Fetch Phillips is in his early thirties, but he has lived more lives than most of us will in a lifetime.
He is by no means a traditional protagonist, but author Luke Arnold did a great job creating a character with many layers. Fetch has some admitted, significant character flaws but I found him easy to empathize with. He has a knack for making the wrong decisions or perhaps is just very unlucky in the way his decisions work out. Most likely it’s a combination of both.
I started reading The Last Smile in Sunder City at the recommendation of Tim Minchin and I recommend that you read it too. I loved this book.

Fetch is a Man for Hire. He is hired by the principal of Ridgerock Academy, a cross-species school. He is asked to find the school’s history and literature teacher Edmund Albert Rye. Rye is a vampire, but in a world where all magic has disappeared vampires are old and frail. Most vampires are languishing after the coda took their powers away. Not Rye though, he has made peace with the situation and is enjoying passing on some of his knowledge by teaching at the school and tutoring kids on the side too.

When the magic disappeared the world became bleak and dark and life became harsh. The elves named the moment the coda reasoning that the world had been singing a song since the day it was born, but that it was about to come to an end.
A very fitting name, looking at the definition of coda on Wikipedia:
“In music, a coda is a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence. It may be as simple as a few measures, or as complex as an entire section.”

Fetch tries to live a good life and feels much better when he’s helping people and generally being a good person. However, he slips up easily and often and it makes him feel bad. Feeling bad makes him drink and fight, which makes him feel even worse. He hasn’t had it easy. He has lived with heartbreak for most of his life and he has always felt like an outcast.
Fetch, like a lot of us, shows his best side in the face of adversity. We work better together when we are trying to overcome an evil that is bigger than ourselves. Unfortunately, as soon as a glimmer of hope appears we’re willing to kill each other for it.

A lot of The Last Smile in Sunder City feels like it was written as a metaphor for the situation that we are in today. Professor Rye writes:
“And thus, we enter this strange new world. A simpler world. It may not be as bright or as loud as the eons leading up to it, but this is the time that fate has chosen for us. Life once felt so grand and meaningful. This new world is hushed. … If there is a future, that’s how it will be determined. Not by winning wars or medals or fame, but by searching out into the darkness and, when you find it, holding up the light.”
It seems fitting, but the book could also be a metaphor for being human in general. It’s about our struggle to do the right thing and how to deal with feelings of disappointment and guilt when things don’t work out as we had hoped they would.

Fetch looks towards alcohol and books to allow him to escape into another world for a bit.
I, in turn, enjoyed following him around and experiencing a bit of life in Sunder City.
I’m happy to be back home now, but I’m looking forward to visiting Sunder City again in the future.
Luke Arnold has created an intricate world and he has written a marvelous book about it.