Perhaps more than others, the fantasy genre lends itself to well-worn clichés.

Intriguingly, Hardinge also occasionally lets the reader see things from the perspective of the tyrannical Grand Steward himself, making him less remote but more terrifying, as he possesses the proud, aloof indifference of an immortal. The existence of Faces means any character’s apparent emotions and motivations are opaque at all times – except Neverfell, into whose thoughts and feelings Hardinge allows the reader to peer. A world of: Cartographers whose convoluted speech – worthy of a James Joyce-style stream of consciousness – is considered too dangerous to listen to for longer than five minutes of True Wines which can obliterate and resurrect particular memories of True Cheeses of ‘Stackfalter Sturtons’ and an enigmatic ‘Kleptomancer’.Īn effective technique is the use of narrative voices. One of the most joyous aspects of A Face Like Glass is that, from a brilliant premise, Hardinge goes on to weave a richly textured world in which that premise fits naturally, and the reader is able to suspend their disbelief. It soon emerges that this is a world where characters are incapable of spontaneously producing faces as babies, and must be painstakingly taught a series of ‘Faces’ (the number and breadth determined by one’s social class) by ‘Facesmiths.’ Neverfell, however, is unable to lie, because her face always shows exactly what she is feeling – she has “a face like glass”. Entrapment is a recurring motif (light is provided in this subterranean world by ‘flytraps’, predatory plants which depend on human breath to emit luminescence), and the novel’s inciting incident occurs when Neverfell discovers a gap in Grandible’s tunnels while pursuing a rabbit (in a possible sideways nod to Lewis Carroll), and escapes into Caverna.

A face like glass