Gleam - Tom Fletcher

In this Gormenghastian world the Factory is the law – but that does not mean justice.

The Gargantuan factory of Gleam has seen a millennia of decreasing population. Now the central district is fully inhabited and operational; the outskirts have been left for the wilderness to reclaim. This decaying, lawless zone is the Discard; the home of Wild Alan. He’s convinced that the Gleam authorities were behind the disaster that killed his parents and his ambition is to prove it. But he’ll uncover more secrets than he bargained for.

My thoughts:

How to even explain this world. They themselves do not even know what kind of world they live in.

It's a world where there in the middle there is a big black pyramid. People live there. They eat, sleep, work. But their lives are better. They do not know what they do for a living, they just work, but it's still better. Outside is the Discards, broken buildings, broken people, weird beings and swamps. Life there is not good. They hate, or do not care about the Pyramidders. And they do not know what exactly they live in. Why does it look like this? What is this?

In this world we have wild Alan who left the Pyramid and lives in the Discard. He is not a nice man. He cares about himself and the family he left behind. In the mean time he sleeps with everyone he can find and drinks and misses his old life. Life is not white or black. It's grey, and he will do anything to be with them again. Anything.

The story is about him trying to make a living and then about a certain quest he undertakes. I liked that part, we got to see more of the Discard and meet someone with questions or was it answers. There is more to come, so we will learn more eventually.

Conclusion:

A freaky weird world. I would not want to live there, but it was interesting to read about. And what to even classify it as? Is this our world gone to hell in the future?

Cover

Cool

Hardcover, 400 pages
Published September 4th 2014 by Jo Fletcher Books
The Factory Trilogy #1
Fantasy
For review