City of Blades
By Robert Jackson Bennett
One of the things I love about science fiction and fantasy—not the only thing, but one of them—is that they are really the genres most suited to exploring big ideas. You want to see what a world would look like where gods walked among us, where religion was not a matter of faith but of unassailable fact? Boom, you can do it. You want to see what would happen when such a world has its gods taken away? No problem. You want to see how people survive and adapt and get stuck and move on in the aftermath of a cataclysmic war? Not only can you do this, but you can make it as broad or as specific as you want. There are no boundaries beyond what you can imagine.
I’d say that Robert Jackson Bennett had a lot to live up to in writing a sequel to his 2014 book City of Stairs. It’s a book whose style and premise were unlike just about anything I’ve read before; a book with ideas that, though big, never overshadowed its wonderful characters; a book that was insightful and imaginitive and also a lot of fun to read. For all that, City of Blades may be even better.
Picking up about five years after the events of City of Stairs, City of Blades leaves the previous book’s protagonist, Shara, and instead follows one of the supporting characters, General Turyin Mulaghesh. Pulled out of retirement, Mulaghesh is sent to find a missing agent, who herself had been sent to investigate some strange occurrences in a city that was once the seat of the deity of war and death. As her mission unfolds, Mulaghesh finds that many things are not as dead as they seem, including her own past.
As before, the detective-story structure of Bennett’s book gives a strong feeling of exploration and discovery, and the world he has imagined lets him grapple with some pretty big concepts. What kind of world is left behind in the wake of huge, earth-shattering change? Where is the line between atrocity and necessity? Can we atone for the sins of our pasts? How much will we sacrifice in order to do what’s right, or what needs to be done, and are those the same things? Do old wounds ever really heal? Yet the book is anything but didactic. Like the best examples of the genre, it manages to be high-concept and fun, alien and familiar, plot-driven and well-characterized all at the same time. I haven’t had a chance to read his older works yet, but with this series Bennett has managed to cement a place as one of my favorite contemporary fantasy writers.
The third book is scheduled to come out next year, and I’m quite looking forward to picking it up. Until then, I’m happy to give this book (and its predecessor) my full-throated recommendation.
Started: 2/10/2016 | Finished: 2/17/2016