---
product_id: 131180212
title: "City of Blades: Book Two of the Divine Cities Trilogy"
price: "158 Lei"
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url: https://www.desertcart.ro/products/131180212-city-of-blades-book-two-of-the-divine-cities-trilogy
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---

# City of Blades: Book Two of the Divine Cities Trilogy

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desertcart.com: City of Blades: Book Two of the Divine Cities Trilogy eBook : Bennett, Robert Jackson: Kindle Store

Review: for me, this was better than book one - I was actually a lot more into this book, which is the second in the series, than I was in the first. I think what did it for me were the characters. I sort of felt like last time, the characters were lists of attributes, but I think they made the leap this time into more complex people. I would still recommend reading the first book, because there is a lot of worldbuilding going on that forms a useful (and essential) background to what happens in this volume. Please note: There may be some minor spoilers for book one (City of Stairs) in this review. I'll try to keep them to a minimum. There is a lot of character overlap with book one, but the protagonist is different. This time, our main POV character is General Turyin Mulaghesh (this is a woman, if you're not familiar with book one). She spent much of book one pining for retirement on a faraway island, but when we meet her at the beginning of this book, we see retirement was not really agreeing with her. (We learn that this is a theme in her life.) There is also an issue with her length of service as it relates to her pension. So Shara (the heroine of book one, who is now Prime Minister) gets Mulaghesh to come back for a few more months. (This is a common practice, apparently.) Shara sends Mulaghesh to Voortyashtan, which was formerly the city associated with Voortya, the goddess of death. A lot is going on. A new substance has been discovered and there is a mining operation to recover more of it. A government employee who was investigating this new substance has gone missing. The harbor is being worked on by a Dreyling (think Nordic types if you want to compare to our world) company under the direction of Signe, one of the daughters of Sigurd (Shara's assistant from book one) and something secretive is going on there. I just like Mulaghesh better than Shara as a POV character, for some reason. She doesn't know everything, she isn't a young idealist, etc. (She does exhibit some idealism, and that becomes important later in the book.) Other characters have appropriate depth for the amount of page time they get. Sigurd we already know, but he is in a new role here and he is not entirely comfortable with it. Signe actually gets quite a lot of depth. Anyway, I really liked the characters here. Once again, the book starts out as a mystery, or at least partly so. It evolves into several mysteries -- who committed a series of grisly murders, who stole a bunch of explosives, is there anything Divine or otherwise suspicious about the substance being mined, who left evidence of performing what must have been a miracle in the mine (in this instance, "miracle" refers to a ritual associated with one of the Divinities designed to have a specific effect)? You do get the answers to these questions and more by the end of the book, and I think the answers are set up nicely and with sound bases in the earlier parts of the story (no deus ex machina, in other words). There are those who will argue that the plot is very similar to book one. They're not exactly wrong, but I found that it was a little bit different, and there is enough *else* going on that you don't always have time to think about that. Some of the themes are the same from book one. With the Divinities gone, Saypuri technology is expanding and taking over, even on the Continent, and magic or the Divine is receding. People have to deal with that, including cleverly using technology to overcome unexpected Divine problems. There is also a fair amount of racism. Natives are called "Shtanis" and there actually pretty much none of them in the story, only Saypuris and Dreylings. The characters we do follow view the "Shtanis" with suspicion or outright hostility and suspect them of all manner of horrible things. In a sense, it's payback -- the Continentals enslaved Saypuri folks not too many generations ago, and prejudice runs deep. (In the first book, our token Continental character was a member of the elite upper classes.) There is quite a lot of action, including a battle that seems fitting for the end of most books coming about 2/3 through this one. I thought the pacing was great, building naturally from a slower investigation (complete with roadblocks) to a frantic race to stop an apocalypse. Tone-wise, this is fairly bleak and dark. I am OK with that but I understand that it will not be for everyone. It seems a natural progression for the story the author wants to tell, though, and I think it is probably politically realistic. In the end, I thought characterization was much improved from book one. I like the small details that relate to the transition from a society of magic (essentially) to one of technology. I liked the relationship between Sigurd and his daughter. I liked the interrelatedness of all the mysteries and plotlines. I kept wanting to pick this up and read when I should have been doing other things. So, despite the similarities in plots of book 1 and book 2, overall I enjoyed this quite a lot.
Review: Sudden or Inevitable, But not Both - There are some fantasy readers who just want swords and sorcery. And there are others who’ve read so much of that, and dwarves and elves and dragons and knights, that we appreciate attempts to do something new, to push the genre in different ways. Robert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities is good at this: deicide in an age of motorized vehicles, spies and military generals versus supernatural enemies, unmagical main characters, Kafka-esque bureaucracy and dry, modern humor all set his books apart from the run of the mill. In City of Blades, the second of the series, he also tries to get us away from the hero’s journey trope we find so often in fantasy, telling what’s essential a political mystery story (think Hunt for Red October) in a fantasy setting—or post-fantasy, you might call this, as the gods are dead. Only they’re not, really, which would be a cool reveal—except we saw it in the last book, and the mystery in this book depends on kind of forgetting that. Before we get into it, a few kudos: Bennett is a talented writer, and the prose and pacing draw you through the story regardless of whether the mystery really mystifies. He also has a knack for vibrant, unique characters, and for me they were the best part of the book. They didn’t manage to overcome its main flaw, though, which is that the driving interest of the story is a whodunit (on a grand political and divine scale), but we’re fed too much information to ever be surprised by the revelations the characters make. Instead of Wash’s ‘sudden but inevitable betrayal' (search youtube: Firefly Clip: This Land), the reveals just feel inevitable, which doesn’t make for good mystery reading. Without the curiosity, the struggle to stay just one step ahead of the detective (in this case an unhappily-retired military general), the story loses its drive, and I ended up frustrated sometimes that the characters weren’t seeing what Bennett made so obvious. Enjoying this review? Find more like it at topnewfantasy dot com! On the other end of Wash’s spectrum, there are some sudden but far from inevitable moments that felt, well, deus ex machina—unexplained visions, gods rising from the seas, etc.—that could have been great with a little foreshadowing, but instead feel highly coincidental in terms of the main character gaining needed clues to solve the mystery. All this to say City of Blades is not for everyone. For long-time fantasy readers looking to break out of the tropes, or lovers of City of Stairs wanting to return to the world with not that many changes, the book will work well. It’s also some great prose—but if you’re looking to be pulled into a surprising plot, an intriguing mystery, or an action-packed page turner, you may want to stick to your guns—er, swords.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| ASIN  | B00TCI29Q4 |
| Accessibility  | Learn more |
| Best Sellers Rank | #57,381 in Kindle Store ( See Top 100 in Kindle Store ) #800 in Urban Fantasy (Kindle Store) #949 in Action & Adventure Fantasy (Kindle Store) #1,156 in Epic Fantasy (Kindle Store) |
| Book 2 of 3  | The Divine Cities |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars (3,764) |
| Enhanced typesetting  | Enabled |
| File size  | 3.8 MB |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0553419726 |
| Language  | English |
| Page Flip  | Enabled |
| Print length  | 490 pages |
| Publication date  | January 26, 2016 |
| Publisher  | Del Rey |
| Screen Reader  | Supported |
| Word Wise  | Enabled |
| X-Ray  | Enabled |

## Images

![City of Blades: Book Two of the Divine Cities Trilogy - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91xkKHcL6VL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for me, this was better than book one
*by S***O on July 9, 2017*

I was actually a lot more into this book, which is the second in the series, than I was in the first. I think what did it for me were the characters. I sort of felt like last time, the characters were lists of attributes, but I think they made the leap this time into more complex people. I would still recommend reading the first book, because there is a lot of worldbuilding going on that forms a useful (and essential) background to what happens in this volume. Please note: There may be some minor spoilers for book one (City of Stairs) in this review. I'll try to keep them to a minimum. There is a lot of character overlap with book one, but the protagonist is different. This time, our main POV character is General Turyin Mulaghesh (this is a woman, if you're not familiar with book one). She spent much of book one pining for retirement on a faraway island, but when we meet her at the beginning of this book, we see retirement was not really agreeing with her. (We learn that this is a theme in her life.) There is also an issue with her length of service as it relates to her pension. So Shara (the heroine of book one, who is now Prime Minister) gets Mulaghesh to come back for a few more months. (This is a common practice, apparently.) Shara sends Mulaghesh to Voortyashtan, which was formerly the city associated with Voortya, the goddess of death. A lot is going on. A new substance has been discovered and there is a mining operation to recover more of it. A government employee who was investigating this new substance has gone missing. The harbor is being worked on by a Dreyling (think Nordic types if you want to compare to our world) company under the direction of Signe, one of the daughters of Sigurd (Shara's assistant from book one) and something secretive is going on there. I just like Mulaghesh better than Shara as a POV character, for some reason. She doesn't know everything, she isn't a young idealist, etc. (She does exhibit some idealism, and that becomes important later in the book.) Other characters have appropriate depth for the amount of page time they get. Sigurd we already know, but he is in a new role here and he is not entirely comfortable with it. Signe actually gets quite a lot of depth. Anyway, I really liked the characters here. Once again, the book starts out as a mystery, or at least partly so. It evolves into several mysteries -- who committed a series of grisly murders, who stole a bunch of explosives, is there anything Divine or otherwise suspicious about the substance being mined, who left evidence of performing what must have been a miracle in the mine (in this instance, "miracle" refers to a ritual associated with one of the Divinities designed to have a specific effect)? You do get the answers to these questions and more by the end of the book, and I think the answers are set up nicely and with sound bases in the earlier parts of the story (no deus ex machina, in other words). There are those who will argue that the plot is very similar to book one. They're not exactly wrong, but I found that it was a little bit different, and there is enough *else* going on that you don't always have time to think about that. Some of the themes are the same from book one. With the Divinities gone, Saypuri technology is expanding and taking over, even on the Continent, and magic or the Divine is receding. People have to deal with that, including cleverly using technology to overcome unexpected Divine problems. There is also a fair amount of racism. Natives are called "Shtanis" and there actually pretty much none of them in the story, only Saypuris and Dreylings. The characters we do follow view the "Shtanis" with suspicion or outright hostility and suspect them of all manner of horrible things. In a sense, it's payback -- the Continentals enslaved Saypuri folks not too many generations ago, and prejudice runs deep. (In the first book, our token Continental character was a member of the elite upper classes.) There is quite a lot of action, including a battle that seems fitting for the end of most books coming about 2/3 through this one. I thought the pacing was great, building naturally from a slower investigation (complete with roadblocks) to a frantic race to stop an apocalypse. Tone-wise, this is fairly bleak and dark. I am OK with that but I understand that it will not be for everyone. It seems a natural progression for the story the author wants to tell, though, and I think it is probably politically realistic. In the end, I thought characterization was much improved from book one. I like the small details that relate to the transition from a society of magic (essentially) to one of technology. I liked the relationship between Sigurd and his daughter. I liked the interrelatedness of all the mysteries and plotlines. I kept wanting to pick this up and read when I should have been doing other things. So, despite the similarities in plots of book 1 and book 2, overall I enjoyed this quite a lot.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Sudden or Inevitable, But not Both
*by L***S on February 9, 2017*

There are some fantasy readers who just want swords and sorcery. And there are others who’ve read so much of that, and dwarves and elves and dragons and knights, that we appreciate attempts to do something new, to push the genre in different ways. Robert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities is good at this: deicide in an age of motorized vehicles, spies and military generals versus supernatural enemies, unmagical main characters, Kafka-esque bureaucracy and dry, modern humor all set his books apart from the run of the mill. In City of Blades, the second of the series, he also tries to get us away from the hero’s journey trope we find so often in fantasy, telling what’s essential a political mystery story (think Hunt for Red October) in a fantasy setting—or post-fantasy, you might call this, as the gods are dead. Only they’re not, really, which would be a cool reveal—except we saw it in the last book, and the mystery in this book depends on kind of forgetting that. Before we get into it, a few kudos: Bennett is a talented writer, and the prose and pacing draw you through the story regardless of whether the mystery really mystifies. He also has a knack for vibrant, unique characters, and for me they were the best part of the book. They didn’t manage to overcome its main flaw, though, which is that the driving interest of the story is a whodunit (on a grand political and divine scale), but we’re fed too much information to ever be surprised by the revelations the characters make. Instead of Wash’s ‘sudden but inevitable betrayal' (search youtube: Firefly Clip: This Land), the reveals just feel inevitable, which doesn’t make for good mystery reading. Without the curiosity, the struggle to stay just one step ahead of the detective (in this case an unhappily-retired military general), the story loses its drive, and I ended up frustrated sometimes that the characters weren’t seeing what Bennett made so obvious. Enjoying this review? Find more like it at topnewfantasy dot com! On the other end of Wash’s spectrum, there are some sudden but far from inevitable moments that felt, well, deus ex machina—unexplained visions, gods rising from the seas, etc.—that could have been great with a little foreshadowing, but instead feel highly coincidental in terms of the main character gaining needed clues to solve the mystery. All this to say City of Blades is not for everyone. For long-time fantasy readers looking to break out of the tropes, or lovers of City of Stairs wanting to return to the world with not that many changes, the book will work well. It’s also some great prose—but if you’re looking to be pulled into a surprising plot, an intriguing mystery, or an action-packed page turner, you may want to stick to your guns—er, swords.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Socially conscious storytelling
*by M***J on July 12, 2025*

What an interesting way to comment on our current political and social environment. All the while, pulling off a great thriller. Nice to have the continuity of familiar characters. What a fun read!

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*Last updated: 2026-02-18*