Book 85 - Stairway to Everywhere

Title: The City of Stairs (Divine Cities Trilogy #1)

Author: Robert Jackson Bennett

Genre: fantasy sci-fi

THIS BOOK.

THIS BOOK IS GREAT.

It's so heartening to discover that new ideas still exist, and that fantasy and sci-fi are still being mashed together in stunning ways to create worlds like this one - AND that there are writers out there who can write dialogue, and set tropes on fire with interesting characters.

Not to hype it up or anything...

But seriously. The magic system and the world that Bennet has created are shiny and new, extensively developed, and absolutely intriguing. As Jemison states in the NY Times, "there’s no hint of staid European medievalism in its pages, and its root cultures are (refreshingly) secondary-world variants of czarist Russia and Mughal India." Even better, the characters that populate this fully-realized universe aren't the usual suspects you'd find in either of the genres. A tiny woman with glasses and her Viking-esque "secretary" (who brings to mind Ryuk from Deathnote) are the two mains, and the rest of the novel is populated with women in power and the LGTQ community - to name just a few. Bennett never tells us about any beauty Shara may have, nor is there any love story inexplicably plonked in the centre of the story. Nope, it's all mystery and magic, and it - is - magnificent.

Rating: 👓 👓 👓 👓 👓/5