Sigrud lives

Bit late writing this one up, since I technically finished Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Miracles yesterday. But since I wanted nothing more than a nice nap when I got home yesterday....

Anyway, this supposedly being his final book in the Divine Cities trilogy, I found it was less of a trilogy and more like a musical Rondo, as this book returns to many of the themes and scenes as the first book after a completely different second installment.

We start by meeting Sigrud in a logging camp several years after the events that ended City of Blades. What brings him out of his self imposed exile is news that Shara (former Prime Minister of Saypur, hero of City of Stairs, Sigrud's mentor) has been assassinated in Bulikov.

Sigrud takes it upon himself to find Shara's killer and bring justice to him. Which honestly happens fairly quickly, except for the fact that finding the killer leads him further into a much deeper plot involving things Aunt Vinya did prior to the start of the series, and indeed things that date back to the time before the Blink, when the Divinities died.

On the bright side, Mother Mulaghesh shows up a few times, now serving as opposition party leader in the Upper house of Saypur's parliament.

Much of what the plot revolves around in the idea that the divinities had children, either with each other or with mortals...leading to complications in the modern age, since Jukov, the trickster, made the children forget their divine heritage in order to protect them when the Divinities died. As such, one of the children, Nokov, the embodiment of the First Night, who was also tortured by Aunt Vinya in her misguided attempt to give Saypur a Divinity,  is running around, finding his Divine siblings and cousins and essentially eating them to become a full fledged Divinity.

It takes much of the book for the full scope of everything to become clear, most of which is Sigrud coming to terms with his own checkered past, and his remorse over the death of Signe, his daughter in the last book. Along the way, we find out what actually happened to him in the prison he was in before Shara rescued him and the greater meaning of the miracle that scarred him.

Along the way, we get exciting chase scenes, including an extended run along a fast moving people mover suspended by cables over the snow covered mountains.

Several themes get revisted here, the biggest of which seems to be Sigrud's personal "It's easy to find a cause to die for, it's much harder to find one to live for." We also get "How do we end the endless cycle of of pain inflicted upon each generation?" and "What exactly is Divinity?"

Phenomenal book. Phenomenal Series.

Opening the 19th Aethyr

So, we return to new material with Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Blades. Which, honestly, wound up being a very heavy road to plod through, but the effort was well rewarded by the journey.

We open with General Turyin Mulaghesh, last seen during the battle of Bulikov,  enjoying a rather depressing retirement in Saypur, spending her days drunk on fish wine and generally trying to forget everything. As it happens, Shara, whom we met last time around, who is now Prime Minister, manages to convince Mulaghesh to go back out on an errand on the Continent again to investigate mysterious goings on. That she uses blackmail to get the General off her island shouldn't matter that much. (Something about not having the time in for a General's pension, therefore she must go "tour" Voortyashtan until her term of service is up.)

Of course, while she's in Voortyashtan, if she can check up on what's going on with a missing operative and figure out whether or not the miraculous thinadeskite has some sort of Divine nature to it... Well that would just be swell, wouldn't it?

Upon arrival in Voortyashtan, Mulaghesh winds up staying with the Dreylings rebuilding the harbor, since the fortress built by Saypuri forces isn't considered particularly safe. The Dreyling construction site is overseen by Signe, the rather estranged daughter of Sigurd, also last seen in the Battle of Bulikov. The Saypuri are overseen by General Biswal, whom Mulaghesh served under suring the battle of the Yellow River. The Continental overseer, Rada, also has connections with Mulaghesh, since Rada was buried in rubble after the battle of Bulikov and Mulaghesh's soldiers saved her from the rubble. Rada dies healing work as well as taxidermy in her spare time.

Thinadeskite, it seems, is a wonderful conductor of electricity, not losing charge as electrons travel it. Indeed, it seems to gain extra power when electricity travels its path. So what if those who have killed get visions of Voorta's soldiers doing her work while in the mines? For that matter, when Mulaghesh has a vision of Voorta herself using Her sword to destroy the mine, who cares?

All of this leads Mulaghesh digging deeper into Voorta's mythos, made more difficult by the fact that unlike Bulikov, the Voortyashanis don't particularly miss their Divinity. Voorta was the first killed by the Kaj many years ago, so how is she reappearing?

Oh so much to go through here! Voorta was the first Divinity to create an afterlife, mainly to encourage her followers to fight on her behalf. To do so, she became lovers with the Goddess of life, and then split apart from her. (I kind of wish there was more than fragmentary information on that myth in here, since the story is one of the best in here.) The Voortyashanis warriors believed that they would go to the City of Blades upon death, awaiting the night when they shall return and destroy the world.

In the mean time, we get more information on the Battle of the Yellow River, wherein Mulaghesh's company got separated from the army, wound up behind enemy lines, and wound up burning the supply lines to win the war. As Mulaghesh remembers more, we begin to see the atrocities committed by said company.

And we get a really stunning dichotomy of what it means to be a soldier from Mulaghesh and Biswal. I'm sure older readers will read it as allegory to Vietnam, where as some of us younger folks will undoubtedly see Afganistan and Iraq reflected here. Even though in the end, the location matters little.

This volume is less heavy on the spy craft than the progenitor, but it honestly has much more things to say about humanity than Divinity than the first.

Really, I almost feel like digging up Piers Anthony's Wielding a Red Sword now as another vision of the meaning of war, but that would inevitably wind up with me reading all 8 Incarnations of Immortality again.

As a side note unrelated to this particular book, I have two more new books in my TBR pile. The issue I'm now running in to deals with the Main library being closed for a large remodel (they re-open in June) and the branch I've been frequenting in the interim getting ready to close next week to build a new location. (That branch has needed it for quite some time.) The problem being that this leaves me without really ready access to a library where I can wander the stacks looking for something to catch my eye. Also, the library's recommended lists that I used to get monthly no longer seem to be appearing at the same rate, and indeed, certain newsletters have stopped appearing at all. This does mean that re-reads will get reviewed on here more often as I try to catch up on stuff on the shelf.

That's a lot of cardio

I actually finished Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Stairs a few days ago, but I was on vacation and trying to type a review on a tablet didn't seem like the best idea ever.

There's a heck of a lot going on in here, and much of the setting details get dumped early on.

Basically, in this world, there is a continent that once upon a time enslaved the island nation of Saypur. However, a man known as the Kaj rose up and slew the gods of the continent, and the roles sort of reversed. Saypur now controls the continent and enforces strict rules about what people are and are not allowed to study under the Worldly Regulations. The theory being that the less the continentals are allowed to display of their now deceased gods, the less they'll attempt to subjugate Saypur again. The continent is still divided into districts based on the Gods that one built them, with Bulikov at the center of it all. Bulikov, once the Seat of the world, remains fairly backwards as compared to other districts. We hear of the Blink, when all the godly miracles  vanished, causing much of the continent to contract, and The Plague Years when plagues prevented by the divinities suddenly came roaring back.

As we start forth in this world, we get an idea of how this system works in a trial setting as a Continental merchant defends himself in court against charges of violating the Worldly Regulations by putting a symbol of one of the dead divinities on his door. His trial is interrupted with the news of the murder of Dr. Efrem Pangyui by persons unknown. Dr. Pangyui, of course, being a Saypuri historian with unfettered access to the histories of the divines and their miraculous objects.

Into this hornet's nest walks Shara and her secretary Sigrud. Shara is a descendant of the Kaj, and in service to the Saupuri Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Which is to say, she's a spy. Sigrud, on the other hand comes from a nation that has descended into piracy and lawlessness following the coup of their king.

Shara starts her investigation by getting back involved with an ex-schoolmate of hers, a Bulikovian City Father named Vohannes Votrov who's currently trying to modernize Bulikov, against the wishes of the Restorationists, who want everything back the way it was. Shara and vo have a bit of history together, given they were romantically involved in school, although his interest lay in his own gender for the most part. Vo also wants Saypur to stop oppressing the continent and to invest in it. What follows delves into the relationships between nations, the nature of the divinities, and one whole heck of a lot of fun as some miracles still work, what's left of the divine makes its presence known, and a beast with Hell for its stomach makes an appearance.

Ultimately, the author tips his hand a few chapters early with the solution to one of the major mysteries, but the big one at the center is well hidden until the very end. The cast is well drawn, and as motives become clear, it becomes amusing at how muddy the waters really are in this world.

Much of the book is written in present tense, which becomes less noticeable as the book picks up steam.

I think Goodreads lists at least one more in this series, which I'll have to find before too long. It's well worth picking up if you're into some grnd mystery hiding in a whodunit.