I got the audiobook of Clockworld: The Iron City in a r/fantasy giveaway. I  enjoyed parts of it, I thought the world building was really  interesting, and the worldbuilding related mystery and the general plot were good, felt meh about some characters and the narration, but I hated one particular plot point.

The blurb: 

The Iron City has stood for thousands of years, but now, dark forces move within her metal walls to bring down her royal family and subjugate her people. Princess Aldreia, heir to the throne, must join with the peasant Tunnel-Runner Mouse to battle against the threats against her city and protect her birthright! 

From the darkest cellars of the city Underworks to the skies around its tiers, the battle for the Iron City has begun!

My review: 

I felt like the narration made the main characters sound younger than they’re supposed to be, which was pretty annoying. Some of the voices are just off, a few of the side characters blend together, and one character with a lisp sounds plain bad. I’m also reasonably sure it’s detritus not detrius, which was used a few times, and there was a mix up with character names at some point. I noticed a reviewer mentioned some errors in the ebook too. 

The worldbuilding was great. There’s a huge Iron City built around a giant mechanical clock. There’s a lot of mystery and mystique around the clock, and even a plotting church. I do love evil churches in fantasy, no reason. There’s also a good amount of doing research to figure out the mystery, which I love, and the reveal towards the end is really good too. 

The characters 

Marius would be great if not for the annoying lisp, he’s mysterious and smart, that one. Mouse sounds 12 when he’s actually late teens, makes it a lot harder to take him seriously as this super competent mechanical prodigy that everyone respects. The queen is great, clever, puts her people first, knows how to use her authority and not afraid to get her hands greasy. The benevolent crime lord is cool and fun. The queen’s pawns blurred together a bit for me, couldn’t really care about them and couldn’t remember who’d been important earlier on. The villain turns into a bit of a caricature, I was not a fan. 

The pacing was pretty quick, there’s lots going on and the plot keeps getting thicker and thicker. There’s some airship combat which is always fun for me. 

The thing that pissed me off, of course a pretty major spoiler that I can’t explain subtly, was having the MC realize he’s got the feelings for love interest only for her to be killed off after they’d shared a moment. It’s a trope I generally dislike and that would probably make me hypercritical of any book. 

Bingo squares: 

Self published hard mode, audiobook, local to Liverpool, title of 4 words,