venneh 's review for:

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

4.0

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This is P. Djeli Clark’s first full length novel, and you can tell he’s been excited to get deeper into this world. He’s written a short story and a novella in this world before, and though he’s managed to gently massage some very heavy world building/exposition dumps enough that if you haven’t read either before you’ll be able to get what’s going on, you will definitely have a leg up if you’ve read at least that first short story, especially since one of the major plot points is from there. (I need to read it myself.) Fatma is an agent at the Ministry for Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, one of the few women in the Ministry. She’s called into a case where a brotherhood of Englishmen dedicated to Al-Jahiz, the man who broke the barrier between the supernatural world and helped Egypt gain independence and a better footing politically, are found murdered - supposedly by Al-Jahiz himself. Oh, and she’s been assigned a partner. It’s very much an Egyptian steampunk flavored version of the classic pulp adventure novel. Fatma is queer and it’s delightful to see her play against Siti, and Djeli Clark’s fashion descriptions are on point. Also on point are his glances into how society has been affected on both the feminist and supernatural front. The info dumps, though necessary, are a bit rough, and if you have the chance to get the Subterranean version where they collect all the stories (plus some bonus material to my understanding), I would highly recommend it. He also relies a bit too much on fainting for scene transitions at times, but not in a wilting female way. Overall though, definitely a recommended read, especially for a first novel.