Suited by Jo Anderton

Suited by Jo Anderton is the sequel to Debris which I read and reviewed earlier this year. I received an advanced review from the publisher, Angry Robot, but my sources tell me it should be available in ebook and paperback from today.

Suited was a surprising read. The first part was as expected a more or less direct continuation from Debris. After the somewhat disastrous events at the end of Debris, life in the city of Movoc-under-Keeper goes on. Mostly. Tanyana returns to debris collecting with her team and the other citizens of the city go about their usual jobs, albeit with a lot more repair work.

However, the world is not going back to how it was. Pion binders trying to repair damage are finding that they can’t, or that their repairs are short-lived. The debris collectors just can’t find much debris anywhere, even though the damaged pions suggest it should be everywhere. And the sinister puppet men still seem to be everywhere when Tanyana looks closely. In short, doom is looming.

In Debris, Tayana spent a lot more time worrying about her own life than she did in Suited (and Suited is much more about fixing/saving the world than Debris was). It made her a more likeable character, although there were parts where I don’t think she was supposed to be sympathetic, shifting more towards scary.

The romantic plotline, while no more prominent than in the first book, is handled better, I thought. I didn’t quite find the genesis of the relationship in Debris believable, but that was definitely not the case in Suited. I also like how Tanyana spent more time worrying about saving the world and less time worrying about her relationship issues (some of her friends spent more time worrying about her relationship issues than she did).

The ending was strange. The climax went as one would expect but the denouement did not. Of course going into detail would be spoilerific, but suffice to say there’s definitely room for a sequel series.

This is not a book to read without having first read Debris. I don’t think it would make all that much since since a lot of the foundation world building is done in the first book (as you would expect) and is critical to the plot. That said, this is an excellent series and I highly recommend both books to lovers of fantasy*.

4.5 / 5 stars

* As far as I’m concerned, it’s fantasy. Others’ opinions may vary by my feeling is that just because the magic is structured, doesn’t make it science. Also? Throwing in a few modern words also doesn’t make something science fiction when it’s full of magic, even if it has a vaguely steampunkish setting. Just throwing my hat in because some people have called this series SF. That said, I reserve the right to classify any potential sequels differently upon reading them.