City of Blades: The Divine Cities Book Two by Robert Jackson Bennett

City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett is the follow up to the World Fantasy Award nominated City of Stairs and second book in his The Divine Cities trilogy. At first, I wasn’t confident that City of Blades was going to live up to the superior standard set by the first book in the trilogy. This book follows the same template as its predecessor, mixing the flavours of the spy thriller genre with secondary-world epic fantasy. However, it lacks the benefit of surprise the first book had; the feeling of bringing some subversive, exciting and unique elements to a familiar and formulaic subgenre. But at about the halfway mark, I’m pleased to report, this book not only recaptures the flame of the first book, but also maybe burns a little brighter.

It is certainly advisable to read City of Stairs prior to tackling City of Blades. While both books have distinct plot arcs, Bennett handled most of the exposition and world building in the previous volume, and City of Blades is a more streamlined book, more focused on plot and thematic concerns. Bennett returns readers to the Continent, once the dominant world power thanks to the worldly presence and assistance from the Divinities. However, as those who have read City of Stairs will know, many years ago the subservient Isles of Saypuri staged an uprising against Continent and its divine overlords. Three Divinities were destroyed in this uprising and the others went into hiding, leaving Saypuri the new world power due its technological superiority. Nevertheless, the events recounted in City of Stairs made it clear the influence of the Divinities has not entirely left the Continent.

The protagonist of City of Blades is Turyin Mulaghesh, an important supporting character from the previous volume. The chief character from the earlier book, Shara Komayd, is relegated to (mostly) an off-screen role here, pulling the strings from Saypuri as she struggles to maintain her embattled and unpopular prime ministership and reconstruct the war-ravaged Continent. Following the Battle of Bulikov at the climax of City of Stairs, Mulaghesh was promoted to the rank of general, essentially a political and ceremonial appointment by Shara. Yet Mulaghesh soon wearied of the position, and at the beginning of City of Blades, set five years after the last book, the “sound of [her] resignation still echoes through Ghaladesh”. Mulaghesh has retired to a beach cottage, where she lives amongst a “graveyard of wine bottles and filthy plates … and an abundance of threatening things: bolts, bolt-shots, swords, knives, and in one corner, a massive rifling – a firearm with a rifled barrel”.

Mulaghesh is suffering from “war echoes”, and awakes every night trying not to scream:

“She pushes and strains as her brain insists she’s still there, she’s still at the embassy and it’s still five years ago, her arm trapped under the rubble and the sky thick with smoke, the whole world ruined and gone in an instant. She’s still turning over on the street, still glimpsing the young soldier facedown on the concrete, a dew drop of blood in his ear that swells and swells until it brims over, and a trickle of red weaves down his smooth cheek, the cheek of a boy.”

Despite her reluctance Mulaghesh finds herself being forced back into Shara’s service to complete one last job. She is asked to travel to Voortyashtan, the “hinterlands on the globe, the military outpost you get shipped to only if you sleep with or kill the wrong person”, to investigate the disappearance of a delegate from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, named Sumitra Choudhry. It seems Choudhry was sent to Voortyashtan following the discovery of a unique ore named thinadeskite:

“If you are unaware, no conductor is perfect – whether it is copper or steel, some electricity is lost along the way. But with this material, none is lost. None. And … some recent reports suggest that it possesses properties far, far stranger than that…”

Voortyashtan was the seat of power of Voortya, the now deceased Divinity of war, death and the sea, and a major harbor, which plays a pivotal role in Shara’s plan to revitalize the economy of the Continent. However, the thinadeskite might be further evidence of continuing divine influence on the Continent and Shara needs somebody she can trust, somebody like Mulaghesh, on the ground to investigate.

Thus City of Blades sets the scene for a beautiful and nuanced exploration of war and its warriors, life and death, and religion and atheism. These are not unique themes in epic fantasy, but it’s rare to see them handled with such sophistication and intelligence. Within the book’s narrative Bennett references real-life contemporary conflicts, portraying a guerrilla war against occupying forces, waged by a group of indigenous insurgents who have made a bloody type of existentialism out of ongoing conflict (“They don’t have strategies, they don’t have goals. That’s why they seem to win”). Bennet folds his thematic concerns seamlessly into his fantasy world building and the book is layered with metaphors and imagery that resonate with meaning. I was particular taken by the idea that the warriors of Voortya are not, in fact, those who wield the swords, but the swords themselves:

“Voortyashtanis believed that if you picked up the sword of an ancient sentinel it would possess you, take you over –you’d become them, in essence, but cease being you … to them, a sword was a vessel of the soul.”

The book presents a dialogue between those who see war as a natural state of human existence and those that see war as an aberration:

“Warfare is light. Warfare and conflict are the energies with which this world functions. To claim otherwise is to claim your very veins are not filled with blood, to claim that your heart is still and silent. You knew this once.”

City of Blades seems to ask, if this is so, if war is a natural state of being for humanity, then why does it leave its agents so scarred and damaged? The book contrasts one concept of soldier – one who sees “no difference between the soldier and the civilian keeping that soldier on their feet” – with another concept of solider:

“Sure, when people think of a soldier, they think of soldiers taking. They think of us taking territory, taking the enemy, taking a city or a country, taking treasure, or blood. This grand, abstract idea of ‘taking’, as if we were pirates, swaggering and brandishing our weapons, bullying and intimidating people. But a soldier, a true soldier, I think, does not take. A soldier gives.”

Obviously, the second book in a series is going to be compared to the first and readers will hope for a story that’s at least on par, if not an improvement on what came before. Admittedly, it took some time for City of Blades to warmup for me. Bulikov, the setting for City of Stairs, was such a unique creation within secondary world epic fantasy and I felt the setting of Voortyashtan paled somewhat in comparison. But soon into novel Jackson introduces some splendid creations that rival anything from City of Stairs, such as the Teeth of the World where the ruins of a Voortyashtani holy place rest and the memories of the goddess reside.

For me, Mulaghesh is a stronger protagonist compared to Shara from first book. Though Shara was certainly unique protagonist in epic fantasy, she lacked a lot of influence on the progression of the plot and would have benefited from more agency. What’s more, Shara was overshadowed somewhat by her sidekick, Sigrud je Harkvaldsonn, who was probably one of the main attractions and stole many scenes in that first outing. While Sigrud does indeed make a reappearance in City of Blades, unfortunately his impact here isn’t as great and I felt he was under utilised. Conversely, this does give space for Mulaghesh to shine and, as I say, she is stronger primary character than Shara, and Bennett imbues her with a much greater sense of agency within the plot.

Until the end of the novel the narrative exclusively follows Mulaghesh (putting aside an entertaining first chapter told through the eyes of a timid and bumbling Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, Pitry Sutarashni). Yet towards the novel’s climax, the narrative point of view begins to jump around a bit more, creating a slightly uneven and messy structure. Unfortunately, the biggest flaw of the first book is also repeated; that being the decidedly deus ex machina vibe to the resolution of the plot.

But putting these minor niggles aside, City of Blades remains a superior work of secondary world epic fantasy. Bennett masterfully intertwines the mystery elements of his narrative with the details of world building, creating a tantalizing sense of wonder and discovery for the reader. What’s more, he skillfully layers the book with intelligent and emotionally engaging insights into military occupation and battle trauma. I would recommend City of Blades, and its predecessor, to anybody looking for an example of cutting edge, subversive and self-aware epic fantasy, with a strong flavour of spy thriller fiction. I sincerely hope this will be a landmark trilogy that, like the deathblow to a Divinity, will have a rippling effect on the epic fantasy genre for years to come.

City of Blades: The Divine Cities Book 2 by Robert Jackson Bennett
Published by Jo Fletcher Books, January 2016
448 pages
ISBN: 978-1848669581
Review by Luke Brown

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