Don't Mention the Gods

May 2017
City of Stairs - Robert Jackson Bennett - Jo Fletcher Books, 2014
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This book was in the running for the 2015 World Fantasy, Locus and British Fantasy Awards, but won none of them. This is perhaps not surprising, for it breaks a number of the cardinal rules of fantasy. For a start, it is not set in a mediaeval world, but in something closer to our own; there are guns and trains. The obvious cultural influences of its two main nations are unusual - "the continent" and its great city of Bulikov are clearly Russian-influenced, while the island state of Saypur, which has conquered the continent, is a small-scale India. So we have white-skinned Continentals being ruled over by brown-skinned Saypuris. But the most striking feature is the treatment of religion. Most fantasy worlds have at least some sort of pantheon (perhaps as a necessary psychological prop when arbitrary magical powers render rational explanations impossible), but in this world, Richard Dawkins has won. Saypur is an atheist nation whose culture is based on science and technology and its Worldly Regulations ban the people of Bulikov from worshipping their six gods. There is a good reason for this - until 70 years ago, the gods actually existed and terrorised the world until they were killed off with a mysterious weapon invented by a legendary Saypuri hero called the Kaj.
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