City of Stairs

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First edition, cover art by Sam Weber City of Stairs Novel.jpg
First edition, cover art by Sam Weber

City of Stairs is a 2014 fantasy novel by Robert Jackson Bennett. The first in his "Divine Cities" trilogy, it was published by Broadway Books.

Contents

Synopsis

For centuries, the city-state of Bulikov used the magic of its patron deities to rule the world — until their vassal state Saypur killed the gods and conquered Bulikov. Decades later, a Saypuri historian is murdered while investigating Bulikov gods and magic, and the Saypuri colonial administration in Bulikov sends Ashara Komayd to investigate.

Reception

City of Stairs was a finalist for the 2015 World Fantasy Award—Novel, [1] the 2015 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, [2] and the 2015 British Fantasy Award for Best Fantasy Novel; [3] as well, 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]

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." [5] 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. [6] 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." [7]

References

  1. ↑ 2015 World Fantasy Convention, at WorldFantasy.org; retrieved August 10, 2018
  2. ↑ 2015 Locus Awards Finalists Revealed, by Dianna Dilworth, at Adweek ; published May 6, 2015; retrieved August 10, 2018
  3. ↑ British Fantasy Awards 2015: the nominees Archived 2017-01-02 at the Wayback Machine , at the British Fantasy Society; published July 21, 2015; retrieved August 10, 2018
  4. ↑ This Is What The 2015 Hugo Ballot Should Have Been, by Andrew Liptak, at Io9; published August 23, 2015; retrieved August 10, 2018
  5. ↑ Jemisin, N. K. (October 24, 2014). "Dark Visions: Robert Jackson Bennett's 'City of Stairs,' and More". The New York Times . Retrieved August 10, 2018.
  6. ↑ Alexander, Niall (April 15, 2015). "City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, reviewed by Niall Alexander". Strange Horizons . Archived from the original on March 28, 2016. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
  7. ↑ Sheehan, Jason (September 9, 2014). "God Is Dead In This 'City Of Stairs.' Several Gods, In Fact". NPR . Retrieved August 10, 2018.
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