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    The City of Brass: A Novel
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    The City of Brass: A Novel
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    The City of Brass: A Novel
    Ebook680 pages11 hours

    The City of Brass: A Novel

    By Shannon Chakraborty

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Library Journal | Vulture | The Verge | SYFYWire

    Step into The City of Brass, the spellbinding debut from S. A. Chakraborty perfect for fans of The Golem and the Jinni, The Grace of Kings, and Uprooted, in which the future of a magical Middle Eastern kingdom rests in the hands of a clever and defiant young con artist with miraculous healing gifts.

    On the streets of eighteenth-century Cairo, Nahri is a con woman of unsurpassed skill. She makes her living swindling Ottoman nobles, hoping to one day earn enough to change her fortunes. But when Nahri accidentally summons Dara, an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior, during one of her cons, she learns that even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences.

    Forced to flee Cairo, Dara and Nahri journey together across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire and rivers where the mythical marid sleep, past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises and mountains where the circling birds of prey are more than what they seem, to Daevabad, the legendary city of brass.

    It’s a city steeped in magic and fire, where blood can be as dangerous as any spell; a city where old resentments run deep and the royal court rules with a tenuous grip; a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound—and where her very presence threatens to ignite a war that has been simmering for centuries.

    *Finalist for the World Fantasy Award: Best Novel

    *Nominated for the Locus Award: Best First Novel

    *Finalist for the British Fantasy Award: Best Newcomer

    Featuring a stepback and extra content including a bonus scene and an excerpt from The Kingdom of Copper.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateNov 14, 2017
    ISBN9780062678126
    Author

    Shannon Chakraborty

    Shannon Chakraborty is the author of the critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling Daevabad Trilogy. Her work has been translated into over a dozen languages and nominated for the Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, Crawford, and Astounding awards. You can find her online at sachakraborty.com or on Instagram and Twitter as @SAChakrabooks.

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    Reviews for The City of Brass

    4/5

    1,119 ratings69 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This story was so much better when the main characters meet up in the palace but the first 100 pages did nothing for me reading about the journey to get to the city was a bit of a slog. Two stars for the start and four for the ending.
    • 4/5
      Starts in Cairo and continues into the desert into a world of Devas and Djinn and other creatures that are part of mythology I don't get exposed to that often this is a tale of a girl who is getting by in the slums using her wits finding that she has power and then that this power has a price. It's quite complex and has a different society but still there are castes and politics and complex things going on. She may be the last with her talents and that makes her valuable, particularly to those who would exploit her.It took me a while to get into this one and then I was off. It was interesting and I'm curious about what's going to happen next.Read as part of the Hugo Award Ballot.
    • 4/5
      File under pretty damn good but not quite great. This work of adventure, social conflict and court intrigue set in an Islamic supernatural demi-monde has, as it's biggest problem, too many moments where I felt a situation was set up to be a data dump and I suspect that the more you've read about Muslim world history on your own the better off you'll be. That said, Charaborty's main character, the con woman and healer Nehri, is very cool and at the end of the book when it appears that she has been cornered, defeated by events and given an offer she can't refuse one gets the sense that the story is really just beginning. It is to be admitted that those bored with hearing about social conflict in the contemporary Muslim world will also be bored with this book as I don't doubt that current events also are at the back of this novel.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book! Richly detailed, nuanced, exciting!
    • 5/5
      A fantasy story mixing different mythology, but mainly focused on djinns. Interesting main character and good story that moves along pretty well.
    • 5/5
      So good I've read it twice in a year - and it was better the second time around. A beautifully-imagined Middle Eastern fantasy where social tensions threaten to tear apart the capital city of the djinn. I loved the characters, I loved the world-building, and I loved the way Chakraborty holds her characters to account.
    • 4/5
      Nahri can make a decent living on the streets of Cairo as a fortune teller and sometimes thief, but when she unwittingly summons Dara, a djinn warrior, her life changes drastically. Dara whisks her away to Daevabad, the hidden city of the djinn, where she is welcomed as the last surviving member of a noble race. . . but, of course, all is not as it seems, and even Dara may be hiding secrets from her.I enjoyed this quite a bit, though it is a rather slow build into the world of the series, and few questions are answered in this first book. That's not to say that the pacing lags -- there's a good bit of action in the book, balanced out by the necessity of detailed description of the world of the story and the different classes and races of djinn. I'm still not sure I grasped all of the subtleties there. I did enjoy the story, though once again I'm not on board for a romance between an 18-year-old girl and a magical being who has lived for millennia. However, that aspect of the story was fairly slight, overshadowed by other relationships and the political maneuvering that Nahri found herself embroiled in. If you're up for a chunky epic fantasy trilogy with Middle-Eastern flavor, I'd recommend this one. I'll be reading the second book soon, I suspect.
    • 4/5
      Every now and then I am in the mood for a great fantasy. I went into this with low expectations and ended up really enjoying it.I do agree with others when they say that majority of this is developing the world. I appreciated that though as I was able to figure out different things going on more. I enjoyed learning about the world and the history around the world.The story is told between two characters: Nahri and Ali. It was like you are reading two different stories, as they really do not collide until almost 300 pages when Nahri finally makes it to the city. However; I found both POV interesting. There was action on both sides to keep your interest. So much happened with nothing happening at all (if you read this you will understand). I had a few people ask me what this was about, and it was really hard to say as there was individual things happening but I was not sure how they were all going to come together. There was not a solid plot for the first 300 pages, so that maybe something you want to consider when going into this. It still worked for me though.Overall, this was something I would not think was for me at all and I ended up really liking it. I am happy to have the second book on half so I can continue with the series.
    • 5/5
      I blurbed this book - and loved it. Each page reveals a new wonder.
    • 4/5
      Nahri is a young woman living in Cairo in the late 18th century. She is an orphan, a thief, a con artist, and a healer. She is unaware that she's not human despite the fact that she heals extremely quickly. One night after accidentally alerting an Ifrit to her existence she is attacked. As she prays for help she, once again accidentally, calls forth a Daeva, a fire elemental, that rescues her. This Davea, named Dara, recognizes her as the last of the Nahids, a family of healers. He takes her to Daevabad, their ancestral homeland, now ruled by the Geziri tribe who destroyed their families. Once in Daevabad Nahri must learn the ways of the healers while trying to find her way at court among her enemies.This is the first book in a new adult fantasy series. The second book is out in Jan. or Feb. I loved the world building, the characters and the story. I've already pre-ordered the second book.
    • 5/5
      I think I loved it. I'm still processing a bit, and there were parts that bugged me, but overall it was excellent. I eagerly anticipate the next in the series!
    • 5/5
      WOW, I absolutely inhaled this book!! The writing was seamless. The world was devine. The middle did drag a bit but royal politics and in-depth character development can tend to lend itself to this type of dilemma. I decided not to penalise the rating too harshly because of this though I did waiver back and forth between 4 & 4.5 star...BUT seeing as how the sluggishness was coupled with some great writing... a grand and unique premise (especially for a topic so fervently explored)... a plot that had me constantly questioning everything I had presupposed along the way...I couldn't help but bump up the rating sooooo a well deserved 4.5 stars it is. Now onto the dual POVs. Imo the very distinctive POVs played perfectly off one another, a frequently attempted endeavour that many stories fail to accomplish. The backdrop seemed both masterfully crafted as well as meticulously researched creating an undeniably authentic atmosphere. The characters were breathtakingly, "humanly"flawed. Nahri, our heroine, was a little annoying at times but ultimately her loyalty and overall potential was endearing. I can definitely see camps for favored male characters being formed down the road. Who was my favorite you ask?!? Well I won't go into too much detail but I will say that though Dara seems like the perfect companion/protector, I couldn't help but root for sweet naive Ali. Speaking of camps, it's probably obvious from my previous admission BUT fair warning: there was a most salacious love triangle percolating (though very minimally acted upon) which happened to be the impetus for much of the drama SO if that's not your thing...you've been warned. I couldn't help but obsessively check Chapter and Location progress. This is usually a bad sign in my world BUT here it was for all the right reasons. I watched the pages fly by wishing to stall the inevitable and THAT hasn't happened to me in a long while....sad, I know, but true. Anyhow, ultimately many MANY questions went unanswered, leaving me with a nagging hunger for the next book, STAT. So hurry up please, I NEED answers!!!
    • 5/5
      Day-um, that ending though. This book was a rollercoaster. I had so many emotions, I was excited, angry, laughing, smiling, sad, all of the things! In City of Brass we are introduced to Nahri - a swindler living in Cairo, who then finds out she is shafit - half human, half djinn. She learns of Daevabad, the City of Brass, and this story is her journey there and what happens once she gets there. This book was full of action, developing relationships, political intrigue and court politics, sibling rivalry, and just a bunch of mystery and backstabbing. It was great. I really enjoyed the writing, and the descriptions. The nuance of the world that was created and how much thought went into everything. Once I got into the story, I didn't want to stop reading. The plot didn't feel slow, it was paced really well. I enjoyed both POV characters - although Ali got on my nerves a lot. They had unique voices and distinctive personalities and I really enjoyed that. I loved getting to know Nahri and her motivations, and how she developed throughout the novel. There is definitely room for more development, but I think that will come in later books. Ali I felt didn't have as much development, he was very set in his beliefs, yet it still worked. We were given glimpses into his past, and from his family as to how he came to be like this, and I think that helped.I loved the world building as well! It was well done, although I felt sometimes we were left in the dark just to keep a mysterious aura around things until the author was ready to reveal it. Otherwise, it was done really well and incorporated into the story in a great fashion.Overall, I really enjoyed reading this, and it's been a while since I've been so mad and exclaiming out loud and telling my partner how the book was making me feel. I definitely recommend!
    • 5/5
      Fantastic world building and eloquent prose. Just a well written and captivating debut!
    • 5/5
      The City of Brass comprises of two stories that come together into one. First, there's Nahri, the Cairo-based young women who's barely getting by. She's also... odd. Odd as in there's something different about her. Second, there's the story of Ali, or Alizayd, the second son of the King of the mysterious city of Daevabad.
    • 5/5
      The City of Brass was an astounding read despite having a slow beginning and middle. The storytelling and prose, there are no words, well there are many, many words I could use but let’s just go with breathtaking, for now. In this world there is a fascinating magic system and everyone has a little bit of magic in them. Some are more inclined than others but the use of magic is not a strange occurrence and that was so much fun! Also, I am a huge fan of any story that includes Djinn and the plot and subplots in this story was out of this world. Just lovely!There is a ton of political machinations going on in this story, so if political intrigue is your thing then wow, you need to get this book! There are plenty of rules and laws that are applied to the different classes/ethnicities in this story and everything is for a reason, for better or worse. I applaud the amount of effort that went into building this political system and its inner workings because it is spot on and extremely detailed. For those like myself who don’t love political intrigue so much, it was a wee bit…yeah…all that.The characters are all inspiring and fleshed out amazingly well. I felt like I knew the characters intimately. They were very real to me. I feel like Nahri and Prince Alizayd were introduced as very strong characters in the beginning. I also was wondering for the longest time what Prince Ali’s role was in this story because it took forever for them to come together. Anyway, great characters in the beginning, loved them but they seemed to make rash choices and I felt like they regressed as the story went on. By the end I felt that their choices were relatively predictable and they lost their shine for me somewhat.Now I know I just mentioned something about predictability but that is actually what saved this story for me, the ending was nothing like I predicted. I was actually shocked a few times with the twists and turns that took place and that made me extremely happy. I will say that the epilogue alone was the deciding factor for my choice to continue the series. The story was beautifully written but without that epilogue I would not have had anything to really come back for because I was not so in love with the remaining main characters enough to want to continue the journey with them. Overall, The City of Brass was a wondrous story that was a delight to read despite my fussiness and I highly recommend it for all readers.
    • 4/5
      This is a hard one to rate, but it is definitely ambitious in vision and deserves better than average. So, 4 it is. As much as it was hyped, I really wanted to love it, but I couldn't quite.This is a highly political Games of Thrones, Middle Eastern-style, with mysticism and magic. Parts of it are lush and beautiful, like a rich tapestry. As another reviewer said somewhere, both the first and last 10-15% of the book is gorgeously and compellingly written.The middle...and the characters, well, not so much. At 500+ pages, it's over-long, even accounting for the world-building. Entire scenes could have been cut without loss to plot and would have benefitted the narrative pace.And the characters, well....the biggest issue in my opinion is that they aren't internally consistent, nor is there really anyone - or any coupling - to root for.Nahri, the main character is meant to be a strong, intelligent, confident female but is comes across more often as brash, selfish, and immature. She falls for two men who are nemeses of each other, but the author never explains with her conflicting loyalties or has her confront them and it's just sort of narrative whiplash. Plus, it's never quite clear who either of these male characters really are at their core--they're just story vessels or 'types' more than they're fully-developed with a rich backstory.Turns out, it didn't seem to matter at the end anyway.This book contains a lot of politics about different tribes, with themes of oppression, torture/slavery, evil rulers, religious extremism in the book, but none of the themes are really sorted or fully developed. It's hard to follow the threads through and examined too closely, it might fall apart. Frequently as I was reading, I'd think a new piece of information actually conflicted with something we were told earlier about the rivalries between these different peoples/beings, but I didn't care enough to go back and look.A promising debut that could evolve into an interesting movie in the right hands, but I don't know that I'd invest in the rest of the trilogy. I've already spent time visiting Daevabad--not sure a return trip is high on the list with so many other places, worlds and people awaiting me in my TBR.
    • 5/5
      An amazing debut novel that mixes in Islamic mythology, war, magic, and more to create a tasty, moving, and exciting tale.For that is what this book is: a tale. Like any good tale, it has a plucky antagonist, conflicted main characters, and exotic locations. Swift moving, the story introduces us to Nahri, a street hustler and con woman in 18th century Cairo who accidentally summons a Djinn (genie). We learn about the world of the djinn as Nahri does, seeing what she sees and learning as she learns. A second plot brings us Ali, the idealistic second son of the king of Daevabad, the famous city of brass. Within that city are tribes of djinn and people of mixed blood. In the melting pot of Daevabad, not all tribes want to mingle and tribal and ethnic tensions are rising. Ali wants to look after the mixed bloods, who historically have been persecuted. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      What an amazing and beautiful book. Such rich world bolding, action packed, witn intersting multi layered characters. Just gobbled it up!
    • 5/5
      This is a wonderfully written book (sequel is great too). It's original, and the unique setting is refreshing in the fantasy genre. I'm anxiously awaiting the 3rd volume.
    • 5/5
      Really enjoyed this book. It was exciting. I found myself rooting for both Dara and Ali..two characters so real it was hard not to want both to become a hero. Will have to read the next volume as soon as possible
    • 2/5
      To much magic spoils a story. I stopped after ~80 pages.
    • 3/5
      This book is the story of a thief and orphan girl named Nahri who discovers that she is part of a magical, fantastical world that she never knew existed. I have mixed feelings about this book. On the plus side, it was wonderful to read a fantasy book that wasn't based in "western" mythology. There are far too few fantasy books like that. The writing was good, and the world building was interesting. My biggest problem with this book is that it was at least 200 pages too long. There were parts of it that dragged painfully and that added nothing to the story. This would have been a fantastic 300 page book but 526 was just absolutely unnecessary. Still, it's not a BAD book, and it's almost worth reading just for a taste of another culture that is so hard to find in fantasy literature.
    • 4/5
      Published as adult but reads like YA, in that it’s about identity formation and it MOVES. Total page-turner, despite being massive and ending on a cliffhanger.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the world building, and the characters were very interesting. I got a little confused about some of the terminology, and only discovered the glossary after I'd finished the book. :/ Don't be like me -- find and use the glossary!
    • 3/5
      I liked the two POV characters (Nahri and Ali) and Jamshid, and the setting was interesting. The pacing felt kind of uneven -- the first half of the book dragged on with little happening, and the ending felt rushed and didn't resolve anything. There is a lot of political intrigue, which isn't really my thing, and little time spent on the oppressed shafit themselves as opposed to how they fit into everyone's schemes. I also have little patience for Nahri's continuing infatuation with Dara as he continues to demonstrate just how awful of a person he is.
    • 3/5
      I think this Middle East-inspired fantasy was just not the story I was in the headspace for -- it was longer, with more complicated worldbuilding and fewer answers. Possibly I’d have followed the political intrigue of Daevabad better had I read this in one gulp (I got halfway through the 20-hour-long audiobook before it was due back at the library and I read half a dozen other things before I returned to this book, in ebook form. So I’m not in a position to comment on the pacing).I liked the two protagonists, enough that I’m curious about what happens to them next, but the second book is 23 hours long and undoubtedly it won’t resolve everything either. Maybe another day.
    • 4/5
      Compelling and well-told, but the ending doesn't satisfy in a series that isn't complete yet.
    • 3/5
      I thought this was good, but not great. The setting, with its multiple species of magical beings of the elements and humans, is good and interesting. Unfortunately I thought it was poorly described. The characters are good though and definitely drive the story.
    • 5/5
      I love stories about the Djinn & their histories & stories. This is no less an incredibly moving novel as it is an a story about a lost woman finding home...& that home is both less and more like the place she grew up in.

      Also, the depictions and descriptions of food made me hungry. Yay!