The Divine Cities by Robert Jackson Bennett

[AncalagonTheBlack]

I'm surprised this series didn't have it's own topic,being popular with the crowd here.The final book in the trilogy came out yesterday and i've yet to receive my copy.For the time being please use spoilers.

From wiki:

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The Divine Cities is a trilogy of fantasy novels by the American writer Robert Jackson Bennett. It consists of the novels City of Stairs (published 2014), City of Blades (2016) and the forthcoming City of Miracles (2 May 2017).

City of Stairs was a finalist for the 2015 World Fantasy, Locus and British Fantasy Award.

 

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The New York Times highlighted the novel setting of City of Stairs, evoking "czarist Russia and Mughal India" rather than medieval Europe, as "what makes the whole thing worth reading", while considering the espionage plot and the characters less interesting. Strange Horizons likewise appreciated the complex worldbuilding for its "coherency [and] completeness that precious few fantasies can match", as well as the conflicted, nuanced characters of the "masterfully balanced and tremendously tense text". NPR's reviewer noted the novel's slow start, but considered the "original and unique" setting and the main characters' "modernist magnetism of a post-feminist Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" to make up for that.

The sequel, City of Blades, subverts readers' initial expectation of a narrative retread, according to Tor.com, whose reviewer highlighted the novel's "standout" protagonist, who as "an older woman with a significant disability (...) carries the entire narrative single-handedly". NPR considered the sequel to be the more accomplished novel for being less weighed down with exposition but no less rich or realized, and perhaps the better point of entry to the series. Kirkus Reviews described the sequel as "more somber in tone", and as "sometimes too talky but richly detailed and expertly plotted. A grand entertainment".

 

[banjax451]

The first two books were utterly brilliant. Eagerly looking forward to the third. I wish they got more attention than they seem to.

[williamjm]

I thought the first two books were excellent, I'll probably try to get the third book and read it sometime this month.

[Darth Richard II]

Should be starting book 3 tonight. Love these. There was someone on this forum who thinks they're the worst books ever written though I can;t remember who.

[Little Valkyrie]

I hated the last 10% of the first one so much it retroactively ruined the rest of the book, does that count?

[Darth Richard II]

No, there's someone, and my mind is completely blanking on who, who haaaated it in the monthly reading threads.

 

Like, I mean hated it to the point were he/she thought all the recommendations were Stanek level jokes posts.

[End of Disc One]

That sounds like something Peterbound would say, but I don't know what he thinks about the Divine Cities.

[brunhilda]

I loved #1. I moderately liked #2. Not sure I'm going to bother with #3. Waiting for everyone else to read it first.

[unJon]

15 hours ago, brunhilda said:

I loved #1. I moderately liked #2. Not sure I'm going to bother with #3. Waiting for everyone else to read it first.

Just finished. Enjoyed the trilogy. I think #3 was closer to #1 in terms of style and plot so would recommend you try it. Sigurd is the main POV character though there are others also. 

Like #1 I think it suffered a bit from exposition of metaphysics late in the book. Parts also reminded me of Acts of Caine, which I also enjoyed. 

[Darth Richard II]

That was emotional. God damn.

[D_P]

I've only read City of Stairs but it came from nowhere and blew me away.  It began, literally, as a stop gap.  I picked it up because I had a mostly empty ereader.  The last one busted and I had limited time to add a few books as I left for vacation.  It was the ONLY one of the 5 or 6 I added to it that I knew next to nothing about.  It was a tremendous read made even better because I loved Shara Komayd.

The structure of the series, using Mulaghesh and Sigurd as POV's, gave me pause and is probably why I have yet to continue but I am certain I will get around to them; especially since the series is now complete(?)

[AncalagonTheBlack]

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett.To be published in August by Crown (North America) and Jo Fletcher Books (UK).
 

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In a city that runs on industrialized magic, a secret war will be fought to overwrite reality itself–the first in a dazzling new fantasy series from City of Stairs author Robert Jackson Bennett.
 
Sancia Grado is a thief, and a damn good one. And her latest target, a heavily guarded warehouse on Tevanne’s docks, is nothing her unique abilities can’t handle.
 
But unbeknownst to her, Sancia’s been sent to steal an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that could revolutionize the magical technology known as scriving. The Merchant Houses who control this magic–the art of using coded commands to imbue everyday objects with sentience–have already used it to transform Tevanne into a vast, remorseless capitalist machine. But if they can unlock the artifact’s secrets, they will rewrite the world itself to suit their aims.
 
Now someone in those Houses wants Sancia dead, and the artifact for themselves. And in the city of Tevanne, there’s nobody with the power to stop them.
 
To have a chance at surviving—and at stopping the deadly transformation that’s under way—Sancia will have to marshal unlikely allies, learn to harness the artifact’s power for herself, and undergo her own transformation, one that will turn her into something she could never have imagined.

 

[kairparavel]

So I should give Blades a second chance because Miracles is really good? I loved Stairs a lot.

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, kairparavel said:

So I should give Blades a second chance because Miracles is really good? I loved Stairs a lot.

I liked all three of them, although I thought Stairs was the best of them. I think the three books all take a different approach to telling the story so disliking Blades doesn't necessarily mean you wouldn't like Miracles, Stairs feels like a spy story in a fantasy setting whereas Blades is more of a war novel and Miracles felt like a bit of a Western at times.