A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark

Followers of this blog (and my other various postings around the internet) will note I'd mostly abandoned reading new books for quite a while. There was no particular intent to do so but, once observed, I felt little need to deviate from the pattern. New books - even those I'd been interested enough in to purchase - held little appeal compared to finding new and deeper meaning in the books I'd already read. But the other day, I decided I was ready to try something new and modern again. No sooner than I'd done so and listed some of the unread kindle books I owned than a gentleman of my acquaintance urged me to read A Dead Djinn in Cairo.

So I did.

A Dead Djinn in Cairo is, as best as I can, the first novelette from P. Djèlí Clark. It is set in, unsurprisingly enough, Cairo, in a never-was period in the early 1900s after a mad genius has breached the lines between realities, allowing djinn and other mythological creatures into our timeline. The result of said breach is a chaotic although in some ways improved world - Egypt is a world power but supernatural disturbances are common enough that Egypt requires special investigators in its Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities.

And the story opens with one of those special investigators, Fatma el-Sha’arawi, staring a djinn who has died in peculiar circumstances.

The best part of this is the worldbuilding. The world itself sounds simple enough - early 20th century Cairo with suddenly added supernatural elements - but the conceit crackles with power in Clark's hands. Almost every page (electronic format) is enlivened by some little detail, some half-formed image of this world. If Clark were to write a travel guide to his vision, I would read it.

Unfortunately, none of the other elements of the story here connected anywhere near as strongly with me. They weren't bad, but they weren't great either. The storytelling voice was sprightly and fun, but a little bogged down in exposition. Yes, I know that sounds like a contradiction. Perhaps better to say it was a tale of two styles - sprightly and fun in the narrative, but frequently losing that when switching to exposition, with the loss being more obvious for the contrast.  

The plot was gripping enough but as a mystery, it suffered a little for being obfuscated by the worldbuilding to begin with, and then suffered a little more for the shape of the plot becoming transparent a bit earlier than I'd have preferred. As a way of allowing the characters to show of their bad selves, I thought Fatma spent a bit too much time being led around by the nose and a bit too little making great jumps herself. These feel like harsh observations; there is, after all, only so much space to tell a story in a novella. But I felt what I felt.

With hindsight, I can't help but think that the worldbuilding that I enjoyed probably contributed to the parts I enjoyed less, because it took up a lot of page space. Clark lays out most of a fantasy conceit big enough to sustain a series here; of course he can't tell a convoluted or revolutionary detective story here. Having thought about it in these lights, I have no complaints. He went hard after a particular element and it created an entertaining story. That is more than enough.

All that said though - I am a lot more excited to see Clark's ideas in a novel sized format like his upcoming A Master of Djinn than I am to read another such shorter installment such as The Haunting of Tram Car 015.