A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark

Incredibly immersive world-building with a tonne of details. It’s also a deeply realistic world that looks at how the return of magic would have affected a place like Cairo, but within the context of previous colonisation, of wars, and of complex local and global politics. There is also no attempt to glorify what people’s reactions would have been – what I mean is that the new Egypt still has massive, race, class, and economic inequalities. Which the reader observes at both a national level and also on a personal level with our main characters having to confront their own biases.

I will admit it took me a while to get into the plot. Fatma didn’t grab me as a character and I don’t think I had a strong feel for the stakes of the story at the start – I was reading for the world. But it built up nicely. Excellent use of set-ups and payoffs throughout the book.

I did love the saffic quality of the story, I want to see if there is maybe an earlier short story that depicts the start of their relationship. I would probably have been more invested if I had had stakes in their relationship (it would have appealed to the romantic in me).

The story had a good villain and a very satisfying end with a good balance where multiple people contributed to the win, without their efforts overshadowing the protagonist’s.

There are more erudite and clever people studying this stuff, but I do want to make the observation that fantasy written by white people tends to be nostalgic about a romanticised past (not everything, obviously). While those written by black authors tend to create worlds that reflect the injustices and fury of a modern world back at us. Which is a complex way for me to say that it is well worth reading these authors for an alternative viewpoint.

I have also read the Haunting of Tram Car 015 by the same author, which was also excellent. He excels at immersive writing with gorgeous visual details.

I would recommend to anyone to give this series a go.