City of Miracles

Starred review from March 27, 2017
Bennett concludes his Divine Cities trilogy (City of Stairs, City of Blades) with a stunning and heartbreaking tale of sacrifice amid magic and spycraft. Sigrud je Harkvaldsson has spent years in the wilderness after the death of his daughter. When Shara Komayd, his mentor and friend, is assassinated, he vows to find out what happened and seek revenge. Instead of discovering a simple plot by one of Shara’s enemies, Sigrud finds hints of magic and divine artifacts that suggest a threat to the entire world; soon he realizes that, although most of the gods are dead, some of their children aren’t. Sigrud has long served as a Conan analogue in Bennett’s novels, and the aging barbarian is hardly a new trope, but Bennett dives deeply into Sigrud’s character, with some well-laid clues from City of Stairs paying substantial dividends as his background is revealed. Intriguing characters such as Shara’s teenage daughter, Tatyana, and former ingenue Invania Restroyka (now “the richest damn woman alive”) keep the story entertaining, and the ghost of Shara hangs over all of them. The bittersweet ending, which elegantly and definitively caps off the novel and the trilogy, will have readers reaching for the tissues. Agent: Cameron McClure, Donald Maass Literary.

March 1, 2017
Ashara Komayd is dead. Or is she? Anyway, hells, yes, Sigrud je Harkvaldsson is ticked off, as he so often is in Bennett's sound-and-fury trilogy.Readers of City of Stairs (2014) and City of Blades (2016) know the story: in a world that's part Frank Herbert and part Tamerlaine by way of Conan the Barbarian, the old gods have fallen to iconoclasts and assassins and new deities, as the states of Bulikov and Saypur struggle back and forth for supremacy. Now Ashara, having long ago proven her worth as secret agent and intercontinental mischief-maker, has risen in the world, putting her, in turn, squarely in the cross hairs. Enter Sigrud, who is no one to tinker with. Vengeful but calculating, he'll shoot anyone, man or woman, who gets in his way: one of his bolts hits an unfortunate guard "right in the mouth, punching through his front teeth and his lower jaw, maybe lethally penetrating his throat." Suffice it to say that it doesn't take Sigrud much time to hunt down the chief bad guy, which is only the beginning of a strange tale in which the already magicky world of Bennett's imagination gets a little more wobbly as the gods themselves begin to intervene, one of them whisking Sigrud off to parts unknown ("He can see he's on the Continent somewhere by the way his breath is frosting, but there's no telling exactly where on the Continent"). Alas, all roads lead to still weirder places, in which piffling trifles like life and death--or immortality and divinity, for that matter--don't get in the way of progress. Fans will cheer for Sigrud, always a no-nonsense character; he's definitively macho, but not so much that he's not glad to have the help of the strong women he meets along the way. Dark and violent but a tale well spun and with a most satisfying conclusion. Just stay out of the way of the flying fickle Finger of Kolkan....

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April 15, 2017

Sigrud je Harkvaldsson, once a warrior who left destruction in his wake, is now living anonymously in rough conditions and working manual labor jobs while always hoping to be called back to service by his old partner Shara Komayd. When he learns that Shara has been assassinated, Sigrud is unstoppable in his quest for vengeance. His pursuit of the killers brings him into a long-simmering conflict with the divine who were believed gone from the world. This exciting conclusion to Bennett's trilogy is just as fantastic as the earlier volumes. While City of Stairs focused on Shara, and City of Blade on Turyin Mulaghesh, Sigrud has been a constant throughout--seemingly a hulking brute with a slavish loyalty to Shara. This allegiance is still on display here, but Sigrud also reveals himself to be a canny strategist. VERDICT Bennett explores the fascinatingly complex gods of the Continent and the magic they left in the world, bringing the series to a satisfying close.--MM

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2017
In the final installment of Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy, fans of the series will continue to delight in the story and characters. With the death of the prime minister by an assassin, the action of the novel is launched. The PM's loyal friend Sigrud, upon hearing the news, moves toward revenge. But in a world with deities both real and terrible, Sigrud's quest is not as straightforward as it initially seems. As with other books in the series, a relatively small action morphs into a larger incident with larger implications for the society Bennett has created. Although some characters have been seen before, this series is not the continuation of one person's story line or even one group's struggle. Readers new to the trilogy could start with this third book and not be too confused by what has happened before. Bennett's spot-on world building aids the new and old reader alike as they plunge into a world where deities exert force on characters and events and a revenge plot involving a super-assassin is normal.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)