City of Blades
core novel 2016 The Divine Cities
Record
| First published | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.21 (21,595 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 484 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780553419719 |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
City of Blades is the second novel of Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy, set roughly five years after the events of City of Stairs. Former general Turyin Mulaghesh, a battle-scarred veteran who despises war even as she excels at it, has settled into a reluctant retirement when she is called back into service for what she is told will be one final assignment. She is sent to the distant, restless city of Voortyashtan, once home to a god of war and death, to investigate matters of interest to the Saypuri government in a region still shaped by the aftermath of the old gods' fall. The novel follows Mulaghesh as she is drawn back into a dangerous, morally complicated mission in a world still reckoning with the consequences of divine power lost.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Divine Cities
- Series: The Divine Cities core; position 2 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Robert Jackson Bennett
Awards (verified)
- Locus Award (Best Fantasy Novel (reader poll)), 2017: finalist; Locus reader poll placement: 6th place.
Notes
- From the series record (The Divine Cities): Core Canon = all 3 novels of the completed trilogy (Broadway Books, 2014-2017). No companion/Expanded Canon material found (no novellas, no short fiction set in this world) -- the trilogy is the complete work. First-edition dates per Wikipedia's own per-book articles, cross-checked against sfadb's Locus poll year attributions (each book's poll year is the year after its publication year, consistent with all three dates).
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 Divine Cities: position 2 of 3: previous City of Stairs (2014) · next City of Miracles (2017)
Sources
- Wikipedia: The Divine Cities
- Wikipedia: City of Stairs
- Wikipedia: City of Blades
- sfadb: Robert Jackson Bennett
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