Reading Well: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

I stumbled across a list–I believe in The Washington Post–of fantasy novels written by women with an Arabic / Middle Eastern / Indian influence (and shame on the Post for lumping all of that together in a single Orientalist vision, but at the same time, there are so few candidates that perhaps it was through necessity).

In any case, The City of Brass (2017) by S.A. Chakraborty is by far the most successful of the ones I’ve read so far–I even purchased the rest of the trilogy to read at some point. This is traditional high fantasy: magical items and smoldering glances and a deadly threat to the very existence of the world and all that. It is set in an alternate, Earth-like universe, with the cultures of Arabia, Persia, and India dominant, with a layer of magical beings, both good and evil, locked in a timeless struggle.

It works. I mean, the smoldering glances are a bit much from time to time (romance and sex tend to be the Achilles’ heel of fantasy writing–perhaps, all writing), but the rest is a rollicking good read, full of memorable set-pieces, interesting takes on things like the nature of Djinns and the source of true magic.

Recommended as a different setting for a page-turning escape.