Robert Jackson Bennett brings readers back to The Continent, the primary setting of his Divine Cities sequence here in the second novel, City of Blades. The Continent has still not quite recovered from the loss of its divinities and it is still reacting to the events of City of Stairs, which occurred five years prior to the events of this novel. Turyin Mulaghesh (a secondary character from City of Stairs) thinks she’s retired from political life and has attempted to sever her ties to her nation. That is until a messenger arrives informing her of a technicality that forces her back into the espionage game, specifically in the city of Voortyashtan whose patron divinity was the death goddess. Mulagesh is tasked with finding a spy…er “delegate” who has gone missing. Of course what Mulagesh discovers is that even if divinities may be killed, they don’t always completely disappear.
When Mulagesh begins her search for the missing spy, she meets up with a woman named Signe, who happens to be the daughter of Sigurd, another character from City of Stairs. They also learn of the discovery a strange metallic dust, thinadeskite, in places where people have died or disappeared. This substance possesses strange, and potentially world-changing, properties beyond the reckoning of the world’s science. Complicating matters is the dredging of the Voortyashtan harbor undertaken by the Drelying nation, and it just so happens that Sigurd is overseeing this project.
Bennett packs a lot of emotion, consideration, and provocative imagery in City of Blades. Even if the battles of war are not wrought throughout the narrative, its echoes fuel the nightmares of people and motivations of the divine. Mulagesh seeks an escape from the war and the war-torn land where so many of her darkest memories were formed. Suffering from PTSD, she wakes from nightmares on a regular basis, but faces her fear so reluctantly. A man who was once an ally has different thoughts on war, he sees war as an essential component of life. This conflict of ideologies permeates much of the narrative. War affects families profoundly, too. Sigurd was away from his family for much of his daughter’s life, a thing Signe is not hesitant to point out.
One of the strangest conceits Bennett proposes in the novel is the divinely crafted sword whose hilt is a hand. Another supernatural conjuring is the magical places like the Teeth of the World and the ruins of the divine. There’s also a fascinating look at the afterlife, how an afterlife came to be or comes to be and how unconventionally one may enter.
Like the previous installment, Bennett cloaks what initially seems to be an espionage/thriller plot inside of a fantastic milieu with excellent results. City of Blades has a similar framework, at least at the outset, as its predecessor, and even is in discussion with some of the same themes, but the approach and plot are fascinatingly its own. Bennett also gives readers a protagonist not too common in epic fantasy – a middle aged woman. That experience, knowledge, and the scars of life give her the perfect toolset to accomplish her goals. I couldn’t help but find wonderful resonance between Mulagesh and Dannarah one of the protagonists from Kate Elliott’s marvelous Black Wolves (which just may have been my favorite novel from last year). Bennett brings so many things together by novel’s end and fits each piece of the puzzle together with such a deft hand that the picture upon viewing the pieces assembled is a stunning image.
Thematically, there are similarities between the two novels in this sequence. It would have been easy for any author to just retell a similar story with the same characters, but by focusing on Mulagesh rather than Shara, the protagonist from City of Blades, widens the world and gives it more life. Seeing this different perspective from a person more experienced and scarred from conflict, illuminates the world in a different fashion; it deepens and enhances an already fascinating world.
City of Blades is a deep, thoughtful novel that begs for multiple readings. As soon as I finished City of Stairs two years ago, this one jumped very high on my list of anticipated releases. Where City of Stairs laid a magnificent foundation of a world, characters and imagination, City of Blades expands the vision and is equal to the task of its predecessor. On the one hand, City of Blades didn’t quite blow me away in quite the same way City of Stairs did. However, and perhaps more impressively, my respect and admiration of Bennett’s skills as a storyteller and world-weaver have increased. Maintaining excellence is just as challenging (and some would say more challenging) than an initial explosion with excellence, but Mr. Bennett has spoiled me as a reader, and that is the mark of a gifted writer and storyteller. I’ve come to expect such excellence Mr. Bennett’s fiction and I’m pleased those expectations were met. City of Blades, even though a sequel to City of Stairs can be read on its own or before City of Stairs. I also wonder if Bennett is playing a tricksy game with his readers and giving readers a trilogy that can be read in any order. Knowing that a third (and final?) installment is on the horizon, I wonder how Bennett can top himself again. Time will tell and I can’t wait to find out.
© 2016 Rob H. Bedford
http://robertjacksonbennett.com/blog/city-of-blades-out-1262016
January 2015, Trade Paperback
ISBN 9780553419719, 464 pages
Review copy) courtesy of the publisher, Crown
