In the middle of a desert there's a city with a sense of the sea: there's a smell of the ocean and the city is full of sea gulls. Every twenty years a ritual of the iron fish must be performed to keep the city alive. The city is crumbling down and keeping up the necessary rituals when people just don't care is not that simple.

The city is an odd place, and the citizens aren't quite usual either, living in the middle of nowhere. The protagonist of the book is Tom, a history student with a passion for art like many of his fellow citizens. He ends up as a part of a love triangle, explores the limits of the worlds and just keeps on living, despite the odd things going on in the city.

City of the Iron Fish is an odd book. It doesn't seem to be very popular, which is a shame. Fans of new weird and curious cities would do themselves a favour by finding a copy. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)

(Original review at my review blog) ( )