Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“That’s life. Short and stupid.”

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli Clark

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Cbr16bingo Rage This short novel could fit several different bingo squares: tech, because P. Djeli Clark creates steampunk worlds with amazing machines and inventions; bananas, because all kinds of wild stuff happens in this story. But I have decided to go with Rage because much of what drives the action is rooted in the rage of an anonymous entity intent on murder and the rage of a goddess named Aeril, Matron of Assassins and big-time foodie. This is a bloody, action-packed and immensely entertaining story […]

May the gods favor you this night, dead thing!

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

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If you haven’t read P. Djèlí Clark yet, you are denying yourself some of the finest fantasy writing currently available. As he proved in one of my all time favorite novellas, A Dead Djinn in Cairo, he can build a whole world with just a few details. In The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, he has left au earth and has built a whole new world in the port city of Tal Abisi. I don’t feel like I should tell you much about the plot. The […]

“Why do these colonizers always claim what isn’t theirs?”

A Master of Djinn by P. Djéli Clark

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I read the previous novella in this series, A Dead Djinn in Cairo,  and really enjoyed the world that P. Djeli Clark created in it. I have a few friends that, whenever we get together, we compare “what we’ve been reading” lists, and in one of those conversations a friend brought up A Master of Djinn, and based on her recommendation and my previous experience with the author’s work I immediately added the book to my Libby queue.  Picking up a bit after the initial […]

Jumping on the bandwagon in the middle

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark

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I knew Cannonballers had enjoyed a book about djinn by an author named Clark, but I didn’t pay enough attention and accidentally started at book 2. It was all still easy to follow and I liked it, but I think there are a few parts that would make more sense if I knew the history of Fatma and Siti. Agent Fatma works for a magical Ministry where magic is real and djinns live peacefully alongside humans, after being let out into the world by al-Jahiz. […]

Give This The Miniseries Treatment!

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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I was pretty excited to finally pick up and find the time to read A Master of Djinn. I had previously been delighted by P. Djèlí Clark’s alternative, magical steampunk 1910s Cairo. The setting is just so damned fun. The novellas I had read before Master of Djinn—The Haunting of Tram Car 015 and A Dead Djinn in Cairo— were masterful in how they managed to be so descriptive for short form works, so was I curious as to how he would adapt an entire novel into this […]

“The three of them sat there – a Ministry agent, a half-djinn, and a cat (likely), staring out past the balcony to the sleeping city they somehow had to find a way to save.”

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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CBR14 Bingo: “Snake” – A character lies to a partner for fear of reprisal.  The same charac ter under goes physical transformation due to heritage and the gifts of a goddess, which includes healing. An alternate 1912 Cairo with lady investigators and magic?  Yes, please!  40 years previous magic was reintroduced to the world and djinn were released by the magician, al’Jahiz.  After a fraught time, djinn were integrated into Egyptian society.  They have since used their abilities to bring wonderous, magical and mechanical inventions […]



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