Although still relatively unsung, Robert Jackson Bennett is, in my view, one of imaginative literature's great new talents and no new book of his is alike. Beginning with horror with MrShivers, he transcended cyberpunk with the teeming Company Man and defied genres with TheTroupe and American Elsewhere. His new novel manages to blend SF, crime, fantasy and a glorious sense of the bizarre in a discombobulating whole. A city where reality is folded and the gods have been destroyed is the scene for the murder of a diplomat who was investigating its history, sees the doors to the surreal opened wide and dazzlingly. Complex, ever evocative, this is the novel as fireworks. Seductively addictive.
You've got to be careful when you're chasing a murderer through Bulikov, for the world is not as it should be in that city. When the gods were destroyed and all worship of them banned by the Polis, reality folded; now stairs lead to nowhere, alleyways have become portals to the past, and criminals disappear into thin air. The murder of Dr Efrem Pangyui, the Polis diplomat researching the Continent's past, has begun something and now whispers of an uprising flutter out from invisible corners. Only one woman may be willing to pursue the truth - but it is likely to cost her everything.
'He's (Bennett) said that he hopes that his readers learn something definite about the world from his books; he's succeeded in his aim. Verdict: A murder mystery, spy thriller, fantasy adventure and philosophical treatise rolled into one. Highly recommended. 9/10' Sci-Fi Bulletin
'This book is the overwhelming fantasy favorite for 2014 and all others will have a hard time to eclipse it in my list. I'm glad Robert J. Bennett is also writing a sequel to this, because I truly can't wait to read more about this strange world and the three-dimensional characters that inhabit it Fantasy Book Critic
Author
About Robert Jackson Bennett
Robert Jackson Bennett‘s 2010 debut Mr. Shivers won the Shirley Jackson award as well as the Sydney J Bounds Newcomer Award and his second novel, The Company Man, won a Special Citation of Excellence from the Philip K Dick Award, as well as an Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. He lives in Austin with his wife and son.
