Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Rights of Women and Machines

The Haunting of Tramcar 015 by P. Djeli Clark

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Bingo 14: Machinery The Haunting of Tramcar 015 takes place in the same world as many of the author’s other works, a steampunk alternative history version of Cairo. The titular tramcar is a major part of the setting, the plot, and we even get some attention to the technical specs on how the tech is supposed to work; thus I would argue this novella/novelette qualifies for the technology focus square. The other reason for the label is that there’s a pretty detailed discussion of whether […]

I wish this version of Cairo really existed. #CBRBINGO – Cityscape

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn, #0.7) by P. Djèlí Clark

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**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 10/30 Like quite a few people at this point (enough that Tor published a full-length novel), I’m enchanted by the world Clark has created in this series, which so far consists of this novella and a short story, as well as the novel (that I’ll be getting to next month). There’s something special about the atmosphere Clark creates when he’s writing about 1912 alt-history Cairo, not to mention he’s pretty great with characters (I liked both Hamed and Fatma […]

“That had been a little more than forty years past. Fatma was born into the world al-Jahiz left behind: a world transformed by magic and the supernatural.”

A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe, #0.5) by P. Djèlí Clark

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The highlight of this short story is definitely the world-building. I was immediately intrigued by the way Clark wrote about his alternate-history Cairo in 1912, populated with djinn and angels and steampunk machinery, and refreshingly devoid of colonialism. This takes place in a Cairo about fifty years after a curious man opened up a gateway through which djinn and other supernatural creatures, along with magic, entered the world. Egypt has become a world superpower, as the djinn helped them to kick the British out of […]

A great roilicking read, well worth the time to get into the world

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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Having written myself out with a review of the prior outing in the Dead Djinn Universe, I will quickly recap: this book is not the peer to The Daevabad Trilogy that I thought it would be. It’s Muslim Miss Marple solving capers in Cairo that happens to be inhabited by djinn and where magic is commonplace. Caveat I’ve actually never read Miss Marple, I was clearly just going for the alliteration. Will continue with a conceit that’s worked for me: things I didn’t like. Almost […]

I should learn to not judge a book by my vague sentiment as to what they are!

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark

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In hindsight, this book should have made me realize exactly what sort of book series I was getting into. About double the length (?) of the first outing in the Dead Djinn universe and with correspondingly longer to nail down the tone, I definitely was too caught up in the ride to realize that I’d mischaracterized the series (to everyone I talked to about it) (which is everyone. I cannot keep my mouth shut about books I’m reading). To be clear–I’m not saying I dislike […]

A perfect draw that’s enticed me to read the first novel

A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark

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This is such an interesting place to start this series! It was very obviously written prior to the publication of the first true “novel” in the series (A Master of Djinn) but very much feels like the sort of novella you read after you’ve finished the main book and are just desperate for more content in the same universe. A number of my friends enjoyed The Daevabad Trilogy, but I unfortunately found the first book lacking some of that ‘draw’ that makes you want to quickly read […]



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