Monster Blood Tattoo: Foundling by D.M. Cornish

When Monster Blood Tattoo, by D.M. Cornish, opens, Rossamünd Bookchild is a foundling raised in an orphanage. This young boy is somehow growing up with a girl’s name, but like every name on the Half Continent, that detail has been carefully chosen and will connect to the story later.  Rossamund is about to leave behind the only home he’s ever known for what he believes will be an unremarkable apprenticeship to a lamplighter and a secure, if not terribly stimulating job.  It’s not the life of excitement he’d imagined, but it’s at least a way out of the foundling home.

Almost immediately, young Rossamund is tricked into a different life than a lightlighter’s apprentice, and find himself setting off in a new direction. While this starts off based on strange and shady happenings, it’s not  really a bad thing for him.  While Rossamund was in the orphanage, he dreamed of exploring and seeing the world, and now travel and adventure are about to find him, whether he’s ready or not.

This wider world is incredible detailed. There’s an entire glossary for the professions and customs of the Half- Continent, as well as a complex, well-maintained Blood Monster Tattoo fan wiki. There are a lot of fantasy novels being framed as factual accounts by a traveler who’d experienced that world. Blood Monster Tattoo isn’t told that way at all, but the extent of the worldbuilding notes gave it that overall vibe. There’s a massive,  amount of detailed, specific vocab and lore to bring the world to life, and the overall feeling is more like a fascinating and vivid travelogue from a strange world. Parts of the story are slow, but those long descriptions are key to developing the world, and the setting is full of detail and unique lore.

Because Rossamund has been fairly sheltered in the orphanage, I felt like he was discovering the world along with me. On his travels, Rossamund discovers teratologists, who follow and hunt monsters. These teratologists can have all different kinds of with special powers, like electricity, and have all different reasons for hunting monsters.  As Rossamund discovers more of the world, he begins to wonder whether the monster stories he grew up on are completely true, and he might find himself with some sympathy for these monsters.

Monster Blood Tattoo: Foundling is the first in a trilogy, so the ending of the book doesn’t answer all the questions raised. It’s not a frustrating or unsatisfying conclusion, though, because the main draw of the book is  more about discovering the world than following a plot arc.