I had high hopes for this one, but unfortunately I really struggled to get into it, the beginning felt confusing and slow, and the writing just didn't grab me. I've read from other reviewers that this seems to be the trend, and some found that it improved enough to be an enjoyable read, but right now I'm just not curious enough about the characters or story to enjoy it!

A really intriguing novel from Hinks. I've read quite a few of the author's other novels (for Black Library), and enjoyed them all. I particularly like the way he writes and develops his characters and the worlds in which they operate. The story moves along nicely, is well-plotted and executed. If you're looking for something a bit different, then I'd definitely recommend THE INGENIOUS.

This book tells the story of a bunch of exiles who live in a city set adrift in time and space and how they rebel against the elites who rules them. The concept was amazing and the world building was really interesting but unfortunately the characters were really bland. There was not much of a backstory and I found myself not caring what happened to them. The whole tone of the book was dark, dreary and frightening. I wish there was some lighter moments interspersed to balance it out a little. I tried hard to finish it but the slow pace and the lack of any significant developments in the first half made me dnf the book at the 50% mark.

I was NOT expecting the book to end like that ! And I absolutely loved it !! This book dealt with a lot of difficult topics, and even though I think the rendering could have been different, I absolutely loved how the storyline progressed! I was a little confused when I started reading because there was no introduction or context, but it built itself very quickly and I enjoyed my time with this book ! I am just a little sad that I didn't get to read more about Brast 😪

Detailed review coming soon !

I'm going to complain about fundamental writing issues in fantasy here that I often see in Angry Robot's books and this one exemplifies:

1. Understanding character motivations is critical for caring about your characters. Particularly if you are going to murder them or have them suffer hardship. If I don't know who this character is, why do I care what happens to them?

2. There is a fine line between throwing you in the middle to avoid wordy backstory dialogue and not properly developing your world and character relationships. This book badly needed context for almost everything. Who are these people and what do they do? How did they wind up in this place? What is this place and how does it differ from their homeland (which is where exactly...)?

3. If you do not define your magic system at all, it becomes a magical unicorn that can solve all your problems randomly. So we've got characters in situations I don't care about being solved by solutions that just appear.

This book took me a while to read I started it's a bit of go and then stopped reading its and then came back to the book. I found its hard to get into there were quite slow bits of the book I don't think I would anything else in this world.

The city of Athanor was cut loose thousands of years ago from the rest of the planet’s countries, always to relocate every few years or so, by a group of alchemists called “Curious Men” who rule over the disparate peoples in the city. Since it’s moved constantly, it’s picked up bits and pieces of other cities as well as citizens (and species) of those areas, and it’s become a sprawling and unmappable metropolis, and anyone who becomes a citizen stays one forever, never able to go home. Many areas are filled with gangs who supply the people with the drug of choice, cinnabar. Isten and her group of Exiles dream of returning to their homeland, but most days they are just struggling to survive. Isten particularly is a slave to her addictions, making those who depend on her begin to lose hope that they’ll ever break free from their violent life of crime and survival.

When a Curious Man called Alzen encounters Isten and proposes a way for her to quickly take control of her seedy part of the city, aided by his alchemy, it seems a miraculous solution to many of her problems, even though she suspects there must be some dangerous ramifications. But she goes along with the plan and ends up experiencing power she’s never imagined and that’s just as addicting as any drug. What happens, further destruction and enslavement of the people of Athanor, or perhaps even a fairer future unchained from the will of a few powerful alchemists, depends on her finding the better parts of herself, buried deep below all the ugliness she’s had to endure.

The Ingenious’ premise piqued my interest, and its description on NetGalley made it sound particularly fascinating. Though it did have interesting magical elements, it was mostly just dark and violent, with a powerful alchemist thirsting for more power and doing whatever inhumane things he had to do in service of a twisted higher purpose and plenty of lowlife gangs fighting for dominance of neighborhoods no one should ever have to live in. I was relieved when it was over.

I really enjoyed this book! The world building was very good and the magic system was very interesting!

Will definitely be checking out some of the authors other books

Good god, what a book! The worldbuilding (actual building of worlds in this book!) took my breath away! And let me tell you, our kind author here pulls no punches! You think your book is throwing your readers in the deep end? Darius Hinks says "Hold my drink," takes you out to the Marianas Trench, hands you an anchor, and pushes you overboard.

And it's just an absolute delight.

Yes, it's a little hard to parse through at the beginning, but you know who else is? Ursula K. Le Guin. And she's a household name at this point because of the intricate nature of her worlds and storytelling. And let me tell you, this book can match her easily.

I absolutely adored this book, and can't wait to see more from this author!

A wild, imaginative original fantasy story from Darius Hinks, The Ingenious is a tale of political exiles surviving in the slums of a grand, magic-imbued city and a reluctant figurehead struggling to come to terms with her fate. It’s a story about power – how it’s found and seized, and what it can do to someone – and control, about inequality and injustice, and about magic, drug abuse and gang warfare. It’s a book crammed full of bold ideas, and it’s the sort of story which requires the reader to jump in and trust that it’ll all make sense in the end.

The city of Athanor travels between realms by the power of the Curious Men and their alchymia, collecting new lives and adding them to its mind-boggling melting pot of characters, cultures, races and rivalries. One such group calls themselves the Exiles, having long ago fled to Athanor from their homeland to escape its political turmoil. They’re led (sort of) by Isten – when she’s not drunk, high or otherwise engaged in dubious recreational pursuits – as they scrape a living in Athanor’s shadier districts, all the while dreaming of somehow returning home one day. When Isten returns to the Exiles after having sunk to her lowest ebb yet, a chance encounter offers her the opportunity to at least lead the Exiles to a position of relative power within Athanor’s criminal underworld.

Athanor is the sort of setting that sprawls in the imagination, populated by a seemingly endless range of ne’er-do-wells and offering a wild variety of locations and challenges for the story. The plot echoes that, rambling from scene to scene as Hinks slowly teases out the narrative; the focus is on Isten and to a lesser extent Phrater Alzen – one of the Curious Men – but Athanor itself has a powerful presence, from squalid slums to glorious palaces. It’s a story which definitely rewards readers who are happy to sit back and watch as things gradually start to make sense, but there’s so much to enjoy in exploring the city that even if things are going a little slowly for you there should be enough to keep you entertained along the way.

If the plot is a little dense, it’s rich and rewarding once things click, and Isten proves to be a fascinating protagonist. There aren’t really any traditionally ‘good’ characters here, and Isten exemplifies that – in many respects, she’s weak and self-serving, willing to use and manipulate people to get what she needs, but she’s also painfully self-aware and capable of great things despite how far she falls. The plot takes full advantage of her tortured past and dubious nature, and while some of the arcs are perhaps not fully worked through (one strand featuring a tangible link to the Exiles’ past doesn’t really go anywhere), overall it comes together into a powerful and thoroughly entertaining whole.

The Ingenious tells the story of Isten and her gang of exiles whose goal is to return to their homeland to resume with a revolution. This gang of exiles are among a city of other exiles cut off by time and space in the city of Athanor which is ruled by the ‘Curious Men’. Unfortunately for them, Isten spends most of her time drunk and drugged up with no desire to guide or lead them until an offer comes here way she cannot refuse.
The Ingenious is an enjoyable fantasy and I would recommend it highly however for me I felt there was more of a story to tell. Some more interesting characters where never fully fleshed out and some parts feel rushed to the point I was wanting more from the book.
Apart from this it has some fantastical ideas mixed with flawed characters, unique creatures and strange cultures which all fantasy fans should enjoy.

This was wildly unusual. And I like that!

The city of Athanor is a lot like what Australia had been - a place to send criminals. And while the criminals sent to Athanor were typically political exiles that criminal element has taken the city and turned it into one of the seediest, most violent communities. Gang warfare abounds as exiles have little choice but to pick a 'side' and fight for their own survival.

Most would leave Athanor if they could, but the city is unique as a prison.... Once, alchemists, known as The Curious Men, set the city adrift in both space and time. Now it drifts in a nether-where, adding cultures with new citizens and turning the city into a vast maze of reprobates.

Isten stands alongside her gang, all of them starved and fighting for scraps, and dreaming of a way out of Athanor. It is only when she hits rock bottom that she realizes that no one is going to come to her rescue and that if there is any chance to change the criminal culture of Athanor, she might be the one who has to make the change!

This is world-building at its finest. Author Darius Hinks has managed to do something that few sci-fi authors seem capable of these days - create something new and fabulous. I knew early on that I was entering some uncharted territory and I felt a little as though I was entering Wonderland ... a dark, frightening Wonderland.

This penal colony - again, so very much like the origins of Australia as we know it - itself is a character in the book when we begin; there is history and future and conflict and danger.

Isten is every hero/heroine of fantasy literature. She has choices to make and she holds the key to change - the conflict that makes drama necessary. Her heart and determination are key to making this book work and under the pen of Hinks, it works very well.

I very much look forward to journeying here again (though it wraps so nicely I don't know if that will happen)!

Looking for a good book? Darius Hinks' novel <em>The Ingenious</em> is precisely what the title says it to be and for those who enjoy a strong, dark, slightly twisted fantasy with magic and wonder, this is a book to read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

The Ingenious is an interesting fantasy set in a world with a ‘floating’ city. If that sounds whimsical, the book is not. It is dark and gritty, and it failed to capture me.

At the start of the book we meet Isten who swalks over to her previous exile gang to rejoin. I was already lost at this point. For a good part of the book I felt like I was missing something. As if I should have read another story first. We just get thrown in with Isten and are expected to take all her relationships at face value. The same happens with the world. We get fed a lot of details about the city but never does the author truly sketch the overall view of the city or even the world. We actually get more information from the synopsis than from the book. Adding on to that, is the believability of the alchemy. It is said it takes a lot of preparation to do alchemy. But never are we present for any of that. It is conveniently glossed over.

The details we do get of the city are interesting. It is run by the alchemist, one of them who rules over the others and was chosen by vote. The city mostly consists of immigrants from worlds down below that the city has visited. The city almost seems like an usurper. It takes but seems to give very little in return. At such they have battles with the ground on occasion. The city has formed various gangs, Isten’s Exile being one of them
.
Isten is a troubled character that I could never truly warm up to. She goes through the motions. Drinks, takes drugs, argues with everyone, fights, kills. I couldn’t get a grip on her. What does she want? Who is Isten? The characters surrounding her aren’t much better. As said before I am missing pieces here. The exile apparently are fugitives from their home world but now they can’t return. One of the younger ones is their prophet of sorts and Isten is their chosen one? There is not enough explanation and the bonds between the characters aren’t explored enough with a basis in the past. You can’t expect me to believe they are all so bonded about where they are coming from when there such a distinct lack of culture and differences between them and the other gangs and inhabitants of the city.

In the end I settled on 3 stars because the writing itself is fine, there are a lot interesting things in this world that I think will grasp others. But I don’t think I’d be interested in reading anything else in this world or these characters.

Isten and her gang have been exiled to the city of Athanor, a city set adrift in space and time by the alchemists who control it. Known as Curious Men, the alchemists reign through fear, violence and control, leaving the city's inhabitants half starving and struggling to survive.  Isten and her gang dream of revolution, but first Isten must battle her own demons.

This book intrigued me.  I chose it from NetGalley based on the cover and the description. I expected it to be a little different to some of my normal reads but the idea of alchemy and the Curious Men caught my interest. 
As I started reading I found the book a little difficult to get into, a feeling which never really abated.  I found that I never really knew what was going on, or why.  The premise of the book definitely worked, but for me there needed to be more of an explanation of how Athanor worked, why the Exiles were exiles, and also about the Curious Men and their alchemy.  I never really felt like I had a good understanding of the city or the characters, and so I didn't oreally get into the book properly.
As a protagonist I found Isten very difficult to like.  All through the book she seemed to have very few redeeming features.  She was deemed a leader from the start but we had no understanding as to why, and that made it difficult to believe that the Exiles would follow her.  I also felt she came across as a very young or immature character, which didn't fit with what she was being asked to do.
The ending of the book was conclusive, I felt like Hinks tied up all of the loose ends and it felt satisfactory. I wasn't left wondering what happened to certain characters.
All that said I still enjoyed the read. If anything the main drawback for me was that things moved too quickly and I didn't get to feel the world properly.  I would've loved this to be a 3 book series, one book about the fight with the Aroc brothers, one about Isten and Alzen, and one about the uprising and revolution.  I feel like that would have given more depth to the world, and could have explored the characters in more detail.

Overall I'm giving 3*.  Despite it sounding like a negative review I didn't dislike the book.  I liked Hinks' writing style and I loved the idea and the plotline.  For me I just felt this could have been more.
Thanks to NetGalley and Angry Robot for an arc in exchange for an honest review

The Ingenious is a fantasy novel that throws you into a fascinating, intensely original world, filled with creatures, magic, and intrigue around every corner. Hyper-realism is used to perfection, showing us the gritty underbelly of a world that defies logic. I love the writing style with its focus on dramatic and grotesque descriptions. This is a novel that lives up to every expectation of a fantasy novel, and moves beyond with its brilliant use of setting and magic that feels both mystical and evil in turn. Prepare to be swept away to a city that’s as much alive as the group of bandits who roam its streets, plotting their revenge on enemies hiding in the shadows.

UPDATE ON JANUARY 19!!

I have only just realized that I pasted the wrong review here. My apologies.

This book was, in a sense, hard to get into. Hinks teases the story out slowly in the beginning and it was difficult for me to be invested in the characters at first. Once things get rolling, however, this becomes an un-put-downable read. I love heist stories, and this did not disappoint at all.

Isten tar sig samman för att försöka återförenas med det gäng hon plötsligt lämnade för att gå in i ett år av tungt drogmissbruk. Hon och det gäng hon tidigare var ledare för lever på småbrott och befinner sig nu längst ner på stegen bland staden Athanors kriminella gäng. Isten och de övriga i gänget är politiska flyktingar från ett fjärran land. Deras mål har alltid varit att ta sig tillbaka till sitt hemland och göra revolution, men då Athanor glider runt i tid och rum så är det i det närmaste omöjligt att hitta hem. Trots ett fortsatt drogberoende så återtar Isten ledarskapet och försöker får gänget att stiga i graderna och åtminstone inte längre svälta. Det betyder att de ska ta sig an stadens mäktigaste gäng. I sitt mer eller mindre ständiga drogrus så gör Isten val som kanske inte är de allra bästa. Till slut har hon inget val annat än att ingå ett partnerskap med en av stadens mäktiga ”Curious Men”, alkemister och magiker som ser sig själva som i det närmaste gudar. Något som sällan slutar väl.

”The Ingenious” hade tjänat ordentligt på en rejält tilltagen redigering. Nu händer det nästan ingenting under bokens första halva. Det är egentligen 200 sidor av huvudpersonen Isten som misslyckas med saker och flyter runt i ett drogrus. Visst behövs det sättas upp att hon är en missbrukare som vid ett par tillfällen står inför valet att bli ren och bli en bättre människa eller att åter dyka ner bland drogerna. Och drogerna vinner varje gång. Det här gör att bokens första halva är rätt tråkig. Hinks försöker använda tiden till att bygga världen runt Istens drogdimmor, men det är först när handlingen tar fart på riktigt som även världsbygget går igång. Jag förstår att poängen är att lyfta bra Istens brister och göra henne till en djupare karaktär, men det behövs verkligen inte 200 sidor för att göra det.

När boken väl tar fart är det en bra, spännande historia med ett väldigt högt tempo. Världsbygget binds också väldigt snyggt in i berättandet och man slipper stora infodumps. Det är synd att den här delen inte smittat av sig på den första halvan. Där finns action, men dessa scener hoppas snabbt förbi för att återgå till att fokusera på hur Isten är emo och drogpåverkad. I den andra halvan så är Isten till stor del likadan som tidigare, men berättandet tillåts fokusera på historien och kan måla upp längre strider. Här byggs dessutom världen upp till något mycket intressant och faktiskt rätt så eget.

Boken hade inte dött av att kortas ner ordentligt och låta den bättre halvan ta upp det mesta av utrymmet.
Isten får givetvis ta upp mest utrymme. Några biroller får lite kött på benen, som The Curious Man”, som man blir mer och mer osäker på var har ju mer bakgrund man får. Gängets medlemmar är mycket svagt beskrivna, vilket gör att man kanske inte bryr sig avsevärt mycket när de råkar ut för något.

En riktigt bra andra halva kan inte riktigt väga upp för en tråkig första halva. Staden och världen är väldigt intressant, men de förtjänar en tightare historia. Den förtjänar inte mer än en riktigt svag 3:a.

The Ingenious is an amazing original story. It's unlike anything I've ever read. Thrilling and mysterious. It's also bleak and frightening. Sort of an up and down feel about it. Likeable characters. A good fun read.

This is such a bizarre and strange read, but I loved it! Honestly, I zoomed through this book and that cover is just as beautiful as the content inside.

The characters, the dialogue and the amazing descriptions really made it fun and easy to follow through.

I'm considering adding "secondary world fantasy cities" to my list of "favourite genres that aren't really genres". Cities that go beyond just being a spot on the map surrounding whatever medieval-ish castle the kingdom's monarchs live in; cities with their own magic, with recognisable neighbourhoods, with immigration patterns and multifaceted politics and secrets known only to kids who pay attention (but don't spend enough time in school). From Bulikov to Sharakhai to Janloon, there's a ton of great epic fantasy whose urban settings are just as much characters as the people within them.

With that in mind, it's easy to see why the blurb of the Ingenious, a book about Exiles trapped in the city of Athanor. Unfortunately for them, Athanor operates on inequality and deeply creepy magic, and leaving is a far from certain proposition. Rather than staying in one place, it moves through space and time using that magic, apparently leaving a path of wholesale slaughter and destruction everywhere it goes. Brought into the city years ago, Isten and her group are Exiles from a land called Rukon, where they were on the verge of revolution against their emperor. Now, they're unable to leave the city let alone return to the land which rejected them. Isten herself has been raised up to be a saviour for her people, and is still looked to as a leader by the rest of the Exiles despite being an addict, a criminal and a general mess of a human.

Enter Alzen, an elite mage (or "Curious Man") who, even by the deeply creepy standards of the city, really pushes creepy to a new, murderous, self-serving level. Alzen realises that Isten can be manipulated to his own ends, which involve introducing widespread drug addiction into the city and then pulling people's souls out through a weird skin monster, all in pursuit of power. Although his partnership with Isten is initially reluctant, he quickly discovers that despite being a commoner and an outsider, Isten may have power of her own that complements his ambitions. In return, Alzen offers Isten a chance to refocus her people's efforts around improving their position within the city - where they are outsiders surviving on the criminal margins - albeit at the cost of her long-term plans for escape.

I see from Hinks' bibliography that his previous published fiction has been in the Warhammer universe; although my experience with that franchise is limited, I think I know enough to see the influences here. It's echoed in some of the plot beats, and in the grimdark elements of the setting, especially the ageless, quasi-religious aspects of the city's leadership. That said, the Ingenious definitely feels first and foremost like its own thing, though the worldbuilding is probably best described as serviceable: it gives Athanor depth and history, and the set-up of the Curious Men and the city's wandering nature adds a decent amount of novelty, but there's nothing that really leaps out upon reading. In theory, Athanor is full of various unique fantasy races, but these only turn up in passing, which feels like a missed opportunity. Instead, we get a laser focus on the two specific groups the novel comes into contact with - the exiles and the Curious Men - and while both do interact with (and sometimes murder) people from other groups in the city, the trials of the rest of this enormous city aren't explored outside a general "inequality is bad, overthrow tyrants" message that winds up being interchangeable for both Rukon and Athanor.

Likewise the personalities of the exiles, and their own troubles in the city - there's machinations around gang warfare, but none of the characters on either side were particularly memorable, and Isten spends so much time focused on running errands for Alzen that the elements with her family fade into the background at times. It doesn't help that it's hard, as a reader, to believe that Isten really wants to retrench as a drug lord: it's a trope that's so often used to distinguish "actually bad" criminals from "noble" ones, so it's a tall order to slot a sympathetic character in that role, and despite her many shortcomings Isten remains sympathetic throughout. The issue here is not so much the predictability of Isten's change of heart - the narrative wouldn't be at all satisfying without it - but my struggle to suspend my disbelief in what the character thinks she wants. It's a small niggle, but it was enough to underscore my indifference in these plot elements, which becomes a problem when we pivot back to the fate of the Exiles, and Isten's integrity as a leader, in the final act.

What the Ingenious does do well is managing its action and tension, particularly the relationship between Isten and Alzen, helped by the fact that the latter literally sits in the former's head for their missions together. Isten's growing understanding of how the city works outside her limited outsider perspective, coupled with the taste of power her deal with Alzen brings, makes for a solid character arc that kept me rooting for her even through the messiness and flirtations with drug-pushing supremacy. The action sequences are all well done - a highlight is the segment in which Isten disguises herself and sneaks onto a boat leaving the city, all while being mentally directed by Alzen and trying to avoid suspicion despite the fact that neither of them are very good at the subterfuge.

All in all, this is a solidly crafted read which could easily fill a spare evening; fans of dark but not entirely amoral fiction, of well-built fantasy cities, and of the kind of elite vs. underdog political machinations found in books like Bradley P. Beaulieu's Song of Shattered Sands, should find elements here that appeal. While I missed the opportunity to have really dug down into the genuinely diverse fantasy city that's glimpsed in the background of this narrative, when it comes to the action and plotting I think The Ingenious does what it sets out to do, and that's more than good enough.