City of Stairs

What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.

What this book is about

Bulikov was the most powerful city in the world — because the Divinities, gods who could reshape reality, had chosen it as their home. Then the Divinities were killed, the miraculous structures they created began to collapse into their original forms, and the continent they dominated now rules over Bulikov in turn. Shara Thivani arrives as a spy, investigating the murder of a historian who was researching the lost history of the Divinities. Robert Jackson Bennett's fantasy novel is a mystery, an imperial critique, and a love letter to cities that were something extraordinary and are still trying to figure out what they are now. Clever, warm, and genuinely surprising.