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City of Bones

by Martha Wells (Goodreads Author)

3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 · rating details · 589 ratings · 56 reviews

In a place where an ancient holocaust devastated civilization and caused most of the world's water to evaporate, a new civilization has arisen--where sand ships cross the deserts between city-states, where bones are used to work magic of all kinds. Charisat is the greatest of city-states, the Imperial seat where your status is determined by how high up the tiers of the cit...more

Paperback, 488 pages

Published June 15th 1996 by Tor Fantasy (first published June 1995)

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Aug 12, 2007 Brownbetty rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: not-to-be-parted-from

A book that made me gleeful to read. Why? It's urban fantasy in an imagined casbah on a desolate world. It gives me a protagonist who's smart enough that when he's stupid, he'd really stupid. It teased me with the possibility of an mpreg (and you're going to have to trust me on this one) that made me think "neat!" rather than "ew." It was a mystery and and a romp at once, and half the mystery was the entire nature of their world. There were no helpless maidens, the villain was never certain, and...more

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Aug 07, 2012 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

I’m a big fan of a kinda-genre of literature I jokingly refer to as “anthropology-porn”. Whether it’s Colleen McCullough’s intimate portrayal of life at the end of the Roman Republic, or Walter M. Miller, Jr’s musings on the clash between faith and politics in a world struggling back from nuclear destruction, I love me some wallowing in the daily lives and exotic mores of places that were or could be in a universe next door to our own. My favorite Elric stories are those in which we catch (frust...more I’m a big fan of a kinda-genre of literature I jokingly refer to as “anthropology-porn”. Whether it’s Colleen McCullough’s intimate portrayal of life at the end of the Roman Republic, or Walter M. Miller, Jr’s musings on the clash between faith and politics in a world struggling back from nuclear destruction, I love me some wallowing in the daily lives and exotic mores of places that were or could be in a universe next door to our own. My favorite Elric stories are those in which we catch (frustratingly brief) glimpses of Melnibonean culture and Jacqueline Carrey’s exercise in alternative theologies are the icing on the cake of her exceptionally intriguing world-building.

So Martha Wells is, of course, one of my favorites. Just recently, I managed to get my hands on a copy of her second novel, City of Bones. It does not disappoint. The world described has been ravaged by an ancient cataclysm. The potent magics of the pre-cataclysm societies are a pale shadow of what they once were, and dangerous to use. Still, there’s wealth to be reaped from the cast-off rubbish and shattered treasures of the past.

Khat is an expert in finding and evaluating the relics of the ancient world, able to read some of the forgotten languages and discern forgeries. His partner is an impoverished scholar working to acquire enough cash to buy a place in the scholarly community. Unfortunately, both are foreigners in the city of Charisat, a town with a fairly thick streak of xenophobia in its culture. Even worse for Khat, he’s not even really human, but a race bioengineered by the wizards who’d survived the cataclysm in order to produce people who were adapted to live in a world ravaged by fire and poor in water.

Wells gives us a portrait of a culture clearly fashioned by its past. There are traces of what must have been before the cataclysm, surrounded by what has clearly been designed to allow humanity to survive in their ravaged world. And she does it gracefully; there are no blobs of tedious exposition or long lectures. Instead, the world is revealed in little things: how the characters treat one another, the architecture and the real-estate market, the value placed on water and all things pertaining to it.

This is the thing I really love about Wells’ work; her fantastical worlds are not trapped in amber, snapshots of a mere moment, but living and breathing and evolving and growing (or dying) places. We get that in spades in City of Bones, wrapped around mysteries that weave together current politics with the ancient past.

My main gripes about the book are on the outside, not the inside. The title, “City of Bones,” lead me to believe this was a book principally about archeology, in which the characters would be sitting in dusty holes in the ground painstakingly revealing skeletons and pottery shards to piece together clues about ancient events. It’s actually a book about intrigue, politics, theft, greed, and murder in which ancient events echo into the present. Most of the book takes place in Charisat, and Khat spends a lot more time scaling walls and ducking down shadowy alleys than he does out in the wilderness, and the book is stronger for it.

The back cover blurb is even worse, invoking a sort of phantasmagorical faux-1,001 Nights feel, with its mention of genies and “silken courtesans and beggars”. Other than taking place in a desert and a very light sprinkling of Egyptian myth, there’s nothing here for the orientalist. The book feels closer in tone to the pulp stories that informed the Warhammer 40k universe, with its blurring of technology and magic, and its order of ancient sorcerer-warriors struggling to hold the line against a seemingly unstoppable tide of entropy.

In fact, I’d heartily recommend you don’t read the back-cover blurb as it does a decent job of spoiling one of the central mysteries of the book. If you hunger for fantastical stories that don’t assume the bog-standard Tolkien-esque tropes of medieval Europe, you’ll best enjoy City of Bones by simply immersing yourself in what it is, and the world Wells has created.(less)

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Jul 25, 2012 N.K. Jemisin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book after reading Ms. Wells' more recent Books of the Raksura, and I think that made for an odd reading experience: I couldn't help seeing it as essentially proto-Raksura material. That's not a bad thing, since I loved the Raksura books, and this one has the same kind of clever-yet-hapless, fish-out-of-water protagonist; the same utterly alien yet believable worldbuilding; the same breathtaking sense of beauty and almost primordial danger in every landscape.

I loved loved loved the f...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

(Re-read.)

This was an early volume in Wells's fuzzily-defined "monsters from outside space and time are invading" series. It concerns a relic-hunter, a scholar, and a novice wizard in a city surrounded by the Waste. The Waste is what happened last time the monsters invaded; nearly the entire planet is uninhabitable. Don't let this happen to you, kids.

Anyway, some relics show up, and life gets tense in a way that it so often does around ancient magical artifacts. (In novels, anyway. To be fair, i...more

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May 19, 2011 Finny rated it 5 of 5 stars

I suppose I should start out by saying that I'm a very picky reader. In fact, I'm so picky that I resort to writing my own novels just so I can frolic in the worlds and situations I wish I could read about. (I hope that doesn't sound cocky or arrogant - it wasn't meant to be.)

So when I come across a book like this, I become overjoyed, and it remains on my shelf until the day I die.

I admit the only reason I picked up this book was because I heard it contains a "marsupial man." Now, I don't mind...more

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Nov 27, 2010 Jasmine Giacomo rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Yea verily, I have stumbled upon awesomeness, and I am heartily pleased. Martha Wells writes the sort of settings that I aspire to: those rich with detail and culture, so well-captured that you feel the dusty heat of the road rising up from the pages.

City of Bones is set in the towering city of Charisat, in the desert, at the fringe of what remains of humanity. Water is so scarce, it is used conceptually to represent wealth. The immensely wealthy have so much water, they have a pool just to drow...more Yea verily, I have stumbled upon awesomeness, and I am heartily pleased. Martha Wells writes the sort of settings that I aspire to: those rich with detail and culture, so well-captured that you feel the dusty heat of the road rising up from the pages.

City of Bones is set in the towering city of Charisat, in the desert, at the fringe of what remains of humanity. Water is so scarce, it is used conceptually to represent wealth. The immensely wealthy have so much water, they have a pool just to drown people in. They have plants and trees all over their grounds. The poor have trickling fountains where rent is paid by buying water for the day or week. Aside from any rent one might have to pay otherwise. The poor have dusty roads and ramshackle ruins to live and do business in. I was surprised there wasn't more corruption among the water talliers. Maybe they're all required to be nice old men who know when not to hang around and eavesdrop.

The main male character of the book is Khat, a non-human krisman from the Waste. He's got a few useful features that make him stand out to observant humans, as well as keep him alive in the monster-infested lava tubes of the Waste. An all-around useful fellow, Khat takes his lumps and uses his brains, and solves a few ancient mysteries as the book progresses. As a relic-dealer, he's got a more learned perspective on history and culture, and as an outsider, he brings unique views to his job and to the plot.

The main female character is a Warder named Elen. Supposedly weak in actual magic, she's labeled a whiz at political maneuvers and ninja moves. Sadly, neither of these made much of an appearance, and the rest of the time, she was awfully wilting-violet for a kick-ass heroine. Some of this was explained as a purposeful sabotage against her, and that was pretty cool, but I prefer my heroines to be full of awesome personality in some respect or another, and it took Elen the whole book to really discover who she was. This was great character development. But as a reader, I kept urging her to step out a little more than she did; couldn't shake the odd impression that she was pale with enormous, frightened eyes all throughout the book. Which is odd considering that the richest folk in the city (of which she was one) are supposed to be the darkest-skinned, due to their descendance from the Survivors, who had a lot more sun exposure (and a high interest in veils) in their past than the poor people who have to live in the shaded alleys and cul-de-sacs on the lower tiers of the city. More a mental projection on my part, I guess.

So, City of Bones. Where do the bones come in? Ohh, that was entertaining, and occasionally creepy. Burning bone fragments was supposed to reveal the future...but only if you burned the right sort of bone fragments. And creepiest of all, there is more than one interpretation of "right". I loved this part, although it felt a little too tenuous to get the book named after it.

On the flip side of the creepiness coin is the madness that using the Ancient magic can bring to the Warders. Everyone talked about this, and how people used to be executed after going mad, but that whole build-up throughout the story sort of petered out into a disappointment. No one even came close to going mad, and those who were already "mad" seemed to merely possess an alternate politico-magical point of view, as well as a few arcane details unbeknownst to our heroes. A letdown indeed after reading how Lois McMaster Bujold handled madness in her delightful The Curse of Chalion.

It was mentally entertaining to see this post-apocalyptic society, part of a network of trading cities based on water locations, and so fully enmeshed in ancient magic, reach out and embrace "ancient engines" and use steam power and air power for its wagons. It was like watching cyberpunk mesh with a scorched-earth Arabia. Clockwork fans FTW! (For the longest time, I kept trying to picture a circulating fan there, but eventually I realized it must be pendular in motion. Then I felt cool.)

Charisat and its culture were very solidly rooted in their history, and felt real and tangible in good ways. When the book approached the climax, however, the vagueness of the ancient engines exploded into the enemies' territory, and everything got a little psychedelic. They didn't all live in a jar of Tang, but it had that sort of unattached-to-any-reality flavor, and I prefer raspberry. I noted this same flavor in a later book, so I fear it is either a favorite of this author or a flaw in explanation, to present the otherworldly bad-guy plane as vaguely bizarre and leave it at that. If you're going to take me to another plane of existence, let's at least get the nickel tour, is all I'm asking. There was a lot of substance, with little explanation, and unverified information tends to leak right back out of my ears pretty quickly, when it's all made-up to start with.

I guess what I'm saying is that I just want to live in Charisat, where everything's made up and the points don't matter. Oh wait, that's Whose Line is it Anyway. Charisat is the awesome place with tiers, veils, Warders, water prices, and illicit coinage called "days". Sign me up!

Ms. Wells has the most awesome settings I've read in awhile, and they touch deep cultural levels, many-layered with meaning. For this awesomeness which I love to immerse my brain in and marinade overnight, I give this book four and a half of five stars. (less)

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Oct 18, 2012 Kagama-the Literaturevixen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I liked Martha Wells The Cloud Roads and decided that some day I would read her past books.

Khat the main character is an outsider in the city of Charisat,his people the krismen were created/genetically engineenered to survive in the harsh desert called the Waste.

This causes him to be treated like a second class citizen by many,luckily he has enough survival skills for people who wish him harm to think twice before they try anything.

But other people seek him out because of his skill as a relic hu...more

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Feb 16, 2012 heidi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook

Oh, I am so glad this book is now available. I missed getting it when it was in print, so the ebook saved me.

Much like Wheel of the Infinite, this is a second-world story with a super-interesting protagonist.

In a world that has been nearly-destroyed, the survivors cluster in cities separated by vast swathes of Waste. Only those foolhardy or bred to it venture out into it, and even then at great peril.

We follow two men who deal in the relics of the lost civilization before them, in a sort of gre...more

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Apr 15, 2010 Stephanie Ricker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

The last time I went to the library, I saw The City of Bones by Martha Wells, only I didn't know that was what it was. You see, when I was 10 (I think), I found a book about a golden, tiered city in a vast desert, with the most intriguing characters. It was one of my first fantasy books, and I was utterly enchanted with the idea of creating a completely new universe. I was a bit young for the book, though, and I think I put it aside, even though the images were hauntingly imaginative to my 10-ye...more

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Nov 19, 2011 Weasel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, science-fiction

4.5 stars. Good sf-nal fantasy. Would probably feel more fantasy to hard SF fans, but pretty much all the "supernatural" elements could be given SF explanations as part of post-apocalyptic world story. (Probably not meant to be our world though...) Enjoyable characters and world-building. Starts off a bit slowly, but picks up pace as it goes. The eventual alliances and betrayals are pretty obvious from the beginning, but only one of them gave me any real twinges of annoyance when the main POV ch...more

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Dec 12, 2012 Shara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The premise: ganked from BN.com: Charisat is a city at the Fringe of the Waste, a rocky and treacherous area of desolation formed more than a thousand years ago when a mysterious holocaust drained the sea and destroyed the flourishing civilization of the Ancients. It is a city which survives by trade, and its most valuable merchandise is relics, artifacts from the remains of the Ancient city that once occupied Charisat's present location. Relics are priceless, and in a city where living space is...more

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Jun 15, 2013 Kristi rated it 4 of 5 stars

A friend recommended I try this book, so I picked it up to read during my vacation. It's not the type of book I usually read, so it took me a little bit to get into the world the author creates. Once I got through a couple chapters, the characters really grew on me and I enjoyed watching the relationships develop. I'm holding out hope that there may be another book out there where Khat and Elen get the chance to try their luck at love with each other. Could just be the romantic in me. But this w...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Moonglum rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fantasy

This book combines the sort of science-fantasy Dying Earth/Viriconium style subgenere that I love with some amazing world building. You have ancient artifacts, an imaginary system of knowledge that is the current cultures' archeological understanding of the ancent, dead civilization, social strata, economics-- and all sorts of other goodness. At times I was troubled by the overly granular, not-so poetic prose, and somewhat simple characters, but by the end of the book things were so cool I didn'...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Mykl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Yesssss, a post apocalyptic novel: just my thing. Again great characters but in some ways the environment/city overtakes the story and not in a bad way. Also great job of exploring the main characters experience of being a loner in general and in reality of being the only one of his kind in the city. Not to mention the actual value of his bones on the black market! Not sure how much the time traveling aspect added to the story, but very well written overall.

I like that magic exists but does not...more

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Apr 04, 2009 Lisa H. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

City of Bones is set in long-post-apocalypse Charisat, where the city's eight levels divide the haves from the have-nots and water instead of gold is the currency by which most trade is conducted. Khat, a young krismen (a minority race created through genetic modification by the scientist-magicians of the Ancients - the technologically sophisticated, pre-apocalypse culture), is a skilled relic hunter who draws the unwanted attention of the city's Warders - magically-trained protectors of the rul...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Nick Fagerlund rated it 4 of 5 stars

Man I love this book. It’s like, an Indiana Jones-eqsue fantasy noir adventure? It’s pulpy adventure with good characters and a vivid-as-hell setting. And scary ghosts. And the protagonist is an artificial marsupialoid semi-human, and and and. The point is, it’s awesome.

Wells has been self-publishing her backlist back into print, and you can get a DRM-free ebook of CoB for like three bucks, so just do it. Leave it on your phone, and open it up later when you’re stuck waiting for something.

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Jul 21, 2008 Melissa Proffitt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, fantasy, favorites

Martha Wells' second book is excellent and also shows the potential she proves herself to have in later books. My favorite thing about her writing is her creation of unusual fantasy worlds--in this case, a postapocalyptic wasteland populated by city-states surviving on the habitable fringes. But it's not *our* world this setting comes from, and the apocalypse happened not because of human corruption, but as a response to what can only be called an alien invasion. Khat is a member of a race that...more

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May 26, 2013 Rose rated it 4 of 5 stars

Magic and archeology--for me, it's a winning and unusual combination in a novel. In this fast-paced and fun book, with a well-fleshed-out setting, an antiquities dealer and a scholar attempt to discover the meaning of some strange ruins and save the world in the process. The book is light and fun, the characters likeable. I only was disappointed that the book wrapped up a little quickly for my taste.

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Jan 04, 2010 Antonio Williams rated it 5 of 5 stars

It’s hard for me to pick between this novel and "Wheel of the Infinite" as my favorite of works by this author. "Wheel..." holds a special place because it was my "first" in some ways. But this novel kept me constantly intrigued by the ideas and setting. The "love" story part was very well written. And the novel ends on a satisfying, non-sappy note. I hope Wells goes back to writing her stand-alone novels because they are the ones I'm going back to and thinking about.

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Aug 21, 2012 Stephen Kerwin rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book! Martha Wells gets better and better. Her characters seem real, they have many sides. You see their strengths and their weaknesses. They have a sense of humour which lightens the book but the intrigue keeps you hooked. I'm amazed at how this fantasy world has been transferred from Wells' mind to the pages of the book in a way that you actually live there with the characters.

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Jan 02, 2012 Aaminah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: moments-of-brilliance, meh

The depth of world building here was really good, but there were some problems getting it across. Felt quite puzzled a lot of the time, quite a few infodumps and some descriptions so weird as to jar me out of the story eg. Paraphrased 'A sky so blue it would melt you if you touched it'

It was alright and it was good to get that much detail in one novel instead of signing up for the long haul of an epic series.

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Feb 17, 2013 Rich Rosell rated it 2 of 5 stars

Kind of disappointed. Actually very disappointed. While I enjoyed the world-building aspects of Martha Wells post-apocalypse universe I thought the story was glacially paced and dull. For me this was one of those "I keep reading and I don't seem to make any progress" sort of books, and when the idea of reading this became more of a chore than something I wanted to do I knew there was trouble.

As a selection for our book club I gave more time/attention to City of Bones than I would have had it bee...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Corvidae rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: random-books-from-used-book-stores

This one-off book blew my mind. It is SO well written, COMPLETELY original and colorful and unique. Very short, but the characters are so well-rounded I identified with all of them immediately. I have since gone off to read as many Martha Wells books as I can get my hands on.

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Jan 04, 2011 Allen rated it 5 of 5 stars

The world-building was fantastic - a very original setting drawn from a mix of real-world inspirations. In some ways, the city itself stole the show from the protagonists. Good character development and plot. Such an alignment of the holy trinity of fantasy is uncommon.

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Jul 20, 2012 Laylah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-other

Wow that was satisfying. Rich world, engaging characters, and a resolution that I liked both for what it did and for what it didn't do -- this was my first try with this author but will definitely not be the last.

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Jul 04, 2011 mybluesunset added it

I said this book was "very good but forgettable" the first time I read it, which was in the beginning of 2009. I do remember some intriguing tidbits from it, as well a slight offputting vibe. Hmm.

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Mar 20, 2010 Evan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Evan by: Krystin

Shelves: fantasy

Fun, easy, and quick fantasy read. Derivative of Dune in places. The author's weakest point is her dialogue; it is too often stiff and contrived. Spots read as though the author's style hasn't really come together yet, being somewhat immature and inconsistent in quality of writing. Still a fun book.

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Nov 04, 2011 Sandi rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-fantasy-horror-althistory, read-2011

The search for ancient relics propels the plot in this fantasy novel that had all the elements for a really good read but the over description of every little detail of the setting ultimately made this a bit of a chore to get through.

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Jun 23, 2011 Efseine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

It lacked the sort of traction that makes me gulp down a book in one sitting, but I found both the setting and the plot quite innovative, and I greatly enjoyed the reading experience.

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Jul 23, 2012 Jennifer Addington rated it 4 of 5 stars

I too was suprised by this story. I found it hard to put down, and enjoyed all the characters. After a long dryspell, its nice to happen upon a good fantasy story.

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About Martha Wells

Martha Wells is the author of fourteen SF/F novels, including Wheel of the Infinite, City of Bones, The Element of Fire, and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer. She has a fantasy trilogy: The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods, currently out in paperback. Her most recent fantasy novels are The Cloud Roads (March 2011), The Serpent Sea (January 2012), and The Sire...more

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Books by Martha Wells

The Cloud Roads (Books of the Raksura, #1)

The Serpent Sea (Books of the Raksura #2)

The Wizard Hunters (The Fall of Ile-Rien, #1)

The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rien, #2)

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