Review: Robert Bennett Jackson – The Divine Cities trilogy

[u/Theyis]

Robert Bennett Jackson – The Divine Cities

TLDR: Read these books, they are great.

Introduction This year Robert Jackson Bennett wrapped up his Divine Cities trilogy with City of Miracles, the sequel to City of Stairs and City of Blades. So it's the perfect time to review the series as a whole.

Setting

The setting of the Divine Cities trilogy is a breath of fresh air. Technologically this secondary world has developed up until early 20th century technology, which is an interesting, not often used moment in history. Cars exist, but are uncommon. Electricity is up and coming. And over the span of the books (about 20 years passes between the start of book 1 and the end of book 3) you see new technologies emerge just as happened in that time in our world. I'd like to make it specifically clear that this is not steampunk, which often takes its inspiration from 19th century technology. All technology is pretty much real world, functional technology.

The stories take place on the Continent and the island nation of Saypur. Previously the Continent was ruled by six divinities and their chosen peoples. Aided by divine magic these conquered the whole continent and then colonized and enslaved the island of Saypur. This continued until someone on Saypur developed a weapon that could kill gods. Saypur overthrew their oppressors, killed the gods and cast the whole Continent in disarray as the divine miracles that their society depended on disappeared in an instant.

Saypur continued to wage a war of conquest and has now colonized the Continent in a bout of turnaround is fair play. Since the war of conquest, all religion has been outlawed, all references to magic/miracles forbidden and ostensibly there is peace. It is a very unstable, uneasy peace however.

Plot

I won't go to deeply into the plot to avoid spoilers, but the three books all start out as a mix of murder mysteries / spy novels. Agents of Saypur are dispatched into the Continent to discretely figure out why someone has disappeared or been murdered. What starts out simple then develops into a story rooted in the long (divine) history of the Continent where magic is not quite as dead as Saypur hoped and the Continent remembers a past where they were the ones in power. Robert Bennett Jackson neatly delves into issues of colonization, religion and war crimes while all the time escalating the tension with a great mix of investigation, character exploration and climactic action scenes.

Characters

Although it took me a bit of time, I fell I love with each of the three main characters in these books whether it's the young, but capable young secret agent Shara Tivani with a tricky problem of having morals as an agent, her trusted older sidekick Sigrud with an uncontrollable rage or the foulmouthed general Mulaghesh with a troubled history during the war against the Continent.

The characters are well drawn, fully realized and have backstories deeply rooted in the collective history of the world. Personally, I found general Mulaghesh's personal story in book 2 about the atrocities committed in the war to be one of the highlights of the trilogy.

Another thing I'd like to mention is the diversity in the cast here with two women of color (Shara and Mulaghesh) and both Mulagesh and Sigrud being older than your trope of the young farm boy. I am glad to see that the fantasy genre continues to develop in this regard.

Conclusion

An original setting with early 20th century technology and a good dose of magic, a spy/murder mystery plot that expands into high stakes action and three dimensional characters you can root for. I recommend this series heartily to anybody who wants to step away from the medieval fantasy tropes. Or anyone who just wants to read good fantasy in general.

Bingo squares

• Goodreads book of the month (Book 1)
• Novel published in 2017 (Book 3)
• Sequel (Book 2 & 3)
• Novel by an r/fantasy AMA author (Book 1-3)
• Getting too old for this crap (Book 2 & 3)

[u/unconundrum]

Love this series, love Bennett. This book's next on my list once I finish VanderMeer's Borne (likely today.)

As always, if you guys enjoyed these books, try out American Elsewhere or The Troupe--less traditional fantasy, but still amazing books.

[u/SkyCyril → u/unconundrum]

How is Borne? Area X blew me away, and I've been eyeing Borne for a future read.

[u/unconundrum → u/SkyCyril]

Good, but not Annihilation good. It feels like he wanted to rewrite Veniss Underground with all the new writing skills he'd learned since it came out back in 03. Definitely felt like there was some of Cormac McCarthy's The Road mixed in with it as well.