Take a photo of a barcode or cover
willdr 's review for:
City of Blades
by Robert Jackson Bennett
I thought that City of Stairs would be hard to top. The characters were engaging, the plot moved at pace but remained interesting, and most of all, I loved Bulikov; a city of diminished grandeur, filled with citizens who remembered when they could reach out and touch the stars. The book definitely had a complicated relationship with colonialism, but I appreciated its complexity.
In City of Blades Bennett constructs a city that is radically different. If Bulikov is melancholic, then Voortyashtan is choleric. Their relationship to their patron goddess was fanatical, and her murder by the Saypuri Kaj felt deeply. They are not primarily saddened by the loss of their gods - they are furious.
While I was initially annoyed by the timeskip, wanting to find out more about the political machinations that were hinted at in the closing chapters of the first book, I realised that it creates more space for Bennett to develop characters and the wider world. The same goes for the perspective shift. Mulaghesh is the perfect protagonist for a book primarily concerned with war, soldiering, and the meaning of duty.
A brilliant follow-up, and I look forward to finishing the trilogy.
In City of Blades Bennett constructs a city that is radically different. If Bulikov is melancholic, then Voortyashtan is choleric. Their relationship to their patron goddess was fanatical, and her murder by the Saypuri Kaj felt deeply. They are not primarily saddened by the loss of their gods - they are furious.
While I was initially annoyed by the timeskip, wanting to find out more about the political machinations that were hinted at in the closing chapters of the first book, I realised that it creates more space for Bennett to develop characters and the wider world. The same goes for the perspective shift. Mulaghesh is the perfect protagonist for a book primarily concerned with war, soldiering, and the meaning of duty.
A brilliant follow-up, and I look forward to finishing the trilogy.