This is another one that upset the balance. I tried to start it last year, but I found the opening scenes of child labour genuinely upsetting and had to put it aside. When I picked it up again they were still upsetting, and furthermore things didn’t necessarily get much better as it went along. Anyway, this is the book that tore fantasy out by the roots and shook off the dirt long before China Mieville or George RR Martin did their thing, and it makes them look like fluffy bunnys in comparison. However tough the action or radical the politics or cynical the power-struggles, they are still fundamentally entertainments. Swanwick’s book doesn’t subvert genre conventions; it looks them full in the face sees them for what they are and tells them to sod off. Not an easy read, but profoundly worthwhile.