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City of Blades
Feb. 12th, 2016 02:37 pm
A chance to revisit the world of Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities with City of Blades a follow-up to City of Stairs. In the five years since the first novel, General Turyin Mulaghesh, former Polis Governor of Bulikov, has resigned her position an military liaison and retired to the tropical island of Javrat, where she has taken to drowning her bitterness in alcohol. But when Ashara Komayd, still just about clinging on to her position as Prime Minister of Saypuri, sends an emissary with a job offer, Mulaghesh reluctantly agrees to take on one last job.According to Shara, a Saypuri agent was dispatched to the city of Voortyashtan to investigate the discovery of a new metal which appears to exhibit miraculous properties; unfortunately the agent vanished without trace, leaving Shara in need of someone more discreet — and discrete from Saypur — to look into the problem. Enter Mulaghesh, who can be dispatched to Voortyashtan under the cover of needing to carry out one last tour of duty to boost her pension. Better still, Mulaghesh has history with the local garrison commander: General Lalith Biswal was her commanding officer during the still-controversial Summer of Black Rivers campaign of their youth.
Arriving in the city, Mulaghesh finds it a hive of activity: the entrance to the harbour, which had been clogged with the remnants of the old city, is rapidly being cleared by the Southern Dreyling Company under the direction of its charismatic CTO, Signe Harkvaldsson. This in turn has raised tensions between the various local clans, some of whom see themselves being cut out of the new trade routes when the port finally opens up new routes into the heart of the Continent, requiring General Biswal to rule with a firm hand — backed by the constant threat of the seige guns he keeps pointing at the city at all times.
When Mulaghesh insists on inspecting the mines where the mysterious metal was discovered, she receives a vision from the past: a Sentinel, one of the elite soldiers of Voortya being chosen by the God of Battle. And when Mulaghesh finds herself assisting with an investigation into a series murders up-country — murders which bear all the ritual hallmarks of the ritual executions carried out by the Sentinels — she starts to believe that, despite the near-concrete certainty that Voortya is dead, killed in the war with the Kaj some sixty years ago, someone has found a way to tap into the power of the God.
City of Blades finds Bennett playing with expectations established in first novel, paralleling many of the plot elements. Thus the main character, an unlikely-seeming outside investigator, is introduced by Pitry Suturashni; the investigator is at the mercy of a political master in Ghaladesh; and the investigator is backed by a powerful local ally — Vohannes Vortrov in the first book and Signe Harkvaldsson in the second. The plot also follows a similar arc, with the investigator looking into the affairs of a predecessor — Shara investigating the death of Efrem Pangyui and Turyin investigating the disappearance of Sumitra Choudhry — both of whom have left a raft of cryptic clues behind them.
But the book is no simple retread of its predecessor. The setting is original and the characters are very different: not least because Mulaghesh, despite the loss of her left arm in the Battle of Bulikov, is extremely willing to do her own arse-kicking. Her history with General Biswal is fascinating, not least because it quickly becomes clear that, whatever the pair's shared history early in their respective careers, their responses to that history have sent them in very different directions. As Mulaghesh memorably notes at one point, war and combat for her are a necessary but appalling ugliness, a thing to be got over and done with as quickly as possible; but for Biswal who, despite his seniority, actually has less real combat experience, war is a game, a grand performance, a thing of honour and show, making him feel conscious of his position when faced with someone as distinguished as Mulaghesh, leading him in turn to commit serious errors of judgement.
The ultimate resolution of the book is finely judged, closing off the story in a way that stays true to the system of magic established by Bennett across both novels whilst also keeping to the spirit of General Turyin Mulaghesh and her view of the world. If anything City of Blades might be better — more subtle, more humane — than its predecessor. And like its predecessor, it ends on a note of hope: yes, appalling things may have happened and many people may have died, but ultimately the world is in a better state than it was at the beginning, with Shara Koymayd and her allies posed to be able to improve it yet further.
