A Master of Djinn
core novel 2021 The Dead Djinn Universe
Record
| First published | 2021 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.99 (37,889 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 392 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781250267689 |
| Internal chronology | 3 |
Synopsis
Closing out the Dead Djinn Universe as a full novel, A Master of Djinn returns to the alternate 1912 Cairo of the earlier stories. Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha'arawi of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities is assigned to a string of murders connected to a secret society, the Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz, devoted to the mystic credited with restoring magic to the world decades earlier. The killings are claimed by a masked figure asserting that he is Al-Jahiz himself, returned from obscurity, and the case escalates when this imposter steals the plans for the Clock of Worlds, a device capable of opening portals into the realm of the djinn. As Fatma races to identify the impostor and recover the stolen plans, she is drawn into a widening plot involving djinn, imperial ambitions, and the city's uneasy balance of magic and politics.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Dead Djinn Universe
- Series: The Dead Djinn Universe core; position 3 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: P. Djèlí Clark
Awards (verified)
- Nebula Award (Best Novel), 2021: won
- Locus Award (Best First Novel), 2021: won
- Compton Crook Award (Best First Novel), 2022: won
Notes
- From the series record (The Dead Djinn Universe): Core Canon = all 3 works (Tor.com/Tordotcom, 2016-2021) despite mixed lengths -- under the collection-as-Core precedent, extended here to a single continuous continuity told across escalating lengths (short story, then novella, then novel) rather than a novel series with occasional side fiction. No further installment has been announced as of 2026-08-11.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Dead Djinn Universe: position 3 of 3: previous The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (2019)
Sources
← The Dead Djinn Universe dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.