A Master of Djinn 1: Overall impressions

RichardAbbott

Did you enjoy the story as a whole? Did it rely too much on the other two short stories in the series or was it self-contained enough? If you came across a new novel by P. Djèlí Clark would you read it?

Apocryphal

I liked the story well enough, and I thought the writing was generally quite good (though once again, it did absolutely nothing to transport me to an imaginary 19th C.). Also, I was thought that the Egyptian aspects of the setting were quite good, in that it really did feel convincing, and a refreshing change.

What didn’t really do much for me was the (by now trite, imo) sleuth-in-a-magic-modern-world concept, which I gave to admit has never done much for me. So this is another (presumably series) like the Harry Dresden series or Rivers of London. Moving it to Egypt helps, but I still find it too cute regardless of location. It’s just really not my thing.

I also felt that the setting didn’t quite know what it wanted to do with itself. Was it low fantasy? Was it Steampunk? Was it magical realism? I think it was trying to do too many things. Maybe that’s why the book seems to have three different climaxes, as each aspect of it wrapped up separately.

Characters - I really liked Fatima and her Djinn. The ‘spittoon’ full of blue tongues made me laugh (and squirm). But the underestimated sidekick who eventually tells her boss off is pretty trite by now. The diplomats and their dialogue were really unconvincing.

So, overall, it was a mixed bag. I was definitely entertained by the story and I liked and related to the main character, but I only found the setting half-convincing and apart from the Egyptian location, I feel I’ve walked this road before.

clash_bowley

Enjoyed it very much! I got swept up in the story and had to pace myself, or I would have finished too early. Loved the various djinn, and found the main characters very entertaining. The plot was intriguing, though I suspected the ultimate culprit immediately. Not a mixed bag for me! I'd happily read another book in this series!

NeilNjae

I enjoyed it! It was fun and pacy. The writing was generally good. Yes, it hit a lot of standard tropes with a modicum of novelty, but I think it did them well. It's the not the most original book, but there's merit in sometimes reading a tale that's familiar and comforting. Not all the time, but once in a while.

Would I like to read the next book right now? Probably not. Would I like to read the next book in a few months? Definitely.

I thought it was self-contained. In fact, the book had quite a few large chunks of exposition that I wished were handled more deftly.

@Apocryphal 's comments:
As for the climax, I liked the nod to Lord of the Rings with ring being bitten off. Is it low fantasy, steampunk, retro-urban fantasy, or something else: does it matter? Does the book need to be in one pigeonhole?

RichardAbbott

A good spread of responses!

As well as the other two in the Cairo series I got myself _The Black God's Drums_ which is set in an alternate historical New Orleans, complete with a lot of what I assume is authentic dialect. Not being well up on C19th American history I lost some of the allusions to things which happened differently, but on the whole it was a fun pacy novella. My main frustration was that the book (kindle) was padded with a large chunk of _A Master of Djinn_ to disguise its comparative shortness.

Apocryphal

It’s not about pigeon-holes, so much as about verisimilitude. There’s barely any steampunk content apart from a few mentions ‘boiler plate eunuchs’ and a few other things. But what purpose do these serve in the story? None that I could tell. So why are they here? This is a city that climbed to the top by exploiting magic after re-introducing it, so why do they need mechanical men? And why are they eunuchs? They just seemed to be thrown in because cool. Did the author really want the reader to be distracted by them? I’m guessing not.
I’ve seen these elements combined before, but there was always a story reason for that, like exploring the tension between magical power and mechanical power. But here it just seemed tacked on for no reason.

clash_bowley

@Apocryphal said:
It’s not about pigeon-holes, so much as about verisimilitude. There’s barely any steampunk content apart from a few mentions ‘boiler plate eunuchs’ and a few other things. But what purpose do these serve in the story? None that I could tell. So why are they here? This is a city that climbed to the top by exploiting magic after re-introducing it, so why do they need mechanical men? And why are they eunuchs? They just seemed to be thrown in because cool. Did the author really want the reader to be distracted by them? I’m guessing not.
I’ve seen these elements combined before, but there was always a story reason for that, like exploring the tension between magical power and mechanical power. But here it just seemed tacked on for no reason.

It's a *punk story - Magipunk X Steampunk X Clockworkpunk all fitted together. Boiler Plate Eunuchs are because they are slaves, like eunuchs, and boilerplate because they are mechanical. There are airships and mechanical AI created by Djinn. Any and all *punk is welcome!

Apocryphal

> @clash_bowley said:
> Any and all *punk is welcome!

Well, I can’t agree with this sentiment. There’s so much punk these days that the only way to really be punk in an environment crowded with punks is to be old school mainstream 😂

clash_bowley

I looked up the author. P. Djeli Clark is the pen name of Dexter Gabriel, Assistant Professor in the History Dept. of the University of Connecticut. I had assumed that the author was female, but I am not surprised that he is a historian.

Apocryphal

I also thought female was likely, but didn’t want to jump to conclusions. But that is interesting - for a while now I’ve been thinking that male authors with European names are going to start using ambiguous pen names to make them seem more ethnic and/or less male.

RichardAbbott

I'd seen a picture so wasn't surprised by gender, but the assistant professorship was new to me. A bit like Arkady Martine who wrote A Memory Called Empire and its sequel, who is actually AnnaLinden Weller and a historian. For quite a while it's been cool for scientists to write sf (Fred Hoyle, Arthur Clarke, Isaac Asimov etc) - maybe now it's the turn of historians? Does this reflect a desire to have good world building in a historical or interpersonal sense as well as the science of it?

clash_bowley

I hope to God that's so, Richard!

NeilNjae

@Apocryphal said:
It’s not about pigeon-holes, so much as about verisimilitude. There’s barely any steampunk content apart from a few mentions ‘boiler plate eunuchs’ and a few other things. But what purpose do these serve in the story? None that I could tell. So why are they here? This is a city that climbed to the top by exploiting magic after re-introducing it, so why do they need mechanical men? And why are they eunuchs? They just seemed to be thrown in because cool. Did the author really want the reader to be distracted by them? I’m guessing not.

That is a very good point.

The only counter is that the setting is wider than just this book, and perhaps the boilerplate eunuchs came from elsewhere. As for the wider point about mixing magic with clockwork, what's the point? There are examples of incorporeal beings inhabiting mechanical bodies (the building's brain at the Ministry, the Angels), but the eunuchs don't seem to fit that pattern.

As for "is this punk?", I think the answer is clearly "no." This isn't a story about how the downtrodden and dispossessed are rising up against The Man. This is a story about The Establishment destroying a threat to its power, and in the setting of the conference of a few Great Men representing Great Powers deciding how to divide the world between them. The only time the hoi polloi make an appearance is at the end, when they express their gratitude for the small freedoms they've been granted by their "betters".

clash_bowley

@NeilNjae said:
As for "is this punk?", I think the answer is clearly "no." This isn't a story about how the downtrodden and dispossessed are rising up against The Man. This is a story about The Establishment destroying a threat to its power, and in the setting of the conference of a few Great Men representing Great Powers deciding how to divide the world between them. The only time the hoi polloi make an appearance is at the end, when they express their gratitude for the small freedoms they've been granted by their "betters".

The only *punk that is about the downtrodden rising up is Cyberpunk. The others have nothing to do with that. usually in Steampunk, for example, the heroes are usually members of the upper classes, if not downright noble. It's all about style and cool.

RichardAbbott

Though in the steampunk novel you chose a while ago (_The Guns Above_, I think) the heroine was a middle class socially anxious woman constantly worrying that the upper class leaders would belittle her, despite her abilities!

clash_bowley

@RichardAbbott said:
Though in the steampunk novel you chose a while ago (The Guns Above, I think) the heroine was a middle class socially anxious woman constantly worrying that the upper class leaders would belittle her, despite her abilities!

True, but she was certainly no downtrodden underclass woman!

NeilNjae

@clash_bowley said:

The only *punk that is about the downtrodden rising up is Cyberpunk. The others have nothing to do with that. usually in Steampunk, for example, the heroes are usually members of the upper classes, if not downright noble. It's all about style and cool.

I know. I lament the adulteration of the term.

clash_bowley

@NeilNjae said:
I know. I lament the adulteration of the term.

OK, then we are actually in full agreement.