CITY OF BONES - Martha Wells

In the city of Charisat, along the desert known as The Waste, there is a massive temple built by the Ancients. A human named Sagai and Khat, of a humanoid race created by the Ancients to survive in the Waste, work together as relics dealers. They are hired to find some special relics believed to be part of the Ancient's technology which might be used to advance the current society (the Ancients were clearly much more technologically advanced that current society).

But their discoveries open a metaphorical Pandora's Box.  There are those who wish to unleash the technology without study or training, which could destroy the entire civilization and Sagai and Khat may be the only ones able to keep the relics safe from the fanatics.

I hope I'm not alone in this, but there are authors whose name I recognize and who I know I've read, but I can never remember what I generally think of their work.  Martha Wells is one of those authors for me.  And as I look back at past reviews I can see why I can't remember what I think of Wells' work ... it is generally unremarkable or very average to me. Her work reaches and speaks to a lot of people, but I'm not one of them.

There's a lot of world-building and character building in the early (and mid) stages of this book.  A lot. This book is very slow to get moving.  It's not a particularly active story in the first place (the description sounds much more active than it is) but it's very slow moving.  We get to know Khat, Sagai, the Ancients, the current world and the caste system in place.  Cool. And we see how our characters navigate this world. Um, okay. And then we learn that there might be something going to happen. Yawn. And then things happen.   

What this does, for me, is have me question, where does one draw the line between world-building and storytelling? Some authors are able to integrate the two quite seamlessly, sometimes the separation makes for a clever weaving of the two.  But I mostly found this to be a bit of a bit of a challenge that didn't have a high enough pay-off to make the challenge worth my time.

I see that this is an older book (1995?) that has been rereleased with Wells' 'preferred' text but I still find Wells' writing to be very middle of the road for me, and hopefully I can do better about remembering that.

Looking for a good book? City of Bones is an older novel by Martha Wells but with the author's preferred text.  It's slow going with not much happening until 2/3 of the way through, but if you like books of character and world-building, this may be just right for you.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

* * * * * *

City of Bones

author: Martha Wells

publisher: Tor.com

ISBN: 9781250861672

paperback, 416 pages

 

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