Fiction: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

     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