Wednesday, July 31, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: City of Bones by Martha Wells




City of Bones is one of the first novels written by Martha Wells, one of my favorite SciFi/Fantasy authors around these days, and is one of her few stand-alone works.  It's also one of the last works by Wells that I hadn't already picked up, so it's been on my list for a long time - especially since Hoopla has it available in audiobook format.  Wells is a master at writing worlds with fantastically different settings, as well as characters who start out as interesting and only grow more so throughout, and I strongly recommend practically all of her work to anyone looking for something new.

City of Bones, despite being an earlier work (her second wholly original novel), shares all of these excellent traits.  Featuring a dessert fantasy world with leftover relics from missing magical predecessors laid about, a protagonist who's part of a genetically altered species that's discriminated against, and forces both magical and otherwise for everyone to push through, it kept me absorbed right from the start.  It may not be my favorite Wells work, but well...it's pretty great, and that's a damn high standard that Wells sets with her bibliography, and someone new to her work wouldn't do wrong starting here.

Note: I read this as an audiobook, and the reader is very strong as usual....but it means that I'm guessing as to some of the spellings of names and such, so apologies for any errors below.  

----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Khat has found himself a, while far from safe, a life that is as secure as he could possibly have hoped for in the City of Charisat.  Khat is a Krisman, a species created by the magically gifted Ancients who once lived in the country before disappearing as much of the world was covered up by the Wastes, an environment Krisman are genetically predisposed to survive in.  That said, Kris are considered lesser beings in cities like Charisat, meaning Khat is naturally distrusted and isn't entitled to the possibility of buying his way into citizenship of the city, if he could ever afford it.  Still, Khat, along with his friend Sagai, has managed an okay life as a finder and dealer of Relics left behind by the Ancients ages ago.

But when Khat is approached by a group of upper class patricians in search of a guide to one of the Remnants - ruins left behind by the Ancients for some mysterious purpose - he finds himself involved in the power plays of not only the Upper Class and potential rulers of Charisat, but of the Warders - mages wielding power that occasionally causes one to go mad.  Yet as Khat and one of these Warders, a young naive woman named Elen find themselves in a quest to find some lost Relics of the Ancients, Khat will find himself discovering more about the Ancients' last days than he could ever have imagined, and of secrets that could result in the destruction of the world....if no one, not a young Warder, a Kris relic dealer, or anyone else with actual power can find a way to stop it.
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The above plot summary doesn't really do the story and characters of City of Bones enough credit, but it's hard to summarize the plot in a way that doesn't spoil, covers everything, and actually highlights the best attributes of the story.  For example, while Khat is the main character of this story, who drives much of the plot, but warder Elen is essentially the secondary protagonist who gets about 33% of the story written from her own point of view.  And there are whole entire factions and major characters I couldn't mention above....well, I guess that's what the rest of this review is for.

It says a lot about this book - although it's typical for Wells - that the setting is so developed that I could very damn easily have written another three paragraphs about it in the plot summary and had to limit myself to only a few sentences.  You have a Dessert world filled with perils due to ancient forerunners, mages who are in danger of turning "mad" if they use too much of their power, a faction of those mages who seem to have deliberately gone mad on their own, political powers aiming for control of the city in the upper tiers, etc.  And then you have as well the underpinnings of a strict class system that divides the city into 8 tiers, with non-citizens having lesser rights and being forced to use an alternate currency and the city's most fearful guardians being "trade inspectors" who have the power to imprison or worse anyone - again, particularly non-citizens - who they deem to be taking actions to impede "trade" of the higher level citizens.  And then there's the Academia, scholars who try to decipher the few remaining texts and relics of the Ancients to gain new understandings of the world....in short, there's a lot here!  And it results in a hell of a fascinating world, which I'd love to read more in (but probably won't because this book didn't sell well and Wells has moved on).

And then there are the characters, who again are terrific.  I should've mentioned Khat's species of Kris above in the setting as well - with eyes that shift color with their moods, and a pouch in their belly where they nurse their young, the ability to survive more easily in the dessert Wastes.....and their well known infertility amongst humans, which unfortunately has made Kris considered "useful" by some human citizens of Charisat.  But his species aside, and mind you it's an important part of his character, Khat is terrific as a lead - quick thinking and quick acting (and not bad physically with a knife), but cynical and paranoid, Khat is an excellent protagonist in a world that thinks of him like dirt.  Secondary protagonist Elen is also strong, especially as he loses much of her naivete fairly quickly as to how the world works outside her bubble and begins to see things from Khat's point of view.  And then there are the minor characters, like Khat's friend Sagai and his neighbors and adopted family, all of whom are excellent complementary players in the story that you can't help care for.

Not every character is perfect - one character is so obviously not on the level from the beginning, and one character is portrayed as being evil fairly early and is obviously not to anyone who has any genre experience, so those twists do not really work.  And one minor subplot, that of a lower class crime lord who refuses to let Khat get away from working for him (basically Jabba the Hutt) is more distracting than anything considering the lower stakes he presents compared to the dangers Khat and Elen find themselves in.  Still, the characters and plot are mostly excellent, with an ending that is very satisfying if a little bittersweet.

It's a Martha Wells novel and it's excellent.  That should not be a surprise to anyone, but if it was, let me assure you City of Bones is well worth your time.
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