Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
Read From: September 19 to November 9. ARC kindle copy
City of Stairs was a wonderful epic fantasy tale deftly interweaving themes such as colonialism and religion. It also was a murder mystery running through the length of it giving the whole book a sense of urgency.
Bulikov, the City of Stairs is a mysterious ex-capital of the world and Seat of Divinities. But it's now half-vanished after the Blink and ruled by its ex-colony. Believe me, it's far more exciting than what I've managed to write down. Bulikov has an old-world Slavic charm (complete with unique names; is it just me or I'm reading a lot of Slavic-inspired fantasy nowadays?) and a curious magic system based on the Divinities. Saypur,-- the ex-colony, now master of the world-- looks like a weird cross-over between India (the names of cities sound like Sanskrit and Hindi while the people are brown-skinned) and Britain at it's height (Saypur rules the world by using a deft combination of it's navy, diplomacy and trade).
The characters are quite fascinating, there's Shara, a diplomat/spy from Saypur who is something of a historian and expert on Bulikov's vanished past, Sigrud: her badass bodyguard with a mysterious past, and a diverse bunch of people from the city of Bulikov itself, both Saypuri and natives. But the most interesting one has to be the murdered historian with whom the novel opens. His murder and its subsequent investigation is what makes the plot riveting. Combine this with the epigraphs that open each chapter and reveal the lost history and myths of Bulikov, and the City of Stairs makes for a cracking read.
Jackson Bennett has done a wonderful job slowly unravelling the whole mystery. Why exactly did old-Bulikov disappear? Are any of the Divinities still alive? What role has Shara's ancestor played in liberating Saypur and the subsequent enslavement of Bulikov? Just who the heck is Sigrud?!
The narrative voice was wry with just a nice little dose of humour. Surprisingly, the whole novel was written in the present tense which was brilliantly pulled off. And although these are some dense themes, Jackson Bennett talks very intelligently about them, even humorously which never leaves you bored.
What didn't I like about the novel? Although it developed pretty well, the last part looked worrisomely rushed to me. And granted this is epic fantasy and you should be able to invoke deus ex machina here, but the ending didn't jive too well with how good the rest of the novel was. But maybe I've become a little too used to grimdark and bad endings.
Overall, the City of Stairs was a wonderfully told modern epic fantasy tale. The characters and narratives were excellent. And since it is a standalone book, I'd have no qualms recommending this book to anybody.
Full Disclosure: I was given an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a review.
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