Mayim de Vries's Reviews > City of Stairs

"Any miracle, no matter how subtle, always feels tremendously unsettling." And what is a good book if not a miracle of a prime quality? City of Stairs proves this theory. It is one of those books you need to digest before writing a review that will not consist of banalities. And one of those that have you inwardly screaming for more the moment you finish the last sentence.

The world is less about tsarist Russia meeting the opulence of an Indian continent (although it undeniably is quite a clash), the world Mr Bennett has created is all about history. The way it is created, the way it is remembered and recreated, the way it is forgotten, the way it is missed or hated. It is also about history that is forbidden.

The city knows. It remembers. Its past is written in its bones, though the past now speaks in silences."



Welcome to the city of Bulikov, once a seat of the world, presently under the yoke of occupation by its former colony - Saypur. Bulikov is a crumbling memory of itself, poor, damaged and bursting with bitterness. Saypur is at the firm apex of its power and maintains a careful imbalance of power where Saypur rules while the Continent remains at the very bottom of worldly affairs. Preferably even below the bottom. They have only one thing in common, that is hatred.

Saypur and the Continent hate one another, completely oblivious that each is now the product of the other."

Into this hate-ridden, history-oriented city comes an inconspicuous woman, one Shara Thivani, cultural ambassador of Saypur. In reality, she is Ashara Komayd, one of Saypur's best intelligence officers with a mission of solving a mystery behind the murder of a Saypuri historian, Dr. Efrem Panguyi. She is accompanied by a killing machine posing as her secretary, Sigurd.



Who is Shara really? An agent. A scholar. A brokenhearted woman. A niece to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. A descendant of the very person who overthrew continental hegemony by killing their divinities. This event constituted a starting point of the new era, and the Worldly Regulations, a set of laws forbidding to even mention any emanation of the divine, stands firmly as a guardian of this point of no return. But the past is still there.

"Behind this crumbling city is a hidden, mythic paradise, and one only has to scrape at a reality with ones fingernail to find it." And Shara pokes the reality with more than one finger in what is a superb blend of urban fantasy (those of you who showered The Gathering of Shadows with milky way of stars can see how misguided they were), heroic epos, and a mystery thriller. It is a great story, a tale with many beginnings, numerous versions, built on the current of events, back-stories of a colourful array of characters that morph and develop (and sometimes shed their skins) frequently flipping the tale upside down with breathtakingly paced twists.

In addition to the dazzling plot and the overwhelming richness of the Bulikov city-verse, I have to say that for a long time I have not been able to identify with the main protagonist the way I did with Shara. I smiled with her, and plotted with her, I was scared with her and felt her indignation. My heart was broken in the very same places that her broke to pieces. I kept reading until the small hours of the night and then I dreamt on about all of it.

City of Stairs is provocative, disturbing and unsettling and undoubtedly one of my best reads this year. I quaffed it like a sailor drinking whiskey and have the most pleasant case of a book hangover. Highly recommended.

Other Divine Cities:
2. City of Blades
3. City of Miracles