Lamplighter (book)
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- For the pediteer, see Lamplighter.
| Lamplighter | |
 The Australia/New Zealand cover | |
| Publication date | May 2008 |
| Pages | 717 |
| Published by | Omnibus Books (Australia) |
| ISBN | ISBN 186291687X |
Lamplighter is the second book in the Monster Blood Tattoo series. The short story The Corsers’ Hinge: A Lamplighter Tale is set between it and the final book in the trilogy, Factotum.
Plot
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Two months after parting ways with Europe, Rossamünd Bookchild is halfway through his training to become a lamplighter. Stationed at the great fortress of Winstermill on the Conduit Vermis, because he was a week late in arriving he has been assigned to the quarto Q Hesiod Gæta and given the nickname "Master Come-Lately" by the senior sergeant responsible for training, Grindrod. Along with his six fellow prentices, Grindrod, and three veteran lampsmen, the quarto are out on the Pettiwiggin, a stretch of the road heading east on their way to the nearest cothouse, Wellnigh House.
Five lamps away from the cothouse they encounter a runaway park-drag attacked by a pack of five horn-ed nickers, which are clinging to it. After the carriage crashes the lighters and the passengers, who turn out to be calendars, engage the nickers. During the fight one of the calendars, is revealed to be a wit but proves to still be green, as her frission also adversely affects the lamplighters. Although the nickers are all killed two of the calendars fall and another is seriously injured. They turn out to be from the Right of the Pacific Dove and their leader, Dolours, informs Grindrod that the youngest member of the party, Threnody, wishes to become a lamplighter.
