City of Stairs

This book was a bit of a slow starter, but it is well worth getting through the first couple of chapters for the brilliant exploration of race, religion, culture, and SPOONS!

I feel like shouting “Spoons! You're spoons!” at people randomly on the street though.

I should start by talking about the story, I suppose. The premise of the world is one of my favorites, “What if God not only existed, but walked among us as undisputed fact?” Except in this case it's “Gods” and by the way their dead now and everything they ever built which this society depended on for day to day life disappeared along with them. This is a society not only built around the worship of its deities but on regular, dependable, deity-powered miracles, deity-constructed buildings, and deity-provided sustenance.

That, however, is half the story. Because this society also had deity-approved slavery, and that just never ends well. This novel tells the story of Shara Komayd, a member of the formerly enslaved Saypuri, now an independent nation occupying the Continent. Shara and her Viking manservant, Sigrud, are investigating the death of a professor of continental studies when everything around her goes to hell and she ends up investigating deeper into the dead, (or in some cases missing) divinities than she ever expected.

It's a good story, and well worth the read just for a the mystical intrigue Bennett creates.

Step back a bit, though, and let's appreciate the world for the unique diversity represented.
1. A culture occupied by former slaves, both of whom now exist as morally questionable entities.
2. A sincere, honest, and utterly platonic friendship between a woman and a man.
3. Women in just about every position of power, and this is accepted among pretty much everyone except one set of old school devouts.
4. A bisexual male character honest about his own inclinations and vocal about what growing up in oppressive cultures does to a person.
5. 6 different religions plus Saypur's lack thereof, each of which has distinct benefits and flaws for believers and non-believers alike. Religion is certainly not given the best rap in this story, but nor is it completely vilified. In the end, I found the central message to be one in near perfect complement to my own philosophy. I won't spoil that for anyone here, but I think it's an important perspective in our world today. Certainly someone with extremely devout religious beliefs might be offended by this book, especially if they feel their own system present in Kolkashtani (which I believe draws some of the less palatable elements from a variety of sources), but I hope most of them could also see how Bennett uses this to explore the idea of belief and religion rather than condemn either of these things.

City of Stairs is not a light read (except the bit about the spoons which I admit is still my favorite moment), but it is definitely a worthwhile one.