Reviews of favorite books

Fiction: City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett

2/23/2025

Another exciting fantasy-mystery from Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Miracles features an assassin-spy bent on revenge.
  Sigrud, a northern Dreyling (similar to a Viking), is unusually strong and fierce—and seemingly unaging, though he doesn’t know why until he meets a surviving god at the story's end.
  He’s been living off-grid for over a decade after he went on a killing spree following his daughter’s death (in City of Blades).
  Sigrud was introduced in the first book of the trilogy, City of Stairs, as Shara the spy’s brutal sidekick. When Shara is murdered early in this story, he emerges from hiding to find her killer and seek revenge.

It’s always fun to journey with an ultra-competent character, and Sigrud’s planning and execution of his revenge gives the reader a front-row seat to his espionage skills involving tracking and questioning and near-death escapes.

Sigrud is a compelling character: a broken-hearted man who loves deeply and kills precisely, a man profoundly scarred physically and emotionally who never wavers from his objective, no matter the personal cost. He has the added pressure of being a wanted man for the murders he committed over ten years ago, and there are numerous near-misses with local law enforcement that add to the suspense.
His thinking is clouded by the guilt he feels over his daughter’s death and Shara’s murder, believing he should’ve managed to save them. This guilt also makes it difficult for him to reach out to others.

He does get help from the former soldier-turned-politician Turyin, the main character in City of Blades, and a reclusive sheep-farmer survivalist with a passion for weapons.
Throughout the story he both requires and resists their assistance, knowing that involving these two women in the mystery will endanger them.

The world building remains one of the delights of this series of novels. In this book we visit Ahanashtan, a tropical world once entwined with a goddess of fecundity.
“The historians theorized it was a giant, organic tangle of trees and vines, all of which merged together to create homes and structures. Glowing mushrooms and peaches acting as lights, vines flowing forth with healing waters . . . Records suggest it was beautiful, but it all vanished when [the goddess] Ahanas died.”

The story mystery involves miraculous artifacts and divine entities who survived the attack that killed most of the gods. Sigrud struggles to tease out the various puzzles he encounters without Shara’s assistance. She deciphered all things magical in their team of two, and Sigrud’s longing for her guidance and company is palpable.

One of the most delightful characters is a young woman he is charged with protecting who asks Sigrud pointed questions about his past life with Shara. He is patient and kind with her, and the genuine friendship they develop is one of the most beautiful parts of the story.
Here is Sigrud reflecting on her expectations of his “adventurous” life with Shara: “Nothing is more romanticized than war,” says Sigrud. “But war is mostly waiting. Waiting for orders, waiting for movement, waiting for information.” He sits back, thinking. “I could measure my life by sleepless nights spent in empty rooms, staring out of windows.”

Like its two predecessor books, the story has an ascending god-like creature threatening the survival of the world who is behind Shara’s murder among other atrocities. Sigrud and his allies must work together to combat this overwhelming threat.
Ultimately, it is not Sigrud’s brutal capacity for death and destruction but his love and kindness that save the day, creating a thoroughly satisfying climax to the story. This decision also frees him from the “miracle” that has been prolonging his life at a terrible emotional cost.
The ending of City of Miracles is bittersweet but resonant and masterfully brings the trilogy to a satisfying conclusion. A thoroughly satisfying reading experience.

For more from Robert Jackson Bennett, read my reviews of
City of Stairs, City of Blades, and The Tainted Cup

Fiction: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

2/12/2025

City of Blades explores twin themes of war and death with nuance and insight. The main character, an ex-soldier named Turyin, is deeply scarred body and soul—but ultimately redeemed—by her bloody war experiences.
Turyin was the cigarillo-smoking, hard-drinking provincial governor in City of Stairs. In this novel, we meet her retired and drunk on the beach, shooting at the locals. A stranger brings her a message from Shara, the spy from the first book, who wants Turyin to find an operative missing from the city of Voortyashtan.
Though she isn’t trained as a spy, Turyin is observant, doggedly persistent, and willing to follow up on clues others dismiss as irrelevant, traits that help her unravel the mystery of the missing operative.

Her main contact is a brilliant engineer named Signe, an icey-eyed chain-smoker who’s busy dredging the city harbor of Voortyashtan with the hope of opening the Continent to trade.
Turyin must also contend with her former CO, General Biswal, an egotistical narcissist who reminded me of General MacArthur. Scientists have discovered a top-secret metal that acts as an electrical superconductor near Biswal's post, which he considers a distraction from the simmering conflict with the local tribes—a conflict he's determined to “win” at any cost.

Another interesting character is the local doctor and Provincial Governor, Rada, whose home is filled with taxidermied animals. “It’s as if all the fauna of the hillsides crept down her walls and suddenly found themselves frozen.”
Rada had a near-death experience and has embraced a local blacksmith-saint named Petrenko. She quotes the saint: “Time is a river and we are but blades of grass floating upon its waves.”

About midway through the book, the assassin-spy Sigrud, Shara’s assistant from the first book, arrives in Voortyashtan. Sigrud is trying to navigate politics and family life, and failing miserably at both, so he’s happy to help Turyin with her investigation.

One of the novel’s strengths is that the characters feel realistic. Turyin lost her hand in a battle and the author’s description of her putting on her prosthetic hand—the soft cotton undersleeve, the straps and buckles—feels authentic and lived-in. Similarly, her take on her life as a soldier is three-dimensional and true to her character:

“A true soldier does not take. A soldier gives.”
“And a blade isn’t a happy friend to a soldier but a burden, a heavy one, to be used scrupulously and carefully. A good soldier does everything they can so they do not have to kill. But if we have to, we will. And when we do that we give up some part of ourselves.”
“Killing echoes inside you. It never goes away. Maybe some who have killed don’t know that they’ve lost something, but they have.”
“You aren’t born this way. None of us are. We’re made this way. Over time. But we might be able to unmake some of what was done to us, if we try.”

We get to learn about Voortyashtan’s history along with Turyin as she searches for the missing operative. It quickly becomes apparent that paranormal remnants from the city’s war goddess—or perhaps the war goddess herself—factor into the operative’s disappearance. Then Turyin has disturbing visions of the Voortyashtan afterworld. We learn just enough that the reveal of the antagonist, the status of the war goddess, and the story’s conclusion feel inevitable yet surprising.

In addition to exploring the role of soldiers in war and the meaning of death, colonialism also influences the book’s plot. Turyin’s homeland was once cruelly oppressed and its people enslaved by Voortyashtan. An enigmatic character, Memory, says of this: “Chains are forged of many strange metals. Poverty is one. Fear, another. Ritual and custom are yet more. All actions are forms of slavery, methods of forcing people to do what they deeply wish not to do.”

I wasn't sure if Turyin would survive her ghosts or the many challenges and obstacles obstructing her journey—or survive at all. There are shocking deaths in the novel, and scenes of brutality, but nothing felt gratuitous or excessive. Every element of the novel, from the pacing to the plot, served the story. The book’s ending is heart wrenching, cathartic, and triumphant.
Beware: I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish City of Blades. If you’re looking for an immersive fantasy-mystery and page-turner, this book may be for you.

Read my review of City of Stairs, City of Miracles, and The Tainted Cup for more by Robert Jackson Bennett

Fiction: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennet

2/8/2025

City of Stairs is a murder mystery set in a fantasy world containing god-fueled magical artifacts. The story takes place in the ever-changing city of Bulikov. Parts of the city disappeared when the gods of the Continent were killed and some remaining patches aren’t fully in the current reality. There are many physics-defying elements, but the author does a good job helping the reader envision the strange setting.
The main character, Shara, is a wonderfully smart, capable, witty spy who wears over-sized glasses and drinks far too much tea. Her bodyguard-assistant, Sigrud, is a northern Dreyling, a giant, deeply scarred warrior-barbarian. All of the characters in the story have human foibles and faults but remain endearing.

The murder investigation is personal for Shara. She admired the dead professor, the only person who knows more about Continental religion than Shara herself. Her inquiry leads her to an old lover who’s embroiled in local politics. He invites her to a party, which is attacked by devotees of the most repressive of the old gods. The story, and the investigation, get more complicated from there—but the author’s expert pacing kept me engaged and turning pages to find out how Shara would unravel the next conundrum, and at no point was I unable to follow the storyline.

Shara is a fascinating character. She’s most empathetic with her assistant, Sigrud. The two of them are clearly a talented team, but he’s prone to violent solutions and doesn’t hesitate to recklessly risk his life. After one incident of mayhem, an appalled character questions his destructive methods. Shara says, “We all have our talents.”
We also glimpse her complicated relationship with her aunt, head of the spy agency, in their heated exchanges. She is more successful bantering with the local governor, Mulaghesh, a cigarillo-smoking, foul-mouthed, ex-soldier who longs to retire to an island. Shara’s ex-lover both attracts and repels her, for reasons that become more understandable as the story progresses.

There are interesting moments of reflection throughout the novel:

“The soul might be within the eyes, but the subconscious, the matter of their behavior, that is in the hands. Watch a man’s hands, and you watch his heart.”
“Envy the fire, for it is either going or not. Fires do not feel happy, sad, angry. They burn, or they do not burn.”
In Shara’s estimation, lists form one half of the heart of intelligence, the second half being patience. Most espionage work, after all, is a matter of collecting data and categorizing it . . . So whenever Shara is really puzzled by something, she takes her thoughts and sorts them, threshing them out like chaff from wheat, tunneling down and through her mind as she tries to wring truth from everything she knows . . .

The mythology of the novel hinges on gods created and sustained by their worshipers, who also influence thier worshipers. These Divinities “draw power from the hearts and minds and beliefs of a people. But that which you draw power from you are also powerless before.” As human ideas of the gods evolve, the gods themselves change to match those ideas—not always for the better.

By the end of the story, Shara puts everything together and solves the mystery. The closing scenes of the book both bring her story to a satisfying conclusion and set up the next phase of her life.
City of Stairs is the first of a trilogy of books. It’s a good choice for readers who enjoy fantasy mysteries, as it has strong elements of both, with mild romantic elements.

City of Blades continues the story and City of Miracles concludes the trilogy.
Also by Robert Jackson Bennett: The Tainted Cup

Fiction: City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett

Fiction: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

Fiction: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennet

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