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The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy, #1)

S.A. Chakraborty

Start date: December 15, 2017

Finish date: January 15, 2018

Discussion: DEC/JAN: The City of Brass

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DEC/JAN: The City of Brass

What are your favorite stories featuring djinns?
By Den of Geek · 5 posts · 60 views

last updated Jan 23, 2018 05:23AM

Interview w/ S.A. Chakraborty
By Den of Geek · 1 post · 25 views

last updated Jan 05, 2018 11:41AM

What Members Thought

Aug 29, 2019 Phoebe S. rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy

This was definitely a slow burn for me. I don't necessarily think it was because it was a bad book and I think it's more because it's not necessarily the type of fantasy I like best. Still, there's much to like about it. It essentially is about a world where djinn have kingdoms that live alongside human ones.

The worldbuilding per se is great, and you can definitely see that Chakraborty is dedicated to making it feel as realistic as possible. She incorporates bits of Arab and Persian culture, esp This was definitely a slow burn for me. I don't necessarily think it was because it was a bad book and I think it's more because it's not necessarily the type of fantasy I like best. Still, there's much to like about it. It essentially is about a world where djinn have kingdoms that live alongside human ones.

The worldbuilding per se is great, and you can definitely see that Chakraborty is dedicated to making it feel as realistic as possible. She incorporates bits of Arab and Persian culture, especially insofar as Zoroastrianism is concerned (if, by some unlikely chance, you are Zoroastrian and take offense to being called a "fire worshipper," that's a word used a lot in the book. It's noted that the tribe that practices the ritual which looks Zoroastrian in aesthetic dislikes this and considers it offensive, but it's still there A LOT).

Speaking of the tribes of djinn (there are six, created in a sort of Tower of Babel moment after the curse of the prophet-king Sulieman/Solomon, where the original one race was divided and the language confused), the concept was neat, but the execution seemed to be wanting. The book has the potential to be so expansive and it felt comparatively narrow. Even in Daevabad, the setting of the later acts of the work, the main characters are only from two or three of the six tribes.

That being said though, the characters we do get are interesting, and the story, while it takes an agonizingly long time to get underway and could potentially handle some of its exposition better, is richly complex, with loyalties intermixing and shifting like a kaleidoscopic tapestry.

The magic is there. but it's usually understated, similar to the works of Guy Gavriel Kay, and it's easy to see this book's historical fanfiction routes. Indeed, the journey-plus-palace intrigue style of the book really seems similar to Sailing to Sarantium. That's not to say either book is bad. I liked them both just fine, and they're definitely more than average. They're just not quite my favorites, but I do want to see what happens, and I wouldn't mind reading another book on a really well-crafted world, even if it does take me a while to slog through. Indeed, based on The Kingdom of Copper's jacket summary, it may even remedy some of what I found lacking in this book.

Definitely check this book out. Slow burn or not, you'll relish the world and characters S.A. Chakraborty has created. ...more

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