Fiction Reviews
The Society of Unknowable Objects
(2025) Gareth Brown, Transworld, £16.99, 341pp, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-63726-9
One of the enduring motifs of fantasy fiction is the discovery and use of magic, something often all around us but only available to a select few. Taking this idea further, it’s a frequent thought experiment – what if you had magic powers? What would you do with such powers?
Gareth Brown’s second novel looks at this by imagining that there’s a secret society whose task is to collect and keep ‘unknowable objects’ – things with magic powers - and keep them safely locked away to stop their misuse.
Gareth begins the story with an Indiana Jones - type quest. There’s a search for a magic object involving a magic map and a mysterious man following it, or does he have it?
We then go forward to 2025, where the majority of the novel focuses around Magda, Imelda’s daughter. Told mainly from the third-person, it is focused around Magda Sparks, she is one of the four members of a secret society, The Society of Unknowable Objects, who are pledged to protect their archive of magical items hidden away, safe from the outside world - and keep the world safe from them. They meet twice a year, fairly informally in the basement of a bookshop in London. It is an inherited post, handed-down from their parents.
All of this may be familiar territory especially if you’re a regular reader of urban fantasy. There are elements here that will appeal to most readers – book shops, a quest, danger and intrigue. The first part of the book, although a crowd-pleaser with its talk of cosy bookshops and books, feels like a slight retread of Gareth’s previous novel, The Book of Doors. Clearly Gareth is starting with what he knows will work, creating a place the reader feels at home in - all it needs is a cat.
The strength of the book is especially the characters. Each person in the main group are easily identifiable and generally engaging, what you expect them to be. As well as Magda, we have Will Pinn, an introverted watchmaker. There’s Frank Simpson, the oldest member of the group, who has been a mentor and father-figure to Magda since she was very young and since the death of Magda’s mother, Imelda, a decade ago. The fourth member of the group, Henrietta, aka Henry, has been mysteriously missing for years.
When a new object, the first in years, is identified Frank sends the Society's newest member, author Magda Sparks, to investigate.
The book then enters James Bond territory as Magda goes to meet the holder of the object. To add tension there’s an assassin, Owen Maddox, who is also after the object and is determined to do anything to get it. Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong, Magda is facing death and danger and is forced to flee, using an artefact that not even the rest of the Society knows about.
The meeting has also led Magda realise that not all about the Society is as it seems, and that she must question all that she has previously thought to be true. It’s an awakening and a growing-up that has consequences for the rest of the novel.
There’s clearly a lot going on here, but Gareth manages to juggle all the elements in such a way to keep the pages turning. It starts with a bang and rarely slackens pace. Different characters are initially given their own chapters to fill in background details, and these range from the nice and wholesome to the dangerously unpleasant, to give some colour and variety. Whilst we never really stray into characters beyond the typical stereotype, what we have is done well. The good guys are likeable, the bad guys are not.
The book takes a major turn about halfway through, with a big reveal. Travelling around the world Magda discovers the Society’s great secret, its purpose and its legacy. This is also complicated by the fact that her family are also implicit in keeping this secret hidden. This latter part worked less well for me, and your enjoyment of it may affect your overall feelings about the book.
Suffice it to say that the ending is appropriately apocalyptic, with events that reminded me a little of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in terms of its feelings of angst and its denouement. It’s not the happy tale that the first few chapters lead you into believing will be the plot of the book, but is better for that, even when some of the ending’s consequences are explained away rather glibly.
Of course, as seems to be usual these days not everything is entirely wrapped up at the end, although the end is satisfactory. There’s clearly room for more books should the writer wish to write more.
Although we’re not that far away from the ideas of Gareth’s first novel, it must be said that what he uses, he uses well. I did enjoy his first book, and this is better.
Mark Yon
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