City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

Shara Komayd, a Saypuri spy, and her accomplice Sigrud, a massive Dreyling of the north country, come to Bulikov to solve the murder of Dr. Nothing of the divine is left for them, and in the wake of the loss of everything that they knew and relied upon, the Continentals are now slaves to those they once ruled. In the vacuum of power that remained, came the Saypuri government, which has now overthrown their previous oppressors and censored the Continental’s history. But then the Kaj of Saypur found a weapon unlike any other and rose up and killed all the Divinities and their scattered miracles. With their divine help, the forces of the Continent conquered the known world, enslaved them, massacred them.

The Continent was the center of the world, and at it’s center the city of Bulikov, the City of Stairs, from which the six divinities ruled, provided for, and reigned over their people. Seriously, use that link, buy his books, and then come back and read this. And even though I wouldn’t say that Bennett writes like any one of these authors in particular, in reading this book I did find that he does have the chops to land himself in the same category of books as those storied authors: those of Books We Love.ĬITY OF STAIRS ( Amazon) is the first book in the Divine Cities series by Robert Jackson Bennett and has pretty much single-handedly put him on my list of favorite authors. Because, you see, there are authors that write decent books, and there are authors that write good books, and then there are authors that make you never want to miss anything else that they ever write.

Ugh, and I’m so regretting the fact that it took me this long. I’ve even bought two of this guy’s books at a second-hand store without even looking at the blurb since reading that review, but I just hadn’t worked any of them into my reading queue yet. Ever since I read Steve’s review of The Company Man. This is another one of those authors that I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time now.

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett