Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I thought this deserved full marks for originality, being very unusual, and having more twists than any book I have read before! And I have read a lot.
A wonderful mis-mash of genres, with elements plucked from so many different origins, I guess this is what you get when you mix Greek myths with science fiction. In a very good way!
I did keep wondering whether there had been a previous book that I hadn't read, but by the end did find most 'before bits' had been revealed. It certainly was a book I will not forget for quite some while!

The premise of the plot grabbed my attention straight away but the execution of it didn't succeed overly well. In parts the plot was confusing and all over the place

Simply not for me. Way too convoluted, not enough strong world building. I thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this, and I wish I could give it a better review, but the author lost me.

Fascinating take on mystery noir set in a sci-fi world based on string theory. There is not much world building before you're thrown into the mystery which is unclear at first but the novel amps up and takes you along anyway.

It was not as I expected, the addition of Greek gods turned me off to be frank. 20% in and I am still not sure I understand the world's mechanics.

Strings wrapped around strings in an alluring web, woven from intriguing plotlines and engaging characters, interspersed with various world mythologies, a hint of darkness and a thread of humour.

The plot follows a private investigator, plying his trade in String City. He follows a well-worn path of fictional PIs - a dark and troubled past, the loner, dames, a lack of tidiness, etc., but the added element of fantasy and the blending of various legends from around the world allow this PI to traverse a lesser travelled path. The book sees him dealing with several cases along the way and introduces us, and him, to two new assistants as well as other supporting characters, the most striking to me being the zombie angel he works with when needed. String City itself is also a dramatic and changing character throughout the novel, giving succour and friendship to our protagonist which, in turn, he is required to return.

As you can tell, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It felt very different from other things I have read, while at the same time, feeling familiar. My only criticism of myself with regards to this book, is that the author cleverly weaves together the strings of several storylines and character backgrounds, which my shockingly poor memory had to work to keep up with and this meant that it took me longer than normal to read this book. However, I also took longer to read it just to allow me to purely relish and enjoy the detail and depth in this - it is, as I have already said, a beautifully woven, multi layered book which I will endeavour to re-read as I am sure that this story will me to pick out new threads on each and every read.

3.75 rounded up to 4*

I received an ARC copy of this book via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This novel was both exactly what I expected and also quite surprising. It follows the turbulent ups and downs of our protagonist, a stringwalker private detective working String City, as his city faces the apocalypse. From the first page the style evokes the spare narrative style of Hammett's Maltese Falcon or Cain's Double Indemnity. The worldbuilding is...well...weird but also seems totally normal because it's so fundamental to the universe that it exists within.

we've got Titans, we've got Thanes, we've got sentient sewer sludge, undead angels, kingfishers, spiders, sort of vampires, alternate realities, weather gods, and hungry ghosts. this world is jam packed full of just about every weird myth or folk type character you could wish for, all of it co-existing alongside one another.

Told in 7 parts, the structure of the novel is particularly interesting because the chapters are excessively short. This both works for and against the book. For the first 70-100 pgs i really struggled to get into it simply because of these short chapters. A chapter break is a signal to the reader that they can rest here, and theres a natural tendency to end my reading session at the end of the chapter. this becomes a problem when chapters are only 2-4 pgs. I found myself unconsciously setting the book down almost as soon as i started reading it. I also found that the plot really began to pick up in Part 2 with the addition of several side characters who helped buoy up the protagonist's narrative. Once i hit this part of the story, i flew through the last 300 or so pages.

unsettling and interesting, and i think the readers it clicks with in just the right way will enjoy it immensely. I think this book will shine for that specific cross section of noir fans who also love weird SFF/speculative fiction.

I just finished the ARC, and I'm still not quite sure what I think of it. I wavered between three and four stars, but I figure it just tips itself over to the four. I enjoyed it, but I hesitate to classify it. I would say it's a cross between a hard-boiled detective story, a treatise on quantum mechanics, and an exploration of the myths of legend. Um, er, or something like that.

It follows a gumshoe who is never named as he tries to solve some of the weirdest cases you can think of. It's told in a series of vignettes, one for each separate case, that all start to tie into each other. Each vignette is told in a bite-sized chapter, which makes for easily stolen moments reading in between real life; it's easy to come to a logical stopping point if the world insists you do that.

Each story moves at a nice quick pace, getting to the meat of the matter without faffing about, but there's still room for some character development, at least of our main characters.

I think it's well worth a read, and you'll come out of it really wanting the protagonist's coat.

Very Different. The String in the title is a big part of the story. I enjoyed how people moved and how the city changed. The world building is over the top and overpowers the story. Not my favorite but interesting.

utterly enjoyable mind-blowing action - among Titans and catastrophes - a private detective manages to leap space and time , folding up and threading his way through a string universe in pursuit of a major event that even the Titans want to sweep under the radar ... contacts with wierded out skills (although none of them really think so, since it is their world), the ethos of the place is full of discomfort with hierarchy and rejection of tough guy dominance .. the light tone of the PI is appealing and fits it into that great LA noir of Chandler and others of that ilk - really entertaining, and inventive - and there's a mystery to be solved too - a crime! ! I hope Edwards will carry on with this series ...

String City is unlike any book I have ever read. If you’re a fan of China Mieville and like a strong dose of weird to your books, pick this one up.
String City, home to a rough and downtrodden gumshoe detective, is the center of a complicated knot of cosmic strings. Here, dimensions fold together allowing for stringwalking, the crossing of dimensions by using the cosmic strings as a type of roadway. Add in some mythological creatures, gods, demigods, and a world falling apart and you’ll have the most basic understanding of one of the most complicated worlds I have ever read about.
String City follows an unnamed detective and his series of sidekicks as they solve dangerous cases involving gods, Greek Titans, and other mysterious and powerful creatures. Witty dialogue and the incredibly complicated world building provide an entertaining read that is full of twists and turns.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF STRING. WHEN THE KNOTS TIGHTEN, THE COSMOS QUAKES.

It’s a tough job being a gumshoe in an interdimensional city full of gods, living concepts and weirder things. Good thing I’m a stringwalker, able to jump between realities.

It started when I was hired to investigate an explosion at a casino. A simple heist, I thought, but it turned into a race to stop the apocalypse. So I rolled the dice, and now I’m up against the ancient Greek Titans, an interdimensional spider god and a mysterious creature known as the Fool. I’m going to need more than just luck to solve this one.

If I fail, all things—in all realities—could be destroyed.

Just another day in String City.

This week, it’s time for some crime, but with a distinctly different flavour than any other crime novel I’ve ever reviewed before. The threads of reality that hold the fabric of existence together all meet in String City. All manner of beings, weird and wonderful, devilish and divine, inhabit the city streets. When things go wrong, and a degree of subtlety is required, then a certain individual is called upon to ensure the wheels of all the multiverses continue to turn smoothly.

How does a down-at-heel shamus navigate through the cacophony of chaos that is String City? Well, a reliable coffee machine, a multi-dimensional filing cabinet and a Swiss Army coat* certainly help. Of course, when you are dealing with the entirety of existence then you are also going to need friends. The good news is that “The Gumshoe” (he is never explicitly named) is not alone. Over the course of his adventures, he manages to pick up some new associates; a young woman called Zephyr, with the obligatory mysterious past, and an artificial intelligence nicknamed Bronzey who has decided there must be more to life than office work. This mismatched surrogate family try to solve the cases that cross their desk, but each new clue seems to point even bigger mysteries including the threat of a forthcoming apocalypse.

There is a nice episodic air to String City. We get to follow The Gumshoe as he uncovers the culprit behind The Tartarus Heist. Who would be stupid enough to steal from a Titan? I mean they are huge, and I suspect their vengeance would probably be, at the very least, pretty damned wrathful). Elsewhere, simple cases of marital infidelity manage to be far more complex than they initially appear. Each new case reveals a little bit more about what is going on whilst still managing to also succeed as a standalone. My favourite parts of the narrative occur in a case called Windy City. Our erstwhile hero gets involved in a local labour dispute with the gods of weather that spirals out of all control. On a side note, I was pleased to discover that of course the tax inspectors in String City are giant insects. I mean c’mon, why wouldn’t they be?

Where I think String City really excels is in the use of language. There are a whole host of marvellously judged throw away lines. Edwards lets rip with a plethora of old school crime busting lingo. We are firmly in the realms of detective noir and there is an expectation that a private eye is going to talk a certain way. The writing embraces this idea wholeheartedly. The voice of the main protagonist is suitably crumpled and ground down by life. I think I was imagining a cross between Columbo and Sam Spade. A little dishevelled, but given half a chance still an ace investigator.

“In String City, the sewer system has a mind of its own. Trouble is, it’s the mind of a serial killer.”

Detectives eh, always with a witty comeback, snarky comment or pithy remark.

Graham Edwards’ latest put me in mind of Simon R Green’s gleefully bonkers Nightside novels and The Office of Lost and Found by Vincent Holland-Keen. If you’ve read any of these then String City is going to feel like a treat. We’re transported to a vast metropolis where anything and everything are possible. Where else will you find ancient Greek heroes, with partial memory loss, captaining a boat on a mystical river? Golems rub shoulders with zombie angels and buildings have a tendency to explode unexpectedly. String City feels all encompassing, like a microcosm of the cosmos.

Blending together fantasy, quantum theory and well-established detective tropes creates an evocative adventure that often delights. I’ll be honest, a lot of the sciencey type stuff was a bit over my head but it sure sounded impressive. I’m a simple soul, much like The Gumshoe himself, but my woeful lack of understanding did not detract from the action one iota.

String City is published by Rebellion Publishing and is available now. If you’re looking for some smart hard-bitten detective noir with a cosmically mind-bending chocolatey centre, then you need look no further. Highly recommended.

My musical recommendation to accompany this oddly wonderful writing is the wonderfully odd album Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes by Liam Sauvé. I can’t even begin to describe what category this soundtrack falls into. All I can tell you is that it dovetails perfectly with the novel. Everything from jingly elevator music to tracks featuring ominous and sinister chords, I rather suspect this album may have originated direct from String City itself.

*It’s like a Swiss Army knife but with more pockets, a nice lining and a couple of sleeves.

String City is where the universe’s different strings come together. Oh, mythological creatures like Zeus, monsters like cyclops and golems, and all manner of strangeness live there too. A world full of infinite possibilities makes some strange bedfellows.

An unnamed private investigator is asked by the Titans to look into an explosion in their casino. He is a stringwalker, one who can move directly along the strings. However, the strings seem unsettled. Could it be the end times?

I wanted to love this as much as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, the explanation of string theory and how the world worked seemed overlong and overly complicated. However, if you are okay with extensive world building, you will like String City. The plot and character interactions are clever. 4 stars!

Thanks to Rebellion Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 40%.
Although I thought the premise of this book was interesting, it fell flat. The whimsical tone of the book was like Terry Pratchett, with the made-up words, the unexplained but seemingly normal insanity, and the somewhat scientific, somewhat magical nature of String City. Many parts of it were funny. But the randomness was slightly over the edge of "humorous" and into "annoying". The main character was well-done, but all of the supporting characters were very thinly developed.
The hardest thing was the pacing. The book rushed through every scene like an action movie, jumping hastily from one thing to the next without any pauses or slow moments. Everything felt frantic and rushed, unexplained, and disjointed.
I think the concept was unique and interesting, but poorly executed.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Raymond Chandler type Gumshoe story set in a city in a universe made of string. Our hero is fortunate enough to be able to walk the strings and pass between dimensions. Its a good enough plot and quite readable but the lack of any credibility about the physics of this world made me wonder if it had been written by a first year undergraduate in a haze of marijuana. If you're a Chandler/ Hammet fan with no scientific knowledge you'll probably love it.

I’ll be honest – it took me a while to warm to this one. Initially I wasn’t sure if the Raymond Chandleresque writing worked with all those descriptions of quantum physics, jostling up against the likes of titans, wind gods and robots. In addition, I wasn’t sure if I liked the main character much as he also took some getting used to. I wanted to kick him hard in the shins when he kept calling Zephyr ‘hon’ – even when she asked him not to. However, as we got to know him better, I decided that he was one of the good guys, after all.

While there is an overarching case that our nameless gumshoe is trying to unravel (literally, given the parlous state of the interdimensional strings that hold the city together) the book is made up of a series of mysteries he tries to crack. His assistants vary – sometimes he is alone, sometimes the robot is a sidekick and other times it’s the girl. This variation is a smart move as it stops the various adventures from feeling too similar.

However I can’t discuss this book without referring to the extraordinary worldbuilding – this is Edwards’ writing strength as he weaves a savage world where aspects of quantum physics prevail alongside the Einsteinian type we’re more used to. His flights of imagination are literally mind-boggling and while I initially felt uncomfortable at being tipped into such an odd place, Edwards’ confident depictions persuaded me to suspend my disbelief and relax into the weirdness.

It was very much worth the effort – I thoroughly enjoyed this oddball adventure and recommend it to anyone with a taste for adventure with an unusual twist. While I obtained an arc of String City from the publisher via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
8/10

The biggest thing I can say about this book is that the world-building is fascinating, intricate and detailed. There is so much going on, that it’s easy to get lost in it. Unfortunately, that’s also where this one fell short for me. The plot was great, interesting and I generally liked the characters, but there was so much going on. I kind of feel like I did a whirlwind tour of String City, and I’m still sitting here with culture shock.

One of the strengths of this book, is how it stays fairly true to what I would expect from a hard-boiled PI book, while adding in a whole lot of strange. Definitely makes for an interesting twist on a classic, and I definitely think I would read another book set in String City (I mean, I might be acclimatized?)

That’s about all I have to say about it, it just didn’t strike the right chord with me, it was a bit of a struggle to get through the entire book, though there wasn’t anything wrong with it per say, it was just one of those books that I really had to be in the right mood to read.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of the hard-boiled detective novel, but looking for a dose of strange!

String City is bursting at the seams with an originality that left me in awe of the author’s ability to fit so much into one novel. This is a well-crafted, fast-paced detective story, filled with science fiction and fantasy elements. It’s as though everything from the speculative genres converges in this singularly unique place. The author tackles complicated concepts with ease, diving into interdimensional travel as though it’s second nature. The experience is a wild ride, to be sure, and any descriptions I can provide of the epicness won’t do it justice. Check this one out if you want to marvel at an author’s ability to put imagination behind every word.

Full review at: https://reviewsandrobots.com/2019/03/04/string-city-book-review

“Talking to you is like peeling an onion. Every time I think I’m getting somewhere, it turns out to be just another layer.” Zephyr to the Gumshoe, ‘String City’.

Thank you to Rebellion Publishing/Solaris for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘String City’, an Inter-dimensional thriller by Graham Edwards.

This was a treat for someone like myself who has long enjoyed the ‘hard boiled’ private detective stories penned by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The narrator here is never named and referred to by everyone as ‘gumshoe’.

The setting is String City, an inter-dimensional city populated by gods, creatures of myth and legend, living concepts and all kinds of weird things. Insects and arachnids feature in the story and while I have a real aversion to cockroaches, I grew very fond of the tax beetle that turns up to audit the agency’s accounts at an inconvenient time.

The narrator is a stringwalker, able to use the cosmic strings to move between realities. He also has a unique coat and a crate that he inherited when he bought the business from Jimmy the Griff full of quirky gumshoe gadgets.

When an explosion rocks a casino he is hired by one of its Titan owners to investigate. Yet this apparently simple heist quickly leads to a race to stop the apocalypse.

‘String City’ is a novel with an Infinite Improbably Drive at its centre. Weird, surrealistic events and characters inhabit its pages. I enjoyed its strangeness even if at times while reading my brain felt turned inside out. I may well read again as I am certain that I missed plenty as it’s so packed with pop culture references and other fun stuff. The humour is very deadpan.

I found it a highly entertaining mashup with great world-building and certainly scope for further adventures.