Hello my beautiful watchers. You might have noticed that I’ve forsaken my beloved green screen
for the more traditional booktube, bookshelf set up. This is because I’m back in the UK for
a bit reconnecting with my family after over a year of pandemic forced exile in the colonies.
I was originally planning to have this review done and published during pride month but prepping
for this trip and the 50 thousand mandatory covid tests I had to arrange really took it out of me so
I’ve missed yet another deadline. But hey, there's never a bad time to spotlight LGBTQ authors.
The Lights of Prague is an urban fantasy story set in the city of Prague in 1868.
It’s the first published novel of Nicole Jarvis, a New York based author and self professed lover
of fan fiction, though thankfully this book doesn’t bear any of the telltale signs of a
filing off the serial numbers story. It’s an original work that started life as a NaNoWriMo
project that she later expanded upon... Sorry I’ve never said that abbreviation outloud before.
There are two protagonist POV characters, the first is Domek Myska, he works as a lamplighter,
a real life historical profession in the days before widespread electricity that involves
traversing a long route of gas powered street lamps manually lighting each one, every night.
However there's a secondary and much more important part of his profession.
In between lighting lamps he stops to fight horrible and deadly monsters
that prowl the streets of Prague at night, feeding on the innocent!
His most common enemy seems to be the Pijavica, which is the Czech word for leach but….
yeah, call them what you want, they’re definitely vampires.
Other notable nasties include ghosts of various types and
some really nasty river dwelling wankers called a Vodník,
that has the poor form to not only kill you but traps your soul in a jar afterwards.
The naming convention used in this book kind of reminds me of the TV show Grimm, which
I maintain is highly underrated. The first few seasons at least. If you like intentional slock.
The other main character is a wealthy multi century old Pijavica called Ora.
She embodies the classic “the one good vampire” trope, though refreshingly she doesn’t spend most
of her time brooding or obsessing about killing every other monster in the world. For the most
part she appears to just be trying to live her best life, attending fancy parties and junk.
She’s as openly bisexual as one could be in that time period. It's not a huge part of the
story or her greatest defining character trait but neither is it insignificant or
vague enough to be in danger of coming off as queerbaiting, a surprisingly rare balance
I suspect Jarvis managed to achieve due to her experience of being openly bi herself.
Despite horror elements and a decidedly gothic aesthetic it’s clearly not intended to be a
scary book. There’s plenty of violence, and Jarvis was able to write tension into scenes
in a way you almost never see from a first time author, but nothing I found
particularly gratuitous so I would deem it safe even for the faint of heart like myself.
I’ll give you a vague description of the story: Both Domek and Ora independently end up trying
to unravel the mystery behind a group of Pijavica that have somehow overcome what should be a deadly
weakness to wooden stakes and daylight, eventually drawing them together and into bed in the process.
Domek also encounters a Will-O-the-Wisp,
a tiny entity seemingly made of fire possessing incredible magical power and a
bad attitude. The Wisp ends up bound to him like a genie but the lucky bugger gets infinite wishes.
The first thing that jumps out at you regarding this book is how surprisingly complex and
real the 1860s depiction of Prague feels, sans the ghosty goos and blood suckers of course.
By real I don’t mean in a geographic or historical accuracy way. It might also be those things,
I just have no way of personally judging, not having been to the Czech Republic or
being particularly knowledgeable of the history of that part of the world.
What I mean is Jarvis is a very adept world builder and
included enough cool little things that gave off the impression of being historically accurate
that an average reader like me is left with a distinct feeling of authenticity.
She’s also very good at writing strong, detailed visual pictures of people,
environments and scary ass monsters which contributes no end to the reading experience.
Alas, this is offset somewhat by the blandness of the main characters.
Ora has a marginally more interesting backstory but a relatively dull plot in the story itself,
while Domek is basically a plank of wood who’s entire deal boils down to “a monster killed his
girlfriend so now he slays them” but gets the more engaging plotline in the book.
Their romance was also a tad underwhelming. I know saying a couple lacked chemistry is usually
used to describe actors, but somehow that sort of lackluster lust was achieved in written form here.
It certainly doesn't help that their plots don’t actually converge all that
often when you stop to think about it, even after they bump uglies.
They bump into each other a few times, share one intense chapter together and team up
for the climax but otherwise they’re both kinda off doing their own shit.
Honestly the relationships they have with literally everyone else are WAY
more interesting than the one they have with each other. In particular Domek’s relationship with his
mother who’s recovering emotionally from the abuse she suffered from his father before he died, and
Ora’s extremely sexually charged antagonism with an ex-girlfriend and fellow bloodsucker.
There’s also a very strong, mostly positive but flawed relationship
explored between Ora and her aging, human, sister in law. You really don’t see a lot
of books that emphasize that particular connection let alone supernatural ones.
Best of all though is the slow build of mutual respect between Domek and his Wisp.
I kid you not it actually plays out kind of like a buddy cop movie.
I would never have predicted Wil-O-the-Wisp vs monster hunter debates on the subject of
morality to be a strong draw for a book but I props to her for making it work.
“Why are you so determined to work against me?” Domek asked. “You’re malicious,
but you don’t seem evil. You could have killed me in that alley. The more I think about it,
the more I think you were trying to scare me into freeing you.
Why go through all the trouble when you could just work with me?”
“You? The man who controls my spirit against my will? I have no reason to trust you. Most men are
selfish, disgusting creatures ... When they’re suddenly given the power to change the world,
nearly all of them immediately use it for self-gain, no matter the cost.”
“Not all men, though,” Domek said.
… but you’re the same. The moment you ran into trouble,
you called me forward to win your battles.”
“I told you that was a test,” Domek pointed out.
“Are you saying that if you ran into trouble again
that you wouldn’t summon me immediately? You would die before calling me to aid you?”
“Fine, you’re right. Of course you’re right. When it comes to life or death,
I’ll use whatever resources I have.”
“Even if that resource is a slave you got by killing someone else,” the wisp said.
“You’re not a—” Domek cut himself off mid-sentence.
What can I say? The Wisp has a point. Even with an eventual promise of freedom being
granted after the quest’s completion, for now it’s still a sapient being owned and Domek is
intentionally keeping it bonded in servitude to him, and that will always be wrong on a
deeply fundamental level….. Aladdin was a slave owner for 99% of that movie….
These days you’re very unlikely to find a book that involves vampires and a secret society of
monster hunters that isn’t somewhat riddled with cliches and alas this was no exception.
Honestly I’m MORE surprised when a Vampire hunter doesn’t fall in love with a vampire these days.
However I don’t think Jarvis wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to urban fantasy.
She took a pretty trope heavy genre and managed to put some
occasional semi unique spins on it here and there.
For example the design of the vampires is somewhat non-traditional. They appear normal until they
enter their feeding state, in which their mouths slit open impossibly wide and large, their regular
teeth retract and a second row on needle fang slides out sooo… Less this, more this. Mmmyes.
There's also a cool addition piece of
lore regarding them. Once someone is turned into a creature of the night,
they develop an utterly irresistible compulsion to kill anyone directly related to them.
This puts an even stronger emphasis on how cruel it is for them to convert a human and
does a better job at explaining why Ora would let her various romantic partners die of old age.
As names for secret organizations dedicated to protecting the world from supernatural
entities go, The Lamplighters isn’t bad. It’s got a certain ring to it.
Back in the negatives though, I started getting certain side characters mixed up
towards the end which was a little awkward when they started getting killed and I wasn’t entirely
sure if I was supposed to be celebrating or mourning until a protagonist reacted.
The problem was so many of them seemed to speak with the same voice if you know what I mean.
They behaved and spoke in such a similar way they never felt distinct
from one another. It’s a shame because Jarvis is able to write quite compelling dialogue overall,
it just goes to waste when it comes out of indistinguishable, forgettable characters.
Jarvis paints a very interesting picture of Prague in decline, but in a way that mostly only bothers
the vamps that were around to see it in its glory days, making them come off like grumpy boomers.
I was mildly disappointed that after the big mystery about the
super powered vampires was so played up, the payoff wasn’t that great in my opinion.
It's not quite “a wizard did it” but it’s pretty close.
As a sword enthusiast I have to admit I was mildly offended
by part of the final climax in which two Lamplighters face off against each other
and it was stated that the man duel-wielding pocket sized stakes had the advantage over the
guy with a freaking sword just because that was their usual weapon of choice. Sheer poppycock,
the massive range difference alone would decide it even without considering cutting edges.
So all in all I think this particular book is
ok. It didn’t blow my mind but it left me 100% certain this author has incredible potential.
If she can get a handle on writing more interesting characters and
maybe improving on the pacing a bit I think the sequels that were set up are going to be awesome.
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Please take care of yourselves out there in these troubled times and I will see you
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