The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

This is a story about two very different young people with one key trait in common. Nahri survives the slums of Napoleonic era Cairo thanks to guile, amoral pragmatism, and a drop of supernatural talent. Ali is a prince of a tribe of Djinn, a future soldier with high-minded and inflexible ethics. And the key trait in common is that when Nahri arrives in Daevabad, heralded as the secret heir of a lost family, neither is remotely equipped to deal with the ensuing political mayhem.

City of Brass wears its membership of the trad portal fantasy community proudly on its sleeve and therefore the devil here is in the details. One of these is the Middle Eastern and Islamic provenance of its world. I am not tired of the traditional style of worlds, but I am hungry for new mythologies and that's the main reason I picked this book up from the library. I don't know how faithful or inventive Chakraborty's version is, but I do know its very well done in the sense of an enthralling setting.

S.A. Chakraborty does a lot of things well. In particular and most crucially, she handles depicting characters who are a bit on the douchecanoe side in a way that makes them interesting while not flinching away from their darker aspect. Judging from reviews, I get the feeling a lot of readers would prefer her to be more condemnatory of certain character choices. Personally, I think that would have made them less interesting, and possibly undermine the way her trilogy will develop.

The other key part that she had to execute and did was the political aspect. Its easy for an author to get lost when showing multiple threads and giving the reader information that the characters don't have - or for the author to make the characters look like idiots. Chakraborty did neither of those things, but instead make a tense page turner that helped reveal the finer details about her characters and world.

Unfortunately, it takes a while to get to this stage and here I have to talk about the crucial flaw that nearly ruins the book - pacing. The stage setting for both characters arriving in Daevabad takes way too long and doesn't add enough for what it does. The fury of the ending then accelerated the book's pace once I'd got used to it and happy with it. This detracted significantly from my enjoyment.

There is another issue I have to highlight before ending the review and that goes back to world-building. There's a lot of complaints on Goodreads about how well the book represents Islam. That's not my wheelhouse but I can confirm there's not a lot of Islam in the book - influence from the culture of Islam's cradle, but not the religion itself. If anyone is reading this review and that matters to them, I'd suggest finding some more reviews from people who know more. Caveat Emptor.

If you're just looking for a fantasy story however, then step this way. City of Brass has flaws, its true, but what it does it does very well. It reminds me of a more straight forwards version of Guy Gavriel Kay. Its not recommended for anyone looking for their next high-paced action fix, nor anyone desiring heroes that are mostly admirable, but for most other fantasy readers - its worth a look.