レビュー

• Una novela muy original

  Es una novela policiaca que se desarrolla en Egipto a principios del siglo 19 pero ambientada en un estilo entre fantasía y steampunk y con una dosis de mitología egipcia y musulmana. Muy recomendable

• Nice story and nice cultural perspective

  Half fantasy and half steampunk, with an unusual historical and cultural perspective. Very enjoyable reading. However, part of the plot was a bit obvious, and the lucky way the main characters survive, while common to many other books, is a bit annoying.

• 3.75/5 , incredible visuals but extremely slow paced .

  Set in an alternate version of Cairo , the story follows the adventures of main lead Fatma who is a special agent in the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural entities. --> The fully fleshed out characters and the incredibly unique world-building was simply too good. --> The pacing however was extremely slow. No doubt , the author should be lauded for the descriptive writing which was so beautiful and vivid that I was able to visualise literally everything that was written in the page. Unfortunately, these descriptions slowed down the pacing. I had to skim through a lot to get to the part where the plot seemed moving. --> If this one above mentioned flaw doesn’t bother you, then you must check this book out . The diverse characters, unique world and an extremely strong lead is worth it.

• WHY?!

  OMG how did this win a price?! Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the world-building and the detail to describe it. But my god did the story feel sloppy after the first quarter of the story. You can guess the bad guy in 5 seconds with the first clue you get. Next to that you get a whole build up to great things and power, all to be lost by a thing that is named at the end and that is the solution. I will NOT spoiler it but it goes a bit like telling the whole story that "Vampires" are too powerful, they can't be stopped and then at the end you say "oh wait they don't like garlic and what a coincidence I have one laying here, good luck destroying him". It is very weak building up and having so much time waisted for a simple end liket his...

• 5tars for good writing skills and originality

  Not usually a fan of fantasmagorical works but this one is entertaining and to my surprise sustained my interest. Steampunk or cyberpunk (or whatever "punk" types apply) entities are amusing and blend well into the themes and contexts. The djinn characters reveal some depth of research out of which the author has created entities that exaggerate what little is generally known of fire spirits and make them believable as far as they are necessary to the storyline. I found it entertaining and certainly give credit to the author's construction of the tale together with colourful fleshing out of the main characters. Good bedtime reading. Downside ...a lot of words for which a glossary would have been helpful, but not necessary as the sense of them can be easily judged. One mistake for the interest of people who like accuracy. Maat was the the goddess of the Scales, not the god Thoth...Addendum... Still reading it but be warned there are many Arabic words without notes and no glossary and that is beginning to irritate.... however the writing is excellent and buried in the fantasy there are truths. It's also a good story. If you are interested in Jinn culture and fables you will love this. Cleverly written.

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