City of Blades (The Divine Cities Book 2) by Robert Jackson Bennett
A generation ago, the city of Voortyashtan was the stronghold of the god of war and death, the birthplace of fearsome supernatural sentinels who killed and subjugated millions.
Now, the city’s god is dead. The city itself lies in ruins. And to its new military occupiers, the once-powerful capital is a wasteland of sectarian violence and bloody uprisings.
So it makes perfect sense that General Turyin Mulaghesh - foul-mouthed hero of the battle of Bulikov, rumored war criminal, ally of an embattled Prime Minister - has been exiled there to count down the days until she can draw her pension and be forgotten.
At least, it makes the perfect cover story.
The truth is that the general has been pressed into service one last time, dispatched to investigate a discovery. For while the city’s god is most certainly dead, something is awakening in Voortyashtan. And someone is determined to make the world tremble at the the city’s awful power again.
This is an ARC that I got at NYCC 2015. City of Stairs and the ARC of City of Blades were free giveaways. There was a long queue to have the author sign them. I was on the queue for 5-10 minutes when I realized that the line looped around and was much longer than I thought. Not wanting to be late for the Elementary panel (that was outside of the Javits Center at Hammerstein Ballroom), I left before the books were signed but I kept them anyway.
City of Blades is a great expansion of the world building that began in City of Stairs. I liked the plot surrounding the mythology and the missing person mystery. It also gets a touch philosophical and theological when it comes to an afterlife. With no afterlife what is the point of it all? If it's all just an accident what is there to look forward to?
Which brings me to the characters using the curse word "hell". There were other curse words used, but it wasn't as excessively overused as in The Tainted Cup. I also have stated in my reviews of his other books how I feel that our vulgar words are out of place in an other-worldly setting, so therefore, why are the characters using the word "hell?" What is "hell" in this fictional world? With no belief in an afterlife and the kind of afterlife that was fashioned in this mythology, what is "hell?" It shouldn't exist in this world building. The characters shouldn't even have the words "heaven" or "hell" in their vocabulary, so I have issue that it was used at all.
I know that was a big rant. I did start to skip over the word all together, but I want to make it known that while I did just make a big deal about it, the cursing didn't ruin the book for me. I otherwise really enjoyed it.
In particular the charter development.
General Turyin Mulaghesh, though flawed, was very likable because she had honor, her goal was to serve, and she believed in accountability. The PTSD was very well describe and handled well. It felt true to life.
Sigrud was Batman in City of Stairs. Now he became Jason Bourne. [Spoiler (click to open)]My heart just broke for him when he was grieving his daughter's death. What a gut punch when seeing her body in the morgue he was thinking back to her birth.
And Signe's death was so avoidable. A whole misunderstand and so not fair. But also so true to the realities of war. The fog of war.
Rada, I predicted she was not as she seemed and that her stutter was fake. I just didn't know the details of her corrupt plans.
Biswal was a war monger with wounded pride. I pictured him to look like Ray Stevenson playing Baylan Skoll in Ahsoka.
It all came together really well. What started as a missing person mystery grew into something with much more depth on philosophical and theological levels.
4 out of 5 Swords.
Favorite Quotes:
Page 31- But we forget another lesson of history when we do so: a slave will use any tool to escape their slavery, even those of their masters.
Page 69- Science is like a glacier: slow and indomitable. But it will get to where it's going.
Page 165- But seeing those memories in the thinadeskite mine-...-it was as if all the years since the March were just condensation on a pane of glass, wiped away with the flick of a hand, and on the other side was that ruined, scarred countryside, and she could not shut her eyes or look away.
Page 443- “You've always believed war to be a grand performance. But to me it's just killing, just the ugliest thing a person can ever do...So when you need to do it, there's no need to make a show of it.”
Page 481- "...Perhaps it is just that one who lives a life of war becomes a refugee from it."