Once upon a time I was an eight-year-old obsessed with Egyptology. It was the time of the Tutankhamun exhibition in London in 1972, and whilst I was too young and too poor to travel to see it – the queues were round the block, anyway – I would rabidly read anything I could get my hands on about the boy prince. I would look at the newspapers in the library, making notes, read books and even do what I guess would now be called a show and tell session at school, with a model of the tomb made out of plasticine and papier mache. I read historical accounts of the King and the uncovering of the tomb by Howard Carter and his team, which led me to details of the co-called “Curse” on Caernarvon and… well, you get the idea.
Since then, whenever I think of Cairo, in my head I create images of sun, sand, relentless heat and ancient history.
Those pictures were brought back to life in my head by this terrific novel, a story which mixes those descriptions with steam-punky innovations and occult magic.*
In this alternate globe we are looking at a world where fifty years or so ago Al-Jahiz opened a connection between the mundane and the magical, and when he departed he left the portal open. Consequently, in this Cairo of 1912 we have humans living alongside djinn, goblins, angels and other magical beings. The setting is a lovely mix of Ancient Egypt, with occult practices and steampunk thrown in. One of the main methods of inter-continental travel is by airship, for example, and there are clockwork automata referred to as “boilerplate eunuchs”. It reminded me a little of Mike Moorcock’s The Warlord of the Air series.
Despite all of this change, generally things seem to be readjusting into a new normal. Though there are threats of renewed global conflict, which leads to a summit meeting about to be held in Cairo, there are still the usual crimes occurring – shoplifting, robbery and murder. This story begins with a murder – actually, 12 in fact – of a secret brotherhood named The Hermetic Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz.
Fatma el-Sha’arawi, in her role as an Agent for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, is given the case to solve. The cause seems to have been magical in origin, namely that the cause of the original rift, Al-Jahiz, is claiming to have returned. More so he is unhappy with what he sees and is bringing retribution on those he sees as unworthy.
Given the extra space in a novel to expand in, Djèlí takes advantage and surrounds Fatma with a range of characters, the important ones of which are much nondescript. As a result, the world feels bigger and more real than before – strange though that is to say about a world with djinn, angels and even elemental gods given solidity.
To this bigger picture throughout the novel we are added new personal complications – Fatma has a love life and a new partner (not the same person), something she is not happy about, to say the least. Their fractious relationship is one of the ongoing threads through the novel, the new and enthusiastic student contrasting with the experienced mentor. For some readers the fact that Fatma is a lesbian may be an issue, although it wasn’t an issue for me.
Such a setting also allows the reader to experience life in a post-colonial country. I liked the point that generally this depiction of a world where imperialist powers are on the decline, where Ancient Egypt meets post-colonialism struggling to adjust to a rapidly changing world. The release of magic has led to a major shift in the global political landscape. Cairo and Egypt are now on the way to becoming a superpower, the USA has forced magic out from its states and the British Empire, once the ruler of Egypt, is now a superpower in decline, struggling to adjust to a new situation. Egypt itself is seen as being much more cosmopolitan, with women being allowed in a still dominant patriarchal society to take on bigger and greater responsibilities. There’s a lot about class and culture here, which emphasises the still existent social distances in Cairo’s society.
But what we’re really getting here is a police procedural with fantastic elements, set in a richly detailed world. Parts of the novel feel like they’ve escaped out of the 1930s Weird Tales magazines, with a combination of mysterious magic and strangely deadly alchemy. Such elements brought to me vivid images of those places created in my head when first encountering my Egyptologist enthusiasms. Whilst I wouldn’t be without them, it was such a pleasure to read a Fantasy set away from the Tolkienesque medieval environment.
Whilst the world is fabulously realised, there were minor niggles. The plot was a little more conventional than I was hoping for, though its journey was clear enough. I did work out the villain fairly early on, although this book is more about the journey than the destination.
There were times when the many, many descriptions of what Fatima was wearing got a little tiresome. Whilst I understood that her variety of bowler hats and her multitude of waistcoats and trousers reflected that she is a modern woman in a changing world there were times where such descriptions became superfluous to what was going on. I must admit that I did wonder from a practical viewpoint whether such outfits would help or hinder her work in such a relatively conservative environment.
However, overall A Master of Djinn is a great Arabian Nights type fantasy, clearly written with a lot of heart and enough contemporary and historical elements to make this an attractively fast-paced adventure for modern readers. I want to read more in this series, which is never the sign of a bad book. Perhaps most tellingly, it touched my inner eight-year-old Egyptologist greatly.
* I did review Djèlí’s debut novella, A Dead Djinn in Cairo a while back (review HERE) when it was published by Tor. I did like it but felt throughout that there was more to tell. There have been other novellas to continue to develop this setting, but this is Djèlí’s first novel in this world. You do not have to have read the novellas to get this book.
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
Published by Orbit, August 2021
400 pages
ISBN: 978-1250267689
Review by Mark Yon
