City of Stairs

Un premier tome très prenant, bénéficiant d'un univers riche et dense, avec une histoire qui revisite et se réapproprie pleinement tout un ensemble de codes de la fantasy. Dans un cadre où s'entremêlent développement industriel et restes de magie "miraculeuse", il s'agit d'une fiction chargée d'enjeux et de questionnements politiques. Elle est l'occasion d'aborder, dans le registre de la fantasy, les colonialismes et leurs héritages, les enjeux mémoriels et le rôle de l'Histoire, et également la question de la place des croyances et des religions instituées, offrant une déclinaison mythologique intrigante autour de divinités bel et bien incarnées façonnant mais aussi façonnées par leurs croyant·es. Débutant sous forme d'enquête suite à un meurtre particulier, l'histoire gagne peu à peu en tension, à mesure aussi qu'elle prend de l'ampleur. La narration est particulièrement bien servie par une tonalité où s'entremêlent et se succèdent pointes de cynisme, émotions sincères, humour noir et passages plus dramatiques. Un premier tome donc très efficace pour immerger les lecteur·ices dans cet univers. Le tome 2 - paru en VF cet automne - m'attend ! (À noter que les 3 tomes ont d'ores et déjà été publiés aux États-Unis.)

Remember the fantasy books you read in the eighties and nineties? Raymond E Feist, David Drake, maybe even David Eddings? That Baen Books fantasy feeling, basically.

Anyway, I feel like Bennet loved those growing up, but was like, "Man, those were kinda weird about women. And weirdly essentializing about race. I bet I could do better."

And he does! I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's definitely better.

I am getting around to writing this a month after reading it and returning it to the library, and I've already forgotten the names of the cities and civilizations, so skip if that's annoying to you.

The setup is, the nation of ... EasternEuropea used to dominate the globe, because the gods were literally on their side. Their gods lead them into war and granted them miraculous relics which bent reality. EasternEuropa colonized FakeIndiaStan and ruled its people with fear and violence. Then, about a hundred years ago, a leader rose in FakeIndiaStan, and developed a god-killing weapon. As the gods were killed, one by one, their relics and miracles lost their power, and the gods' followers were left stranded in a civilization that rested on a power that no longer worked. FakeIndiaStan turned around and colonized EasternEuropa, because at that this point, why not?

(Now, this is actually one of my major peeves with the book. I think this omits the real structural and generational trauma done by colonialism and subjugation. I don't think colonialism is really a force where you can just reverse polarity and keep going. But okay.)

So, this book starts when Shara, an official of FakeIndiaStan, is sent to Bulikov to figure out why the now godless city has murdered a quiet scholar sent to study the expired religion of the once ascendant continent. Shara is a pretty compelling character, and she comes with her own Viking murder-butler. The mystery is dumb because rugs don't work that way, but the parts of the world Bennet wants to explore are interesting, and the compelling part of the mystery, what happened to the gods? who were they, and why did they have an exclusive relationship with the people of EastEuropa? are explored, but not answered.

If you have fond memories of the authors mentioned at the beginning, give it a whirl. If you don't... i mean, no loss.

I quite enjoyed reading this book. The protagonist Shara and her companion Sigrud are mysterious and interesting. I especially liked the world building with the island nation of Saypur and the Continent (does it only remind me of Japan and China?). Saypur is apparently a high-tech nation with electricity and gunpowder while the Continent was formerly rich in magic but is not anymore and is therefore crumbling. The book starts out with a murder mystery, turns into a spy-thriller and finally it becomes a somewhat epic fantasy. The pacing is good, although sometimes I felt like the plot is doing too much and towards the end, it feels like the author just wanted to get the story finished.

There are several information dumps or long conversations simply explaining what is/was going on.

The book is written in present tense which felt a bit weird in the beginning.

But besides the somewhat clumsy info dumps there is only one thing I'd like to critique and that is how the story jumps from we're fighting against some human conspirators to the the appearance and killing of gods. Also Olvos came out of the blue - it was hinted at that she was still alive, but suddenly she's Shara's great grandma ... So -1 star for that.