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primeidealThe setting of "A Master of Djinn" is an alternate-history Cairo. In the 1880s, a figure appeared calling himself al-Jahiz (who may or may not be the writer and zoologist of the 800s) appears and magically tapped into the Kaf, the homeland of the djinn. Once-hidden djinn came into public view, and the world in general--and Egypt in particular--dealt with the influx of magic, which brought social and political changes as well as the obvious technological ones. Now it's 1912, and Fatma el-Sha’arawi, an agent for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, goes around investigating mysterious occurrences.
The worldbuilding here is excellent. "Clockwork eunuchs" (robots) serve in coffee shops. Airships sail through the Egyptian skies. So-called "angels" have magical bodies inside enormous mechanical gearworks. Fatma's father was a small-town watchmaker, and the asturlab he made her is an elegant tool in a steampunk era. (I have not read a lot in this subgenre and I know that some people will get into catfights about "steampunk is inherently colonialist and therefore problematic!"/"no my steampunk is deconstructionist, so it's great!"/"it was always deconstructionist, you didn't invent the gear here!" This book is a Hugo nominee in 2022 by a historian of African studies. Obviously it's going to be post-post-post-colonial everything. When I say "steampunk" in this context, I mean "has cool aesthetics like clockwork eunuchs and airships and mechanical angels," as well as "alternate technology leading to alternate history" (rather than the other way around). And even though I'm not super familiar with this genre, I definitely enjoyed the aesthetics of this book.)
Fatma is also a sympathetic character. The Ministry of Alchemy etc. often dovetails with the police, because they often find themselves investigating criminal activity. But, as the book makes clear, the police are not necessarily a force for good in the lives of poor and working-class people! Fatma wants to investigate and, potentially, bring suspects into custody without violence; she's easy to root for. The book begins with an unnecessary first chapter, describing the murder of a bunch of English colonialists from one of their POVs, and introducing us to the killer's persona and their MO--they claim to be al-Jahiz himself, and can clearly demonstrate supernatural abilities. But everything we learn about what how the killer works is something Fatma finds out later while investigating, and I didn't think we needed the perspective of the colonialist to realize "oh these guys are terrible and their deaths are not gonna be a loss." (See "Hugo nominee," above.)
But, when supernatural forces are clashing, the role that Fatma can play is a very limited one. Almost all the plot would have proceeded in the same way if she wasn't present; she's reactive, but not able to defeat the killer on her own. Even with the help of a love interest who's great in a fight, knows lots of useful informants, and feels almost too good to be true. So the parts where Fatma does take agency feel a bit deus ex machina in that context.
Then there's the procedural plot structure. Right from the beginning, we know that the killer is claiming to be al-Jahiz. So there are basically only two options; al-Jahiz really has returned, or someone is going around pretending to be him. Fatma defaults to the second option and takes it basically as fact, but this feels unsupported. al-Jahiz had unparalleled supernatural powers; who's to say he couldn't reappear after a forty-year gap? If he appears among the poor and oppressed, pointing out the ways that modernity has failed them even as it's benefitted the rich--well, that seems plausible for a radical world-shaker? If he kills a bunch of English dudes with magic--well, he wasn't known for violence last time around, but again, they're colonizers, who's gonna miss them?
Then when Fatma finally finds evidence pointing to a contemporary who is not al-Jahiz, it feels like the book drags and avoids pointing out confirmatory details we've already been made aware of several times. But then there's another twist, and while smarter people than I saw it coming earlier than I did, for me the "oh, aha" moment came at a good time (shortly before Fatma figures it out) to make me feel like that was a success.
There are a couple other of plot devices that are slow at first but gradually pay off. There turns out to be more to the aforementioned love interest than meets the eye, which is nice, given that the character felt somewhat overpowered otherwise. One minor character turns out to have a mundane secret that has no relevance to anything else in the plot (except to point out how Fatma sometimes doesn't notice things, pointing the way to other twists? I guess? that character confused me). And for a book titled "A Master of Djinn," that includes djinn sometimes being polite and other times being violently OOC, it takes the characters way too long to realize that...the killer...might have powers to control djinn. :O (Um, spoilers.)
Intertextual bonus: one class of djinn mentioned is the daeva. And in a discussion of the One Thousand and One Nights, the characters talk about the story "The City of Brass," Both of which explain some things about S. A. Chakraborty's "The City of Brass"/Daevabad trilogy! There's also a very serious-business librarian that I wouldn't be surprised to learn was a Discworld shoutout.
The Ministry has "mechanized screens of black and gold ten-pointed stars and kites," which reminded me of Penrose tiling--and there's a name for the Islamic architecture tiling patterns!
It would be boring if the aftermath of "the whole world has magic now" is "everyone's relative power levels stay the same;" instead, some countries fear and suppress magic while others embrace it, which leads Egypt to become one of the new world powers. (Women already have the right to vote in 1912, ahead of the UK and US!) But personally, I would be interested in more glimpses of what magic looks like elsewhere. (Germany, for instance, has goblins instead of djinn, but the US oppresses magic, as well as people who make magic with their music.)
Angels are funny:
This is the first novel in Clark's "Dead Djinn" series, but there are several callbacks to "on Fatma's previous case..." which reference A Dead Djinn in Cairo, an earlier novella. In this particular case, the callbacks made me feel like it might have helped to read that one first, so I went back to it after the novel. And it turns out that that has most of the worldbuilding aspects I thought were neat, without the draggy "who is the real al-Jahiz?" or "when will Fatma's actions impact the wider plot?" slowdowns of the full-length novel. So my recommendation would be, start with the novella. And if you feel like you need even more of Fatma's Cairo, then try the novel, with the understanding that its cool factor-to-page count ratio will be smaller.
Bingo squares: Historical SFF, (Hugo) readalong, author uses initials (in his pseudonym, for hard mode!), urban fantasy, set in Africa, author of color, shapeshifters. I foresee this book showing up on many, many bingo cards!
The worldbuilding here is excellent. "Clockwork eunuchs" (robots) serve in coffee shops. Airships sail through the Egyptian skies. So-called "angels" have magical bodies inside enormous mechanical gearworks. Fatma's father was a small-town watchmaker, and the asturlab he made her is an elegant tool in a steampunk era. (I have not read a lot in this subgenre and I know that some people will get into catfights about "steampunk is inherently colonialist and therefore problematic!"/"no my steampunk is deconstructionist, so it's great!"/"it was always deconstructionist, you didn't invent the gear here!" This book is a Hugo nominee in 2022 by a historian of African studies. Obviously it's going to be post-post-post-colonial everything. When I say "steampunk" in this context, I mean "has cool aesthetics like clockwork eunuchs and airships and mechanical angels," as well as "alternate technology leading to alternate history" (rather than the other way around). And even though I'm not super familiar with this genre, I definitely enjoyed the aesthetics of this book.)
Fatma is also a sympathetic character. The Ministry of Alchemy etc. often dovetails with the police, because they often find themselves investigating criminal activity. But, as the book makes clear, the police are not necessarily a force for good in the lives of poor and working-class people! Fatma wants to investigate and, potentially, bring suspects into custody without violence; she's easy to root for. The book begins with an unnecessary first chapter, describing the murder of a bunch of English colonialists from one of their POVs, and introducing us to the killer's persona and their MO--they claim to be al-Jahiz himself, and can clearly demonstrate supernatural abilities. But everything we learn about what how the killer works is something Fatma finds out later while investigating, and I didn't think we needed the perspective of the colonialist to realize "oh these guys are terrible and their deaths are not gonna be a loss." (See "Hugo nominee," above.)
But, when supernatural forces are clashing, the role that Fatma can play is a very limited one. Almost all the plot would have proceeded in the same way if she wasn't present; she's reactive, but not able to defeat the killer on her own. Even with the help of a love interest who's great in a fight, knows lots of useful informants, and feels almost too good to be true. So the parts where Fatma does take agency feel a bit deus ex machina in that context.
Then there's the procedural plot structure. Right from the beginning, we know that the killer is claiming to be al-Jahiz. So there are basically only two options; al-Jahiz really has returned, or someone is going around pretending to be him. Fatma defaults to the second option and takes it basically as fact, but this feels unsupported. al-Jahiz had unparalleled supernatural powers; who's to say he couldn't reappear after a forty-year gap? If he appears among the poor and oppressed, pointing out the ways that modernity has failed them even as it's benefitted the rich--well, that seems plausible for a radical world-shaker? If he kills a bunch of English dudes with magic--well, he wasn't known for violence last time around, but again, they're colonizers, who's gonna miss them?
Then when Fatma finally finds evidence pointing to a contemporary who is not al-Jahiz, it feels like the book drags and avoids pointing out confirmatory details we've already been made aware of several times. But then there's another twist, and while smarter people than I saw it coming earlier than I did, for me the "oh, aha" moment came at a good time (shortly before Fatma figures it out) to make me feel like that was a success.
There are a couple other of plot devices that are slow at first but gradually pay off. There turns out to be more to the aforementioned love interest than meets the eye, which is nice, given that the character felt somewhat overpowered otherwise. One minor character turns out to have a mundane secret that has no relevance to anything else in the plot (except to point out how Fatma sometimes doesn't notice things, pointing the way to other twists? I guess? that character confused me). And for a book titled "A Master of Djinn," that includes djinn sometimes being polite and other times being violently OOC, it takes the characters way too long to realize that...the killer...might have powers to control djinn. :O (Um, spoilers.)
Intertextual bonus: one class of djinn mentioned is the daeva. And in a discussion of the One Thousand and One Nights, the characters talk about the story "The City of Brass," Both of which explain some things about S. A. Chakraborty's "The City of Brass"/Daevabad trilogy! There's also a very serious-business librarian that I wouldn't be surprised to learn was a Discworld shoutout.
The Ministry has "mechanized screens of black and gold ten-pointed stars and kites," which reminded me of Penrose tiling--and there's a name for the Islamic architecture tiling patterns!
It would be boring if the aftermath of "the whole world has magic now" is "everyone's relative power levels stay the same;" instead, some countries fear and suppress magic while others embrace it, which leads Egypt to become one of the new world powers. (Women already have the right to vote in 1912, ahead of the UK and US!) But personally, I would be interested in more glimpses of what magic looks like elsewhere. (Germany, for instance, has goblins instead of djinn, but the US oppresses magic, as well as people who make magic with their music.)
Angels are funny:
Two big men in white robes and turbans stood guarding an entrance. Each held long lances ending in a gold crescent and Star of David crowned by a pointed cross. Angels liked to cover all their bases.
And that's without even getting into the reconstructionist ancient Egyptian religions that have made a comeback since the arrival of al-Jahiz' magic.This is the first novel in Clark's "Dead Djinn" series, but there are several callbacks to "on Fatma's previous case..." which reference A Dead Djinn in Cairo, an earlier novella. In this particular case, the callbacks made me feel like it might have helped to read that one first, so I went back to it after the novel. And it turns out that that has most of the worldbuilding aspects I thought were neat, without the draggy "who is the real al-Jahiz?" or "when will Fatma's actions impact the wider plot?" slowdowns of the full-length novel. So my recommendation would be, start with the novella. And if you feel like you need even more of Fatma's Cairo, then try the novel, with the understanding that its cool factor-to-page count ratio will be smaller.
Bingo squares: Historical SFF, (Hugo) readalong, author uses initials (in his pseudonym, for hard mode!), urban fantasy, set in Africa, author of color, shapeshifters. I foresee this book showing up on many, many bingo cards!
