 First edition | |
| Author | Robert Jackson Bennett |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Sam Weber |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Divine Cities |
Release number | 1 |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Published | September 9, 2014 |
| Publisher | Broadway Books |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (paperback), audio, eBook |
| Pages | 452 |
| ISBN | 9780804137171 |
| Followed by | City of Blades |
City of Stairs is a 2014 fantasy novel by Robert Jackson Bennett. It is the first novel in his Divine Cities trilogy, and was followed by City of Blades .
Bulikov was once shaped by wonders that bent the rules of nature itself, until Saypur's rise brought that age to an end. Now the city stands under foreign control, its past erased from official memory. Into this uneasy place comes Shara Thivani, posing as a minor envoy while quietly pursuing the truth behind a historian's death. Her search takes her through streets where reality can shift without warning, toward remnants of forces thought gone forever, and into a struggle that could alter the fragile balance between conqueror and conquered.
In a city where the remnants of a divine age still linger in broken architecture and strange distortions, Shara Thivani arrives with a diplomatic title masking a far more dangerous purpose. The death of a scholar has stirred whispers of powers that should no longer exist. As she follows the trail through guarded archives and hostile alleys, she finds herself confronting both the city's buried past and the ambitions of those who would see it rise again, risking a change that could reshape the world's order.
Shara Thivani, an envoy from Saypur, journeys to Bulikov, a once-great capital now stripped of its former majesty. She arrives as a minor diplomat, yet her hidden purpose is far more pressing: to look into the death of Dr. Efrem Pangyui, a respected historian whose studies threatened to disturb long-buried truths. Pangyui had been documenting Bulikov's past, research that directly challenged Saypur's strict prohibitions against remembering the divine beings once revered.
For centuries, Bulikov had been the seat of miraculous wonders, shaped by divine entities whose power bent the natural order. Saypur, once their vassal state, rose up in defiance and struck them down, leaving the city bereft. Their downfall shattered the world's foundations, leaving architecture broken, geography inconsistent, and reality itself prone to strange distortions. To enforce its victory, Saypur outlawed worship and erased accounts of those former gods. Bulikov's people now live under watchful Saypuri rule, their heritage smothered by foreign authority.
Shara encounters resistance both subtle and overt. The citizens resent Saypur's dominance, chafing under laws that criminalize remembrance of their past. Governor Turyin Mulaghesh embodies this intention: tasked with upholding Saypur's harsh edicts, she nevertheless struggles with her conscience. Though brusque and weary, Mulaghesh proves an essential partner, offering both authority and pragmatism.
Shara begins her search into Pangyui's demise by sifting through his scattered notes. These writings hint at something dangerous: evidence that divine remnants endure, their power not wholly extinguished. Some locals still risk practicing outlawed rites, keeping alive a faith thought destroyed. The persistence of such devotion implies that more than memory survives.
Her suspicions are sharpened when hidden assailants strike at her and Sigrud. Clearly, Pangyui's end was not random but part of a larger effort to silence inconvenient knowledge. Probing deeper, Shara ventures into restricted archives, where she different traces of how miracles once shaped reality. Though those powers should have vanished, fragments linger, unstable and unpredictable. The more she learns, the clearer it becomes that Bulikov still carries exists of its divine age. Hints accumulate that one deity may not have been extinguished at all. Signs suggest that Voortya, goddess of war, endured beyond the supposed downfall of the pantheon. Whispers of her return stir unease, for Voortya embodied both ruthless strength and uncompromising ferocity. Those loyal to her legacy maneuver in secret, working toward her revival. Pangyui's murder now stands revealed as only one step in this dangerous scheme.
Mulaghesh is forced to confront where her loyalties lie: with the authority she represents, or with the people whose suffering she cannot ignore. Shara, meanwhile, comes to grips with the enormity of her discovery. Saypur's triumph was never as absolute as it claimed. The foundations of its authority rest on fragile ground, and Bulikov's legacy cannot be stamped out by decree. Voortya's essence begins to manifest, threatening to plunge the world back into convergence. Shara's knowledge and Sigrud's ferocity are brought to bear against the resurgent goddess. Their combined effort halts her resurgence, but the victory is neither simple nor complete. Voortya may be subdued, yet the scars she left and the devotion she inspired cannot be erased.
Shara understands that Bulikov will never be what Saypur demands it to be. The city remains a place of fractures: torn between past and present, faith and denial, conquest and memory. Though the immediate threat has been checked, the unease endures. Bulikov's ruins, its unstable streets and haunted grandeur, remain a living reminder that the old order is not entirely gone.
In the New York Times , N. K. Jemisin lauded Bennett's worldbuilding, noting that Bulikov and Saypur "refreshingly" evoke "czarist Russia and Mughal India" rather than "staid medieval Europe", but considered that the book's "espionage and police-procedural components" were its "least interesting"; Jemisin also faulted the characterization of Komayd as a "cipher" who is "(made) more interesting by (the) reflected quirkiness" of her associates, but who "never quite leaps off the page." [1] At Strange Horizons , Niall Harrison likewise praised the worldbuilding for its "coherency [and] completeness that precious few fantasies can match", and compared the violence and brutality of Komayd's assistant/bodyguard Sigrud to that of a Joe Abercrombie character. [2] National Public Radio criticized Bennett for opening the novel with a lengthy courtroom scene in which (to the "extraordinary boredom (of) all the characters involved") a Bulikov merchant is prosecuted for illegally displaying the symbol of a dead god, but praised the pacing of the rest of the novel, calling Komayd and Sigrud "a post-feminist Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser." [3]
An analysis of the nominations for the 2015 Hugo Awards has shown that, if it were not for the involvement of the Sad Puppies, City of Stairs would have been a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. [4]
| Year | Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Goodreads Choice Awards | Fantasy | Finalist | [5] |
| 2015 | British Fantasy Award | Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award) | Finalist | [6] |
| Locus Award | Best Fantasy Novel | Finalist | [7] | |
| World Fantasy Award | Best Novel | Finalist | [8] |