"The city of Bulikov once wielded the powers of the gods to conquer the world, enslaving and brutalizing millions--until its divine protectors were killed. Now Bulikov has become just another colonial outpost of the world's new geopolitical power, but the surreal landscape of the city itself--first shaped, now shattered, by the thousands of miracles its guardians once worked upon it--stands as a constant, haunting reminder of its former supremacy. Into this broken city steps Shara Thivani. Officially, the unassuming young woman is just another junior diplomat sent by Bulikov's oppressors. Unofficially, she is one of her country's most accomplished spies, dispatched to catch a murderer. But as Shara pursues the killer, she starts to suspect that the beings who ruled this terrible place may not be as dead as they seem--and that Bulikov's cruel reign may not yet be over."-- From back cover.
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Blending murder mysteries with fantastical worldbuilding, high-concept speculative fiction often pairs deep procedural investigation with intricate fantasy systems. Author Robert Jackson Bennett has earned widespread acclaim in contemporary speculative fiction through works like the Hugo Award-winning novel The Tainted Cup and the acclaimed The Divine Cities trilogy, which began with City of Stairs.
Born on June 22, 1984, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Robert Jackson Bennett attended the University of Texas at Austin. He made his fiction debut with the 2010 supernatural novel Mr. Shivers, set during the Great Depression, which won the Shirley Jackson Award. He followed his debut with speculative novels including The Company Man and The Troupe before expanding into epic fantasy. His work has received the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Philip K. Dick Citation of Excellence, along with nominations for the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Locus Awards. Bennett expanded his body of work with The Founders Trilogy and later launched The Shadow of the Leviathan series with The Tainted Cup, which won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, followed by its sequel A Drop of Corruption. Bennett currently lives in Austin, Texas, with his family.
Bennett's writing frequently fuses genre conventions, combining traditional detective procedurals, horror elements, and industrial-era fantasy settings. His narratives routinely examine themes of empire, divine legacy, political corruption, power dynamics, and the consequences of technological or magical exploitation. Rather than relying on standard medieval fantasy tropes, Bennett crafts secondary worlds undergoing rapid political, economic, or physical transformation, balancing intricate mystery plots with grounded character relationships.
The Divine Cities
