at the time of the novel’s narrative action, the two groups harbor a deeply held antipathy and distrust of the other.
The novel’s heroine, Lark, is a human girl who has been on her own, moving from one settlement to the next, running from her cruel, abusive father. Lark has a mysterious psychic ability that her father wants to claim and manipulate for his own advancement and gain. Lark makes her way to the hanging city of the trolli, where she (as a human) is rated lowest of the low, not even eligible to join the caste system by which trolli society is organized. She is not welcomed into the city with open arms, but she hopes to be tolerated and to prove her worth to the council, the trolli administration.
Lark, though having no status, still longs for a place to belong, for a family that she can love, and for a group of people who can accept her psychic gift. She begins to be familiar with some of the humans living in the trolli city, and forges fledgling friendships with some of them, including a young man who is a half-breed human/trolli mix.
As time passes, Lark hopes a few of the more tolerant trolli might fit into her long-dreamt-of idea of having a community, the “family” she desires. She even begins to have deeper feelings for one male trolli, seeing beauty in his green skin and bony skin protrusions, and, feeling safe in his company, she dares to let down her guard.
Perils arise, misunderstandings occur, and Lark’s past catches up with her, but when the story’s ending comes, Lark’s future looks as though it could be better than her dreams might have promised. We root for her along the way, and Lark’s dream becomes the reader’s, too.
It takes real talent to create fiction in which the reader becomes so involved that he or she viscerally feels every blow, experiences every joy, and hopes so hard for a satisfying conclusion to the story that tears and laughter bubble up in turn. Charlie N. Holmberg has written such a book, again, and I thank her.
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The middle is the best.
I am surprised to only see a couple reviews that mention the end of the book… I re read the last chapter thinking did I miss something? For such an action and drama filled story the ending was underwhelming. The start was slow but the middle of the story I couldn’t put down. I had to set alarms to remind myself to stand and stretch or go to bed and stop reading because I had a hard time pulling myself away.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Lyn G.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 15, 2024
Brilliant creation of a world and gifted story telling
