Review by Booklist Review
Before the Names Committee, there was the Silence, and before that there were words for everything. Now the Names Committee divines words and sends couriers to deliver them. A nameless courier delivers echo, stowaway, brass--and returns home to the Number Twelve, the committee's train. The courier's oldest friend, a patchwork ghost, sketches everything; one day, he sketches the legendary first Namers, Hand and Moon. Perhaps he saw a performance of the Black Square Show; perhaps it is something else. The head of the deletion committee visits and tasks the courier with delivering a terrifying new word. Accompanied by the patchwork ghost, a stowaway creature who roams through shadows, and a monster, she joins the Black Square Show. In the course of traveling on their brightly painted train, she finds things that have been forgotten or deliberately obfuscated and new ways to tell the oldest stories. The nameless courier's journey is in some ways a familiar one of discovery and growth, but the world she walks through is a shifting and compelling place where the power of words is not to be underestimated.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Berry (The Manual of Detection) probes how it feels to be voiceless in this ambitious fantasy. In a world where the names of people, places, and things have been forgotten, it is the Name Committee's goal to remember. Working for them is an unnamed courier, who's responsible for delivering names to the things they identify. But the job isn't without its dangers: a proudly nameless group attacks the named, and Frost, chair of the Deletion Committee, wants them punished and their existence erased. Since the courier herself is nameless, she's suspected of working with the perpetrators. When she later finds her boss, Book, dead, the courier is blamed for his killing. Afraid of Frost's wrath, she flees, setting out on a quest to find her missing sister, Ticket, and together reconstruct their world. Berry's universe and its linguistics-based magic system feel wholly original, and the mystery of the disappearing words will suck readers in. The threat from the nameless dissidents adds to the tension and propels the story forward, even as Berry takes his time unraveling the plot. Fantasy readers looking for a fresh and exciting new world to explore will be thrilled. (Sept.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Language is rediscovered--and strictly controlled--in Berry's post-apocalyptic fantasy. They call it the Silence--the massive event that wiped out all language from the world. In the aftermath, the dead walked aimlessly as ghosts and monsters came to life from nightmares. Eventually, humans rediscovered the means to "divine" new words and slowly rebuilt civilization. In this strange landscape, where words are precious and the people who produce new ones also create law and order, anything unnamed is extremely dangerous. The civilized, named people put their trust in the committees of maps, ghosts, dreams, and names, to protect them from the horrors of the wild unknown world. That's why it's so hard for the courier, who works for the names committee delivering new names to the world, to feel at home anywhere: She doesn't have a name. Even her sister has abandoned her, refusing to respond to her letters. For some reason, the courier's father never gave her a name, even though it set her up to be feared, especially when the savage unnamed people started mounting violent attacks against the named. When her boss with the names committee is killed, the courier flees, setting out to find the truth behind the attacks and about her past. The importance of language and communication is a naturally compelling theme for a book, and Berry aptly describes the intangible magic of the courier delivering a new word where none existed before. Sometimes the dreamy tone makes worldbuilding a little muddy. But though she doesn't have a name, the courier is a lively, effective protagonist who finds more lovable misfits along her journey. An unusual fantasy about reshaping the world with words. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
