City of Blades by Robert Jackson BennettMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
"I have trudged through fire and death to come and ask you this: Can we not be better? Can we not do better? Our ancestors were legends who remade the world. Are we willing to be so small-minded with our brief time upon these shores?"
My personal litmus test for five-star classics is: Am I going to re-read this? And while my answer for Book 1 (CITY OF STAIRS) of THE DIVINE CITIES trilogy was a resounding HELL YES, my answer for Book 2 is a whispered, pained no, hence the 3 star rating.
And it pains me, because the first 3/4 of the book was very good! You need to understand... I waited 10 long months after reading Book 1 for Book 2 to reach the shores of Manila. I pined and longed like a girl waiting for her sweetheart. And so when it arrived, I TORE into the package, bid adieu to reality and locked myself in my room to dive into a world I didn't want to leave.
I was delighted to find familiar characters in Book 2, still set in that world where gods once walked, but had supposedly been killed off in a cataclysmic event known as "The Blink" some 80 years in the past, and where men have made great strides in science and technology, when formerly deities were needed to wrought "miracles."
A female senior-citizen general who sacrificed one hand to save the world in Book 1 is now promoted to the lead role! I love General Mulaghesh: her grit, her passion, her vulnerability. The author (RJB) does characterization so skillfully, you'll never get confused even with large casts. You root for them so much, and their fates affect you so much, too!
I figured out the technique RJB employed in Book 1 that he used skillfully in this second book as well: it starts with a mystery.
In Book 2, a government spy goes missing after investigating a curious ore that may have links to the Divine. And a retired general is brought back into service, bound by honor and duty that I wish all soldiers had:
"A true soldier does not take. A soldier gives. Anything. Everything, if asked of us... a soldier strives not to take... so others might one day have something."
However, Book 2 merely approaches the near perfection of Book 1. The ending, especially, seemed rather rushed and not satisfying.
Still won't stop me from diving straight into Book 3 after work tomorrow, hehe.
"The world may not go on forever. But that does not mean we cannot try to make tomorrow better."
View my review for Book 1
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