REVIEW: The Dissonance by Shaun Hamill
The Dissonance is the latest contemporary fantasy novel by author Shaun Hamill. Hamill may be known to readers for his novel writing with A Cosmology of Monsters or his short fiction, which includes writing in the Conan universe. The Dissonance is the first of his works I have read, and overall, I have enjoyed reading it. However, as a contemporary fantasy (although it deals with some very dark topics and events), it is a departure from many of my usual reading choices. Hamill’s combination of horror and fantasy worked well for me, similar to Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House or Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, and has many of the features a fan of darker fantasy would enjoy.
Described as an “epic contemporary fantasy,” The Dissonance is the story of four unlikely friends, Hal, Athena, Erin, and Peter, their accidental discovery of magic, and the consequences of their terrible mistakes. Trained by Peter’s eccentric guardian, Professor Marsh, the four learn to control the dissonance – the magical energy in the world around them. They study this secret system as a coven, bound together until their bond is shattered one day. Twenty years on, alone and severed from one another, terrifying happenings and an anniversary commemoration invite bring the coven back together to their tiny Texan hometown of Clegg. Across the state border in Alabama, closeted teen Owen joins his friends in a (what he believes to be a joke) séance. There, they accidentally summon a murderous demon. This demon kills all, bar Owen, who is taken hostage and ordered to drive to Clegg. Something apocalyptic is brewing, and no hero is in sight to save the world.
At its core, The Dissonance is a novel about friendship. As explained by Hamill’s author note at the end of the story, he wrote it during the pandemic while missing his friends and contact with them. The book has a split time narrative between the modern 2019 timeline and the “historical” storyline of Hal, Athena, Erin, and Peter in their teens in the late 1990s. The friendship of these four, their found family, and their growing up form one of the key themes in The Dissonance. The novel also has multiple points of view, so as readers, we read from each character’s younger and adult perspectives.
The second central theme is magic, the dissonance, which they learn to harness. As a magic system, dissonance is used by harnessing the negative emotions in oneself and drawing upon them. Unsurprisingly, a group of four misfits with varying levels of traumatic childhoods had a lot of emotional pain to draw from, and the coven together became proficient users of dissonance. One of the most upsetting parts of The Dissonance for me was learning about the lead characters’ struggles as teenagers and then reading how this translated to adult suffering, particularly Hal’s descent into alcoholism.
As I have said, The Dissonance would not be my first choice in recommending a read to a grimdark fan. But there is a lot in this novel that puts it grimdark adjacent, so it would still hold some appeal to our crowd. There are no heroes here, and the four main characters are utter misfits. Before forming their coven, it seems they were friends because they had no one else. They do face insurmountable odds with almost no hope of success. Sometimes, they are cowards. Sometimes, they are cruel. But they also get the chance to make amends and be forgiven. One of my favourite descriptions of grimdark comes from Anna Smith Spark’s essay “Grimdark and Nihilism,” where she says:
‘Grimdark is that awareness. The reality of pain, the knife blade cutting in. And the determination to go on, keep on, fight on. There are no heroes, no certainty, there’s no bright shining prophecy of light. Just messed-up selfish wretched people trying to live their lives as best they can, trying to find something of love and happiness, trying to survive all the pain life brings.’
That sentiment is what Hamill has running through all of The Dissonance. The characters use the pain and trauma from their very messed up lives to do magic, and even knowing that they probably will not succeed in the trials they face, they still try to make a difference. Thank you very much to Shaun Hamill and the team at Titan for sending over a review copy of The Dissonance.
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